What we can learn from the Titanic, the Vasa and all your unfinished projects

“Jacobsson already knew what needed to change. He simply hadn’t felt able to say so with sufficient authority until the failure was so large and so visible that a change of approach was essential. That’s a high price for an organisation to pay for a lesson its own people already knew.”
​— Lessons from the Vasa disaster

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Hello Reader,

This week I’ve been thinking about what sunken ships can tell us. Here are three things on that theme to help you turn overthinking into forward thinking:

1. Organisations don't solve problems by building better ships. They do it through improving the way information flows: What really sank the Titanic​
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2. “The Vasa’s instability wasn’t a single mistake. It was the accumulated result of years of changing requirements, “scope creep“, poor coordination, production pressure, and crucially, an organisation in which bad news could not travel upwards.” — what organisations can learn from The Vasa Disaster​
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3. Organisations, fine. But what about our own disasters, failed projects and other sunk costs? This week I bring you two explorations on perseverence, past and future:

This week’s underthinking link is about the journey, not the destination. Spend 30 days atop a cargo ship at sea, in 10 minutes. Thinking score: 5/10, but this was so stunning it brought me to tears, so maybe it's more of a 7 or 8 of thinking wonder. Then again, it utterly relaxed me, so perhaps a 3.

What do you rate it?

Extra Thoughts…

The Vasa Museum is one of the best I've ever been to and well worth the diversion if you ever find yourself near Stockholm. It's literally built around the raised remains of the Vasa​

The image for this week's newsletter features part of my great great aunt's account of the sinking of the Titanic, as reported in the Fall River Evening Herald weeks after the ship sank.

She died in 1960, years before I was born. With the rise of the internet and the subsequent collective development of Encyclopedia Titanica, I have been able to learn more about her and others than I ever could have imagined. This is exactly why we need to preserve these priceless-yet-non-monetisable spaces. Including saving today's apps, like Letterboxd.

My great great aunt isn't my only connection to the Titanic. One of the things I was delighted to learn about when I moved to Liverpool was the many ways it was part of the Titanic story, too. Both Captain Smith and the owner of the White Star Line, Bruce Ismay, have houses marked by blue plaques just a ten minute walk away.

If you want to find your own way to connect to this story more deeply, I can't recommend this podcast enough: Titanic: Ship of Dreams​

And for more stories from what we can learn from disasters, the Cautionary Tales podcast is the place. I found the Tenerife disaster episodes particularly captivating, as it gets deep into language and communication. We reference it in our book, Lens Not Label, and will be explored in an upcoming edition of that newsletter, too.

So, wrapping things up…this week's theme was about what we can learn from sunken ships. But really it’s about the tension between our past and our future. How do we hold onto and honour our connections while letting go of what distracts us or otherwise holds us back? In our families, in the places we work, and in the places we rest, too.

What did this newsletter dig up for you? And what, if anything, did it help you hold more lightly? Perhaps even let go of?

Keep rowing, reflecting, and running fences,
Kim

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If you're not getting heard in your organisation, or you want to support others to feel heard too, we wrote Lens Not Label to help you with exactly that.

Out this November, Lens Not Label is a conversational guide for managers, leaders and coaches for working more effectively with neurodivergent thinkers. Pre-order now to ensure it's in your hot hands this autumn.

If you're a neurodivergent thinker yourself, our companion book, Uncontained, is for you. Available 1 December 2026.

For weekly updates on both books, plus tips on how to work with neurodivergent people more effectively, I've just launched another newsletter over at lensnotlabel.com​

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Hi! I'm Kim and there’s nothing that breaks my heart more than seeing a really smart, caring person overthink themselves to inaction. And I should know. I’ve spent nearly five decades overthinking absolutely everything. Here's how I made sense of it all.

If you want inner clarity that translates to clear messaging that gets heard and actioned, let's talk!​