Great leadership can't make up for a poorly designed organisation. Blueprints for Leadership looks beneath the surface of management at how organisations really work: how accountability is set, how authority is shared, and whether the right people are in the right roles.
Each chapter hands you one visual blueprint to print large, lay on the table and draw on together.
Most books ask you to read first and apply later, if at all. These run the other way. Every chapter follows the same three steps, so once you've done one blueprint you can run any of them.
Open the blueprint, on paper or on screen, and write all over it. Pencils, not pens. You'll change your mind, and you should.
Step back and find what the page is telling you. Analyse it, talk it out, and reach a shared read with the people in the room.
Turn one insight into a decision with a name and a date on it.
Drawing on leadership experience across many industries, Scott Buley challenges conventional management thinking and offers practical frameworks for building organisations that are clearer, stronger and better equipped to perform. Nine blueprints, each for a different problem, and a tenth that pieces them together.
All ten Volume 1 blueprints, printed one to a page and single-sided, with ten copies of each. Enough to run the same blueprint again and again, on new situations and with new teams, and to see how things have moved since last time.
Buy the Blueprint Pack on AmazonMost of what we call a people problem is really a design problem wearing a person's face.
Volume 1 was written from the outside looking in. This one was written from the inside. Scott spent six years as Head of People and Culture at an Australian visual effects company. In that time it grew several times over, ran many films and series at once, was acquired into a global network, and had to hold on to its reason for existing. Structure explained its problems better than personality did.
Written for leaders in creative and project-based businesses, and for the HR, people and organisation design professionals who work alongside them. Grounded in Elliott Jaques's work on levels of work.
Three more volumes are on the way, each with its own set of blueprints and the same Doodle, Discover, Do method. They're coming to Amazon in early 2027. Chapter 1 of each is free to download now.
The Doodle, Discover, Do method for leading with AI. Having AI isn't the same as being competent with it. Chapter 1, The Workbench, starts with the oldest question in management: what, exactly, is the work, and what stays in human hands?
Download Chapter 1 free (PDF)
The Doodle, Discover, Do method for work that doesn't make people sick. Chapter 1, The Load Line, is a blueprint for how much the work can carry: painted on before anyone starts loading, not discovered in the storm.
Download Chapter 1 free (PDF)
The Doodle, Discover, Do method for setting up the back nine: health, relationships, finances and more, so you play the second half on purpose. Chapter 1, The Trig Point, doesn't tell you where to go. It tells you where you actually are.
Download Chapter 1 free (PDF)Each download is the full first chapter, blueprint included. Print the blueprint as large as you can (A3 for a group, A4 on your own), grab a pencil and try the method for yourself.
What you see depends on where you're sitting. One theatre, walked a seat at a time, so you can hold several points of view on a single page.
Download PDFLevels of work, and the weight people can carry. A blueprint a team can draw on together to match people to levels and understand fit.
Download PDFA blueprint for what stays in human hands, before any question of tools.
Download PDFA blueprint for how much the work can carry, set before the load goes on.
Download PDFA blueprint for finding where you actually are. It doesn't tell you where to go.
Download PDFAll editions are published by Pondering Tree Pty Ltd and sold through Amazon.
| Volume 1 · paperback | Out now | Buy |
| Volume 1 · Kindle | Out now | Buy |
| Volume 1 Blueprint Pack · paperback | Out now | Buy |
| Volume 2 · Kindle | 4 January 2027 | Pre-order |
| Volumes 3, 4 and 5 | Early 2027 | Read Chapter 1 |
Links go to Amazon Australia. Outside Australia? Find the series on Amazon USAmazon UKAmazon Canadaor search "Blueprints for Leadership Scott Buley" on your local Amazon.
A deck of 89 coaching cards for friends, families and teams. Pick one person, work out what's really going on, sort the everyday behaviours that matter, and finish with one step written down. It works on its own, no book required.
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