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Opinion

Opening Remarks for the Book Launch of Robin Holt and Mike Zundel’s The Poverty of Strategy

  • matthew@gn.apc.org
  • Opinion
  • Aug 22, 2025

‘AI Technologies and the Future of Management’ Workshop, University of Liverpool, Thursday, 21 September 2023 Thank you to Robin and Mike for inviting me to speak today. In these opening remarks, I’ll offer a synopsis of Robin and Mike’s book The Poverty of Strategy and take up their invitation to defend the practical value of…

A Brief History of Indifference: anxiety, adiaphora, and acedia

  • matthew@gn.apc.org
  • Opinion
  • Aug 22, 2025

By William Watkin and Matthew Hancocks, 2025. All rights reserved. We chose the term indifference deliberately. We know it carries negative baggage. That’s exactly the point. Indifference disrupts. It breaks things. It offends the cult of differentiation, the endless grind of branding and uniqueness. And nothing enrages the Differentiator more than indifference. Trump thrives on…

Stop Listening for Style: The Dangers of Auto-Tuning in Commitment-based Management

  • matthew@gn.apc.org
  • Opinion
  • Aug 22, 2025

Part of a Series on the Philosophy of Radical Change “Since the being of the situation is its inconsistency, a truth of this being will present itself as indifferent [quelconque] multiplicity, anonymous part, consistency reduced to presentation as such, without predicate.” Alain Badiou, Manifesto for Philosophy. In leadership today, “listening” is praised as a strategic…

Real Change and the Courage to Lead: A Badiouian Call to Action

  • matthew@gn.apc.org
  • Opinion
  • Aug 9, 2025

Part of a Series on the Philosophy of Radical Change Hamm: What’s happening  Clov: Something is taking its course.  —Samuel Beckett, Endgame. “Real change imposes an effective discontinuity on the world where it takes place.” —Alain Badiou, Logics of Worlds. The False Comfort of Modification What passes for change today is, in truth, a tranquil…

Long Live Indifference: Pt 2

  • matthew@gn.apc.org
  • Opinion
  • Aug 8, 2025

The Difference Machine Is Dead. Long Live Indifference. by Matthew Hancocks and William Watkin Part Two: Positive Indifference and the Future Beyond the Wreckage. Part of a Series on the Philosophy of Radical Change In our previous essay, we examined the collapse of the old political machine, a system powered by managed difference and ritualised…

The Difference Machine Is Dead. Long Live Indifference: Part 1

  • matthew@gn.apc.org
  • Opinion
  • Aug 7, 2025

Part of a Series on the Philosophy of Radical Change This is the first of our essays introducing professionals, executives, consultants, strategists, and change agents, to the most urgent and actionable ideas emerging from contemporary philosophy. We begin with the concept of “difference” and its breakdown. In this first essay, we diagnose the collapse of…