Writing

The Currents and Crosswinds of Innovation is an ongoing series of short, practical books designed to help leaders and teams navigate change with clarity, not hype. Each edition is easy to follow, quick to apply, and packed with actionable takeaways, so you can move from “we should innovate” to “here’s what to do next” without drowning in theory.

At the heart of the series is a simple idea: innovation is not just a strategy problem. It’s a people and forces problem.

The Currents

Currents are the roles and mindsets that push an idea forward at different moments. Most teams stall because they rely on one type of leader or one style of thinking for every stage. This framework breaks progress into four complementary currents:

• Spearhead: The initiator who challenges assumptions, takes the first risk, and creates momentum.

• Synthesizer: The connector who gathers input, builds alignment, and turns scattered ideas into a coherent plan.

• Stabilizer: The operator who brings structure, standards, and execution discipline so the work holds up under pressure.

• Steward: The long-term guardian who protects what matters, reinforces purpose, and ensures the change actually sticks.

You don’t need four separate people. You need all four strengths present, whether they live in one person, a small team, or a larger organization.

The Crosswinds

Crosswinds are the invisible forces that pull innovation off course. They rarely announce themselves as “anti-innovation.” They show up as reasonable concerns, familiar habits, incentives, politics, and fatigue. The framework highlights four crosswinds that most organizations face:

• Status Quo: Comfort with existing systems, legacy thinking, and “this is how we do it here.”

• Shortsightedness: Pressure for quick wins and metrics that reward speed over durability.

• Toxicity: Politics, ego, fear, or poor leadership behavior that damages trust and collaboration.

• Waste: Confusion, redundancy, misalignment, and poorly designed processes that burn energy without producing progress.

Why a series?

Innovation changes because the world changes. That’s why this isn’t one static book. Each short edition applies the same core model to a specific topic, industry, or challenge, using fresh examples and practical tools to show how the Currents and Crosswinds play out in real situations. Over time, the series becomes a growing library you can return to whenever the winds shift, helping you diagnose what’s happening, choose the right approach, and build change that actually lasts.

Upcoming Editions:

• The Currents and Crosswinds of Innovation: The Forces That Drive and Derail Change: The core guide to the framework that breaks innovation into four Currents that move change forward and four Crosswinds that derail it, with built-in self-assessments, reflection prompts, and team workshop guides to help individuals and groups diagnose their patterns and take action.

• The Currents and Crosswinds of Innovation in Military Recruiting: An applied guide to diagnosing and improving recruiting transformation by identifying the roles, incentives, and resistance patterns that shape outcomes across the full recruiting ecosystem.
  
  

• The Currents and Crosswinds of Innovation in Marketing Communications: A field-tested playbook for modern marketing teams to adopt new tools and strategies without trend-chasing, by aligning the right mindsets to the right stage of execution and neutralizing the crosswinds that waste budget and erode trust.
  
  

• The Currents and Crosswinds of Innovation: Heroes and Villains (Pop Culture Edition): A fast, entertaining lens on innovation that flips the usual morality script, using iconic heroes and villains to show how “good intentions” can reinforce stagnation and “bad actors” can still drive real change.

Coming Soon

“The grass is always greener on the other side.”

“The grass is green where you water it.”

“Go touch grass.”

Somehow, grass became the universal symbol for patience, growth, commitment, self-improvement, meticulousness, even the outdoors itself.

I say: KILL THE GRASS.

Because sometimes the grass isn’t a symbol of anything noble. Sometimes it’s the problem.

In most lawns, grass is there for one reason: appearance. It’s a status prop. A neat green surface that signals “I’m doing fine” to the neighbors. And it’s wildly inefficient. It’s thirsty. High-maintenance. Constantly demanding your time, money, and attention just to keep looking acceptable.

Now zoom out and apply that to your life.

This book goes after the systems, habits, expectations, and routines we keep tending simply because they’re familiar or socially rewarded. The meetings that exist because they’ve always existed. The commitments you maintain out of guilt. The career paths chosen to look stable. The relationships you keep “watering” even when they drain you. The productivity theater that makes you seem busy, not effective.

Kill the Grass helps you spot where you’re pouring energy into something that only exists to keep up appearances, then replace it with something sustainable, resilient, and actually useful. Like clover and wildflowers, the alternative isn’t chaos. It’s an ecosystem: deeper roots, less upkeep, richer results, more life.

Stop maintaining what drains you just because it looks normal.

Grow something that enriches your world, not just your image.

Virtual Recruiting Activities (US Army Recruiting Command Techniques Publication 3-10.4), 2023

I served as co-author of a completely revamped publication that served to modernize US Army's virtual recruiting efforts. The publication was written from scratch over the course of two weeks at the Recruiting and Retention College in Fort Knox, KY by a hand-picked team of the top digital marketing experts from across the command.   

USAREC Techniques Publication 3-10.4 provides concepts for virtual recruiting along with strategies and techniques to supplement recruiting tasks performed to achieve USAREC’s recruiting mission. USAREC has the mission to find and recruit qualified men and women to join the United States Army. Leaders, staff, and recruiters improve the ability to achieve mission success by adopting and employing some or all of these prescribed tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) for conducting virtual recruiting activities and operations.

This publication describes virtual recruiting activities as key elements in the recruiting operational environment. It describes USAREC’s view of how virtual recruiting activities aid the commander and the recruiting force to successfully gain access and recruit within market segments through virtual means. It develops the other principles, tactics, and procedures detailed in subordinate doctrinal publications.

Medical Recruiting (USAREC Techniques Publication 3-10.5), 2021

This is the primary training publication for all medical recruiting leaders in the United States Army. I wrote all content covering virtual recruiting operations, creating and maintaining a virtual presence, and virtual strategy. I also reviewed the entire publication to make additions and edits throughout to ensure continuity with virtual strategy sections.