Hello, I’m Jose Medina
Who I am, what I researched, and why this site exists.
I have a PhD from Griffith University, finished in 2020. I live in Sydney, I work with business owners around Australia, and I write everything on this site myself.
That’s the short version. The rest of this page is for anyone curious about what sits behind the writing.
Where this comes from
The research didn’t stop when the doctorate did. Since then I’ve worked across NDIS, mining, construction, IT, supply chain, health and education. Very different industries, with the same human patterns underneath. That range is part of why I trust the frameworks here. They’ve held up in places that don’t usually agree on much.
I’m a researcher, but not a career academic. I read this work the way an owner does, looking for what actually helps on a Tuesday morning when something has to be decided and nobody has time for theory.
What I researched
I spent four years studying how small and medium Australian businesses build hard things together. What makes a team able to create something genuinely new, hold onto good people, and stay coherent when the pressure rises.
The thesis is technical, because it had to be. The plain version is simpler. I went into businesses doing genuinely innovative work and tried to understand what made those teams different from the ones that kept stalling. Eight conditions kept showing up. Those became the spine of this site.
The thinkers I keep returning to, W. Edwards Deming, Chris Argyris, Peter Checkland, built most of what I use. My own contribution is modest. I tested their ideas in a specific setting, found they held, and now spend most of my time putting their work into language that doesn’t need a graduate degree to read.
Part of this research was published in the Organization Development Journal in 2021, co-authored with my supervisors Dr Rod Gapp and Dr Heather Stewart.
Why this site exists
The most useful ideas I came across in my career were locked inside academic writing that nobody outside a university would ever choose to read. That’s a real problem. It means most owners run their companies on LinkedIn slogans and airport-bookshelf advice, when the research that’s been quietly building for sixty years could change how they think in an afternoon.
This site is my attempt to fix that. The mission is simple. Give the people who run small businesses the keys to doing things well, so the people who work in them can actually enjoy work.
What this site isn’t
There’s no sales funnel here. Nothing to book, nothing to upgrade to, no email wall in front of the good stuff. Everything is free to read. I publish slowly, because translating something properly takes a week or two, and I’d rather do that than churn out hot takes.
If something here changes how you see what’s happening on your team, the site has done its job.
Let's stay in touch
Questions, ideas, or stories about what's working in your business, I'd genuinely like to hear them.