AVANTGARDE Group

I'm pleased to welcome Olamide Borisade (Femi) as the newest PMHNP-BC team member at Men's Mental Health ! Femi brings a wealth of experience, especially treating men with substance use disorders. I'm looking forward to start scheduling patients with him over the next few weeks and for him to keep me accountable using our clinic's gym!

So many happy memories of my first project as I come up to one year with Velocity. Celebrating Puma's partnership with Ferrari in their home city, the Tifosi passion is truly unmatched 🤩 So happy to share this with my team Nadia Nicola Alexandra Stewart , and my fabulous predecessor Zoë Norman who set us up so well. I loved sharing this week with you all!

Most systems don’t fail because they’re weak. They fail because they’re overwhelmed. I’ve seen this play out more than once. A team is capable, experienced, well-trained. Then the tempo increases. Multiple issues start competing for attention. And decision-makers get pulled towards the “shiny ball” — the most immediate, visible problem. At that point, something subtle starts to happen. It’s not that people stop making decisions. It’s that the quality of those decisions begins to erode. Not through lack of ability, but through: • Time compression • Cognitive overload • And a shift towards short-term framing There’s an interesting parallel here with Daniel Kahneman’s work on decision-making and risk-taking. When under pressure, we don’t just think faster, we think differently. We become more reactive, more loss-averse, more focused on immediate threats. Which is exactly what sustained pressure environments create. The consequence is that strategy quietly degrades. Not because it was wrong. but because a series of small, reactive decisions pull you away from it. I think this is where preparation matters more than people realise. If you haven’t already thought through possible failure points; escalation and worst likely scenarios; accountability and decision boundaries, then you’re forced to improvise under pressure. And that’s where even strong teams start to struggle. It also connects with L. David Marquet ’s Leadership Is Language - particularly the idea of how we default to different modes of interaction under stress. Under pressure, it’s very easy to slip into reactive, directive behaviours when what’s actually needed is clarity of intent and deliberate thinking. Which raises a question I keep coming back to: How do you create enough space to think before the system is under pressure so that you’re not relying purely on instinct when it matters most?

Mentoring isn’t a one-way street. Anyone who tells you otherwise hasn’t done it properly. Three years ago, I joined the University of Exeter Career Mentoring Scheme while studying for my Master’s, expecting a fairly standard “give back” experience. That assumption didn’t last long. I’ve mentored throughout my career in the MoD, both formally and informally, working with some outstanding people. What struck me about this scheme wasn’t a difference in quality, but in range. The breadth of talent coming through is exceptional. Entrepreneurs already building serious solutions to global problems. Undergraduates securing internationally competitive internships that would make most CVs look thin. MBAs going toe-to-toe for roles in the Big 4. Mental Health professionals breaking barriers and stigmas. You go in expecting to guide. In reality, you spend just as much time being challenged, learning, and recalibrating your own thinking. It’s been a privilege to work with people like this—driven, capable, and generous with their perspectives. One of those people is the peerless Sean Tilson . I won’t try to do his achievements justice here, but this one is worth your time: