About

I'm Saeed. For sixteen years I taught English as a second language. Now I coach leaders.

The two jobs turned out to be closer than I expected. Language learners go through a clumsy middle stage where they know the rules but still translate everything in their heads. People stepping into leadership go through the same thing. A great nurse, engineer, or analyst gets promoted, and suddenly the vocabulary that made them excellent doesn't quite work anymore. They're fluent in their specialty and beginners at something new.

This site is where I think out loud about that shift: how people become fluent in a new version of themselves, and how the institutions around them help or get in the way.

You'll find three kinds of writing here over time:

• Field Notes, short weekly observations, each with one thing to try.
• Essays, longer pieces on how organizations shape the people inside them.
• Conversations, a podcast with people who have been through a real identity shift.

If something here is useful to you, or you've lived a shift worth talking about, I'd love to hear from you.