The Steering Point Newsletter
Welcome to the Steering Point Newsletter where we aim to bring you the best and most relevant performance advice there is. This mission begins with The 1% Podcast, a source of insights and lessons from some of the best thinkers in their field of performance. We also try to make the best writing on performance available to you with two weekly articles written by the Steering Point team. Below is a sample of the Newsletter every Friday should you decide to subscribe. We hope you find it insightful but should you no longer wish to receive it you can unsubscribe at any point.
04-04-2025
What We Recorded
The Power of Uncertainty: Why Letting Go of Certainty Fuels Creativity and Success
Margaret Heffernan is a pioneering business leader, author, and thinker who has transformed the way we approach leadership, innovation, and uncertainty. She began her career producing TV and radio for the BBC before going on to become CEO of several US companies. She was named one of the “Top 100 Media Executives” by The Hollywood Reporter.
Margaret is currently a Professor of Practice at the University of Bath School of Management, and in 2023, she was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame for her enduring contribution to management thinking. She has authored several bestsellers, including A Bigger Prize, Uncharted, and Willful Blindness, which was recognised as one of the most important business books of the decade by the Financial Times.
In her writing, Margaret challenges conventional business wisdom and advocates for collaboration, creativity, and resilience in an unpredictable world. Her TED talks have garnered over fifteen million views globally, sparking discussions on why we ignore obvious risks and how small organisational changes can lead to profound results. Her new book, Embracing Uncertainty, was published in March 2025.
Podcast Highlights
Beware of Life Without Uncertainty
“If every single minute in your life could be known ahead of time, what I’m going to get for my birthday, when I’m going to get ill, when I’m going to recover and when I’m not going to recover and the day I die and it’s all 100% certain, what would life feel like then?”
Helpfulness : Greatest Driver of Productivity
“People are more committed, more energetic and trusting when they know the people around them. That takes time, and you have to invest time in it and it’s really worth it. But if you pile people up with more work than they can do in a day, they will be able to do that, they just won’t be able to do anything else…”
The Pandemic : A Failure to Learn
“(The Pandemic) was actually an incredible moment of improvisation and creativity…and then almost as soon as lockdown stopped, it was, right let’s get back to the bad old ways. I think this is disappointing and what psychologists would call “a failure to learn”…as though everything pre-pandemic had been lovely and everybody’s got a bad case of amnesia about how lovely it wasn’t.”
What We Wrote
Why Some Companies Handle Trade Wars Better Than Others
“The 2018 US-China trade war provided a particularly illuminating case study because of its scale and the availability of detailed transaction data. According to Fan et al.’s research, which analysed more than 300 pairs of US and Chinese companies engaged in business both before and after the trade war began, the impacts varied dramatically based on several key corporate characteristics.”
By Steering Point Partner Shay Dalton
What do Trump’s Tariffs Mean for Ireland?
“One of the most striking aspects of Ireland’s economic landscape is its reliance on what are known as “phantom exports” –– goods produced abroad under contract by Irish-registered firms but booked as Irish exports despite never physically entering the country… In 2023, phantom exports accounted for a staggering €92 billion, representing more than a quarter of Ireland’s total merchandise exports of €329 billion.”
By Steering Point Partner Shay Dalton
What We Saw
There’s growing evidence that an effective culture is more than a nice-to-have – it’s a core competitive advantage. In today’s hybrid and distributed workplaces, culture has become one of the most powerful levers to unify teams, drive performance, and shape long-term success.
Understand, Measure, Align
Culture is often described as “the air we breathe” – intangible but essential. It shapes how decisions are made, how people show up, and how progress happens.
To make culture real, we need to understand it across three layers – a framework first introduced by Edgar Schein.
Today, culture can be measured both quantitatively and qualitatively, using employee-led tools that surface what’s really happening on the ground. The goal isn’t to chase perfection – but to reveal where alignment is strong, and where it’s missing.
From Insight to Action
Data-driven cultural insight helps you understand why your people perform the way they do—and how to better support them. When leaders consistently model the culture they want to see, it creates alignment between: Purpose, People, Projects, and Performance.
And that’s when culture moves from being a concept to a catalyst.
by Steering Point Director of Talent & Leadership Development Jonny Cooper
What We Read
How Small Habits Can Lead to Big Benefits
Meet the Marketing Visionaries Shaping a New Era of Leadership