This month’s newsletter ended up circling around a common theme: how people navigate change together. From complex corporate transitions, to the fragile social bonds within chimpanzee communities, to a science-fiction story about building trust under impossible circumstances, each piece explores what happens when groups are forced to adapt to a new reality.
The Job
I’m pleased to share a case study from the a-connect website featuring work I was proud to support: helping execute a complex pharmaceutical divestment while protecting continuity, compliance, and deal value. It reflects the kind of work I most enjoy, turning a signed transaction into operational reality across multiple markets, stakeholders, and transition risks.
My thanks to Bernie and Loredana Iten for the featuring this on the website, and to Hue Truong for being an excellent team mate.
It was a pleasure to contribute to this work with a-connect and to be part of a team focused on making complex transitions work in practice.
Click here if you'd like to take a look...
The Mind
I came across this remarkable article on the BBC a few days ago...
A community of wild Ngogo Chimpanzees in Uganda's Kibale National Park have been under observation by scientists since 1995.
It was the largest groups of wild chimpanzees studied by scientists. It is remarkable because the scientists saw a single, very large community slowly split into two separate groups, and then saw one group carry out repeated deadly attacks on the other.
So I managed to dig a little deeper and found the scientific paper published about this.
Before the split, the Ngogo chimpanzees were one big community. They moved around in smaller parties during the day, but they still shared one territory, mixed across clusters, and even reproduced across those clusters.
In other words, there were sub-groups, but there was still one wider “we”.
In June 2015, two parts of the community met, but instead of re-joining, one side ran and the other chased. That was followed by six weeks of avoidance. After that, the break deepened. In 2016 and 2017, both sides began patrols against each other. By 2017, what had once been the middle of a shared territory had become a border. By 2018, the split was complete. After that came sustained violence with attacks and killings over the next seven years.
Former companions had become enemies.
According to the researchers, this was not triggered by some obvious difference in culture, identity, or background. These were not strangers. They had once belonged to the same social group. What seems to have happened is that the bonds holding the community together slowly weakened under pressure. The group was unusually large. Competition increased. Important social “bridge” individuals were lost.
The paper suggests that for humans, vacuums in leadership lead to reduced resilience of the overall group. The first warning sign of serious collective conflict may not be disagreement, but the collapse of the relationships that make disagreement survivable.
Following a disagreement, isolation between groups increases the distance allowing former neighbours to feel comfortable attacking each other.
I feel like that is relevant in the world today.
Conflict may not begin with difference. It may begin with disconnection.
The Heart
On a lighter note, over the Easter holidays, I watched Project Hail Mary with my family and I think I may have found my new favourite film. I strongly suspect part of the reason I loved it so much is that, alongside being a story about friendship, it is also a story about a project, with a project manager at its heart. That was always going to get my attention.
I came home and immediately started reading Andy Weir’s book. It is hilarious, heart-warming, hopeful and, unexpectedly, quite profound.
One line in particular stayed with me:
“Human beings have the remarkable ability to accept the abnormal and make it normal.”
That struck me because it captures something essential about projects. When we begin a project, we are setting change. We are working towards a future that does not yet exist except as an idea in people’s heads.
The real work is in helping others see it, believe in it, and move towards it together until what once felt unfamiliar becomes the new normal.
Stay in touch
Let's keep the conversation going, connect with me on here or head to my website for more info on how I can support you and your senior team.
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