Leadership, in practice

Nobody becomes a good leader through one action. It takes many.

You become one through hundreds of small moments - the conversation you keep postponing, the standard you hold, the call you got wrong and corrected. This is where I think about those moments out loud, while I’m still in them.

Leadership thinking, resources and online coaching in English for managers and leaders across countries and time zones.

Explore the ideas

Same moment. Another view.

Start with a moment you recognise. Look at it from your perspective, their perspective, or the conditions around you. Find a reflection, a free resource, or a Skill to help you prepare.

Change the view
About

The person behind Drift North

How I got here. What I'm still figuring out.

I lead teams, coach managers, and build things. Drift North is where I write about that honestly, while it’s still happening. I’m not writing from the far side of having figured leadership out.

I’m building Drift North for an international English-speaking audience, especially first-time and frontline managers. The writing, resources and online coaching are here to help you work through the leadership situations in front of you, wherever you work.

Why

Potential is usually visible long before polish.

People shouldn’t have to look finished before someone invests in them. Leaders grow through practice, reflection and correction - not by performing the image of having arrived.

Who I am

I’ve been the manager who didn’t know what he was doing.

Kyle O'Hagan in a Drift North blazer against a burgundy route-line background.
Kyle O’Hagan, CA(SA)

My career started in finance. I qualified as a Chartered Accountant in South Africa and learned the discipline of evidence, risk and clear thinking at Deloitte, first in Cape Town and later as a manager in Amsterdam.

At Workiva, my career moved through financial transformation, solution design, client and partner services, customer success and emerging solutions. Today I lead EMEA Services and Global Emerging Solutions, with work spanning SaaS, customer transformation and AI adoption.

Most of that work sits at the intersection of strategy and execution: turning ambiguous priorities into operating plans, connecting customer and market needs to solutions that can scale, and helping teams align around measurable outcomes. I have managed a number of consultants, SaaS experts, managers and high-potential future leaders. My teams have spanned Amsterdam, Paris, London and Frankfurt, and I have partnered across Product, Growth, Customer Success, Services and regional teams.

The recurring challenge has rarely been a lack of smart people. It has been creating enough clarity, cadence and accountability for those people to move together. Organisations are good at promoting people who are good at the work. They are much worse at what happens the day after.

I know that because it happened to me. I was promoted for being good at the job, then found the job had changed entirely and nobody was going to explain how. I avoided a conversation I should have had much sooner. I softened feedback until it stopped meaning anything. I made a decision slowly because I was more worried about being wrong in front of people than about being late.

I got better the way everyone does. Repetition. A couple of managers worth learning from, and one or two worth learning from in the other direction. A lot of thinking afterwards about what I’d handled badly.

That is the practical foundation behind Drift North. I lead teams and coach managers, mostly people standing in that same gap. I’m not writing from the far side of having solved it. I still get things wrong, and I’d rather say so here than pretend otherwise. But I’ve spent enough time in the middle of it to be a useful person to think with.

See my full experience on LinkedIn
How leaders actually improve

Repetition, not revelation.

01Notice what’s actually happening
02Slow down enough to think
03Get clear on what matters now
04Have the conversation you’ve been avoiding
05Get it wrong sometimes, and say so
06Be slightly better at the next version of it
What we return to

Principles, not slogans.

Progress over perfection

I’m more interested in how leaders improve than in how they perform having arrived.

Honesty over performance

I trust leaders more when they can tell me what they changed their mind about.

Curiosity over certainty

Certainty is often just curiosity that stopped too early. Ask better questions first.

People before optics

Back people before it’s obvious, and judge it over a meaningful horizon - not a quarter.

Clarity over certainty

You don’t owe your team certainty. You do owe them clarity.

Who this is for

Managers who already know more leadership theory than they can apply.

Mostly first-time and frontline managers - promoted for being good at the work, then left alone at the point real leadership started. The harder problem was never the theory. It’s translating it into the messy human situation in front of you on a Tuesday. If you want motivation, this won’t be for you.

Between Versions — a Drift North podcast

A leadership diary, out loud.

Personal vlogs, conversations with other managers and reflections from the scooter. Different ways of thinking out loud about leadership and the things we are still figuring out. The first episodes are in production; none are published yet.

Episodes

Nothing published yet.

Episodes appear here once they’re recorded. The newsletter runs either way - subscribe and the first episode reaches you the week it lands.

Drift North · Newsletter

One honest email a week.

Short enough to finish, specific enough to be worth the time. Written the week it happened, not reconstructed once the lesson felt tidy.

Every issue

Four things, every week.

01A real situation from my week
02Where my first instinct was wrong
03What I’m trying differently next
04One question worth sitting with

No sponsorships, no link round-ups, no motivational quotes, nothing between issues.

Drift North · Articles

Leadership,
seen from
different angles.

The work happening now. The experiences I keep returning to. The management habits that are easier to recognise when someone else makes them funny. And the opinions worth disagreeing with.

All collections
Collection · 2 articles

Hot takes

Here's what I believe today.

Not every thought needs to become a carefully balanced leadership lesson. Sometimes I have a view, I've thought about it, and I want to put it out there.

That's what Hot Takes is for.

These are my opinions on leadership, work, technology and the strange things we've somehow accepted as normal in professional life.

Some might be uncomfortable. Some might contradict popular thinking. And occasionally, I might look back and think, well, I got that completely wrong.

Good. That's part of the point.

I'm not writing these because I think I've figured everything out. I'm writing them because I think we've become a little too comfortable saying things everyone agrees with.

I'll tell you what I think, why I think it, and what might change my mind. You don't have to agree. In fact, I'd rather you challenged the argument than politely nodded along.

And when my thinking changes, I'll write about that too. I'm not going to quietly rewrite history to make myself look consistent.

This is what I believe today. Tomorrow, we'll see.

Between Versions
Between Versions · Solo vlogs

Founders Cut

Just me, thinking out loud about the work, the decisions and the things I am still figuring out. Personal reflections on leadership, building Drift North and what I would do differently.

First episode to come.

No episodes are published in this series yet. The newsletter will let you know when the first one lands.

Get the newsletter
Between Versions
Between Versions · Interviews

Managers in Action

Conversations with other managers about how they see the job and how they actually do it. Their decisions, challenges and perspectives, including the places where we disagree.

First episode to come.

No episodes are published in this series yet. The newsletter will let you know when the first one lands.

Get the newsletter
Between Versions
Between Versions · 10-15 minutes

From the scoot

Me, a scooter and horrible Dutch weather. Ten to fifteen minutes between places, talking through whatever is on my mind about work, leadership and life. Reflections from the journey, while the thinking is still taking shape.

First episode to come.

No episodes are published in this series yet. The newsletter will let you know when the first one lands.

Get the newsletter
All collections
Collection · 16 articles

Leadership in practice

The small decisions, conversations and corrections that shape how we lead. Reflections from the work happening now.

Working papers and a pencil, with overlapping marks and a maroon bookmark.
Essay

When a Good Idea Suddenly Feels Like a Bad One

How a few innocent questions, an IKEA cupboard, and a tube of mounting glue reminded me of something important about leadership.

Leading People · Feedback · Decision-making

Read the reflection
Essay

When Good Leadership Means Letting Someone Go

A leader's lasting contribution is not how long someone stays, but how freely they can grow into a future of their own choosing.

Building Stronger Teams · Potential & Development · Building Leaders not Followers

Read the reflection
Essay

You Don't Need 40 Years to Know What Kind of Leader You Want to Be

Perhaps I don't need to become an entirely different leader to become a more senior one.

Read the reflection
Essay

The Leader You Are Isn't Always the Leader They Need

I think there's a meaningful difference between changing your leadership philosophy and changing the way you apply it.

Read the reflection
Essay

Making time to be known

Making room for connection while respecting the concentration, travel and energy that time together can cost.

Leading People · Humanity of Management · Trust

Read the reflection
Essay

Should you really switch off from work?

A reflection on thinking about work outside working hours, the difference between curiosity and rumination, and the boundaries leaders set for others.

Read the reflection
Essay

What am I still bringing to the work?

AI has made preparation faster. A reflection on the thinking, challenge and personal judgement that still need to happen before the work is finished.

Read the reflection
Essay

When ownership is agreed in the room and lost afterwards

An imagined meeting explores how agreement can leave ownership, authority and competing priorities unresolved.

Working Across the Organisation · Alignment · Managing Sideways

Read the reflection
Essay

Do you know the kind of leader your job is asking you to be?

When the leadership instincts that once made you useful meet a role that now asks for something different.

Becoming a Leader · Self-awareness · Ambiguity

Read the reflection
Reflection

When You and Your Manager Still Disagree

Knowing when to compromise, when to keep challenging, and how to lead after a decision you would not have chosen.

Read the reflection
Reflection

The Polished Leader and the Unplugged Leader

Preparation, performance and what people see when a leader leaves the script behind.

Read the reflection
Reflection

The Higher You Go, the Less It Should Be About Having the Answer

Seniority should increase influence, not only the difficulty of the work you personally carry.

Read the reflection
Reflection

Before You Coach the Person, Inspect the System

Recurring friction may be a signal that ownership, boundaries and decision rights are poorly designed.

Read the reflection
Reflection

The Leadership Trap of Being the Person Who Always Steps In

Rescue behaviour can solve the immediate problem while preventing people and systems from learning.

Read the reflection
Reflection

Do You Want to Lead, or Do You Want to Be a Leader?

Genuine leadership earns trust through practical care, honest judgement and a commitment to the work beyond the title.

Read the reflection
Reflection

When Management Becomes the Only Way Forward

When management becomes the clearest route to recognition and influence, organisations shape the career choices people make.

Read the reflection

Follow the work as it happens.

Join Between Versions
All collections
Collection · 4 articles

Looking back

Experiences I still return to. What I got wrong, what changed my mind, and what I would do differently now.

An open, worn notebook beside a stack of notebooks, with a maroon ribbon between the pages.

Follow the work as it happens.

Join Between Versions
All collections
Collection · 7 articles

Somehow I Manage

Michael Scott, The Office, and the uncomfortable moment I recognise something of myself in the joke. A comical return to the basics of management.

The unofficial guideScranton, PA
Parody cover for Somehow, I manage, featuring Michael Scott in a maroon suit shrugging.
Management.
With the mask off.
A collection of
uncomfortable recognitions.

Why I keep coming back to The Office

I’ve watched and rewatched The Office for years. Each time, I recognise something different: who I am, who I used to be, and occasionally a colleague I had hoped to forget. I have laughed, cringed and stared at the screen in despair because a scene felt less like comedy and more like somebody had been taking notes in one of my meetings.

At different points, I have recognised both Michael Scott and the anti-Michael Scott in myself. The need to be liked. The urge to prove I belong in the room. Then the opposite response: becoming so careful, composed and professional that the person underneath starts to disappear.

But across the rewatches, another side of Michael keeps catching me. He can be an absolute idiot and still be genuinely good at leading people. Often, his best moments happen between the performances: when he notices that someone needs encouragement, understands that people are frightened, or shows them that they matter without trying to turn it into a demonstration of management. The man working hardest to look like the world’s best boss is not always the man people need. Sometimes, they need the person who turns up when it matters.

That is the part I want to explore here. I have always struggled with the managerial mask, the polish that can leave people wondering which version of their leader will appear when things get difficult. Being yourself does not excuse bad judgement. But being recognisably human, consistent and willing to respond honestly gives people something more substantial to trust, including when the decision is uncertain or one they do not agree with.

What a fucking big lesson to realise I had been learning from The Office. This collection is about the ridiculous things Michael gets wrong, the unexpectedly human things he gets right, and the uncomfortable possibility that I have done a little of both. Let’s explore some of those moments and the lessons behind them.

Reflection

When Michael Scott stopped trying to be the perfect boss

Pam’s art show, a frightened office and a letter to Dwight. The moments when Michael Scott’s humanity reached people more effectively than his performance as a boss.

Read the reflection
Reflection

Maybe Management Is Already Serious Enough

Humour, hierarchy and learning not to confuse the seriousness of leadership with taking myself too seriously.

Read the reflection
Reflection

I asked for feedback, not this

Michael Scott invites a roast and discovers a problem with honest feedback: people might actually give it. A reflection on what managers do next.

Read the reflection
Reflection

Congratulations. Your promotion depends on a hot dog

In Beach Games, Michael Scott turns succession planning into a hot dog contest. What happens when managers mistake enthusiasm for competence?

Read the reflection
Reflection

I’ve delegated the blame. Please return the credit

Michael Scott’s Golden Ticket idea changes from disaster to success, and ownership changes with it. A comic look at credit, blame and delegation.

Read the reflection
Reflection

I’m sorry. Please enjoy this presentation about my suffering

Michael Scott’s Product Recall apology becomes a defence of Michael Scott. A reflection on apologies that leave the wrong person needing reassurance.

Read the reflection
Reflection

I promised the future. Finance has approved batteries

Scott’s Tots turns a grand promise into laptop batteries. A comic reflection on managers who offer certainty before checking what they can deliver.

Read the reflection

Follow the work as it happens.

Join Between Versions
Drift North · Coaching and workshops

Leadership coaching and workshops.

Some weeks it’s a conversation you keep putting off. Others, it’s a decision you’ve talked yourself around three times. I work with managers and leaders on the situations they’re actually facing, with room to think, honest challenge and something practical to try.

Start a conversation

Sessions are online and delivered in English, for managers and leaders internationally. We agree dates and times together, taking your time zone into account. Prices are in EUR and include any applicable VAT. Payment is by invoice, after we agree the scope and dates.

01 · One to one

First-time and frontline manager coaching

For the everyday work of leading people.

Being good at the work and being responsible for the people doing it ask different things of you. I help new and frontline managers work through feedback, delegation, team tensions and the shift from colleague to manager. We start with what’s happening in your team and work out what you can do next.

Things we might work on

  • Giving clear feedback without rehearsing it for a week.
  • Delegating without taking the work back.
  • Setting expectations and following through.
  • Managing former peers and handling pressure from above.

€600 for the package

Four 60-minute sessions over eight weeks. Includes a starting focus, practical actions between sessions and a review in our final conversation.

Single session: €165 for 60 minutes.

Talk about your team
New manager taking work back? What coaching looks likeWatch on YouTube
02 · One to one

Leadership coaching

Space to examine how you lead, and what needs to change.

You’ve been leading for a while, but experience doesn’t make every decision clearer. I offer a thinking partnership for leaders dealing with greater responsibility, competing expectations or patterns they want to change. We look at the decisions in front of you, the assumptions behind them and how your leadership is landing with other people.

Things we might work on

  • Making decisions when there isn’t an obvious right answer.
  • Leading through tension, uncertainty or change.
  • Understanding the gap between your intentions and your impact.
  • Taking on a broader role without becoming the answer to everything.

€900 for the package

Six 60-minute sessions over three months. Includes an agreed development focus, practical experiments between sessions and a closing review.

Single session: €165 for 60 minutes.

Talk about your leadership
Every decision lands on you? What leadership coaching looks likeWatch on YouTube
03 · Think together

Team workshops

Time to think together, decide what matters and work through what’s getting in the way.

Some challenges benefit from a fresh perspective. Others need the people involved to sit down and work through them properly. I facilitate focused team sessions, helping you question assumptions, make choices and agree what happens next.

Big Rock sessions

When everything is a priority, people are left to decide for themselves what matters most. I help teams identify their Big Rocks: the few priorities that deserve protected time and attention. Together, we examine competing demands, make the trade-offs explicit and agree what to pursue, pause or stop.

You leave with: A short list of agreed priorities, what progress looks like, an owner for each and a date to review them.

€950 per team

A three-hour facilitated session for up to eight people, including a preparation call and a written decision summary.

Plan a Big Rock session
Too many priorities? What a Big Rock session looks likeWatch on YouTube

Working through strategic barriers

A strategy can look clear on paper while the work keeps getting stuck. Ownership is unclear. Teams depend on decisions nobody is making. People agree on the ambition but disagree on what it requires.

I help your team examine one specific barrier, surface the assumptions and competing interests behind it, and work through the choices within your control.

You leave with: A shared definition of the barrier, the decisions made, any unresolved questions and a practical action plan with owners.

€1,250 per team

A three-hour facilitated session for up to eight people, including a preparation call, a short participant questionnaire and a written action summary.

Discuss what’s getting stuck
Decisions nobody is making: a strategic barrier sessionWatch on YouTube

Start with a conversation.

Arrange a free 20-minute introductory call. Tell me what’s happening, ask your questions and we’ll decide whether working together makes sense.

No obligation, and no pitch. A conversation first. Privacy Policy

Resources · Management practices · Practice 01

The shelf

Three books on one-to-ones

Picked for this problem. One is the origin, one is the evidence, and one is about the thirty seconds after you ask a question, which is where most of these meetings are actually won or lost.

Three booksWhat to take4 min
High Output Management

Grove
1983

Glad We Met

Rogelberg
2024

The Coaching Habit

Bungay Stanier
2016

High Output Management

Andrew S. Grove
Random House · 1983

Take

The 1:1 chapter, and the leverage idea underneath it. That a manager's output is the output of their organisation, so the highest-value use of an hour is usually the one that improves someone else's fortnight. It's the clearest argument ever made against the manager who says they're too busy for these, and it was written by someone running a semiconductor company while he said it.

Leave

Task-relevant maturity, for the reasons in the framework card, and the parts that are unmistakably a manufacturing business in the early eighties. There's a breakfast-factory metaphor that runs a long way. Read it for the principles, skip the process engineering.

Glad We Met

Steven G. Rogelberg
Oxford University Press · 2024

Take

The evidence, which nobody else in this area has. Cadence, length, agenda ownership, and the uncomfortable gap between how managers and reports rate the same meeting, all with actual research behind it rather than assertion. If you only want one chapter, take the one on agendas and who owns the meeting.

Leave

The completeness. It covers every variant and edge case, which makes it a better reference than a read, and the research is summarised rather than laid out for inspection. Useful to own, heavy to read cover to cover.

The Coaching Habit

Michael Bungay Stanier
Box of Crayons Press · 2016

Take

Two questions worth the whole book. "What's the real challenge here for you?" cuts through the first problem someone presents, which is almost never the one that's stuck. And "and what else?", asked once more than feels comfortable, is the cheapest way to get past the rehearsed answer. Both are built for exactly the thirty-minute meeting this practice is about.

Leave

The implication that coaching is always the right mode. Sometimes the person needs you to tell them, and asking a well-formed question when someone wants a decision is its own kind of unhelpful. See practice 06. The brevity is also doing brand work; the ideas would survive a denser book.

Worth knowing about · not on the shelf

The One Minute Manager

Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson · William Morrow · 1982

Fifteen million copies, and the case that management can be compressed into brief scripted encounters. It's off the shelf because compression is the disease this practice is treating, the one-minute version of a 1:1 is the status update. Worth reading to see how durable the idea is, and worth noting that its co-author also gave us situational leadership, which practice 06's evidence note covers.

Explore ideas

Same moment.Another view.

Try a different perspective on something that happened. These are questions to explore, not assumptions about anyone involved.

I delegated it. Somehow it’s mine again.

If I leave this alone, will the work be good enough?

Article · 6 min

The Leadership Trap of Being the Person Who Always Steps In

Rescue behaviour can solve the immediate problem while preventing people and systems from learning.

Read this piece
Free resources

Handing over the decision

Delegation: why the task moves and the decision doesn't, the five degrees of initiative, the evidence on situational leadership, a sheet and three books.

Explore the free resources
More perspectives on building stronger teams
Prefer to browse? Explore all six themes
Building stronger teams

All on this theme

30 connections

Articles 9

Free resources 7

Skills 11

  • Paid Skill · €49

    Process Optimiser

    Analyses a workflow for waste, bottlenecks, control gaps and the places automation would genuinely help.

  • Paid Skill · €49

    Meeting-to-Action System

    Converts messy meeting material into decisions, owners, risks and follow-ups that survive contact with the week.

  • Paid Skill · €49

    Manager Coach

    Handle the moments that make you a manager - with clearer judgement, better conversations and stronger follow-through.

  • Paid Skill · €25

    1:1 Prep

    Turns rough notes about a direct report into a structured 1:1 agenda you can actually run.

  • Paid Skill · €25

    Feedback Builder

    Structures specific feedback around situation, behaviour, impact and next step - in the right tone.

  • Paid Skill · €25

    Difficult Conversation Prep

    Prepares concise talking points for the management conversation you have been putting off.

  • Paid Skill · €25

    Team Meeting Builder

    Builds a meeting agenda around outcomes, decisions and owners - and pushes back on status theatre.

  • Paid Skill · €25

    Delegation Planner

    Clarifies what to hand over, to whom, with what guardrails and how much autonomy.

  • Paid Skill · €25

    Recognition Writer

    Turns a short note about someone’s contribution into recognition tied to behaviour and impact.

  • Paid Skill · €25

    Monthly Team Health Check

    A short structured review of workload, morale, performance, development and risk across the team.

  • Paid Skill · €25

    Development Conversation Prep

    Prepares a career conversation covering strengths, aspirations, growth areas and concrete next steps.

Keep exploring 3

Drift North Skills

Better ways to lead, decide and work - built into your AI.

Drift North Skills are reusable AI workflows, not prompt packs. Choose Premium Skills for consequential challenges, Manager Essentials for recurring team responsibilities, or Life Chief of Staff for work and personal priorities. Life Chief of Staff is coming soon.

How Skills work

A prompt tells an AI what to do once. A Skill gives it a method it can repeat.

Built around a method

Each Skill starts from a way of working that holds up in practice, not a clever sentence that produced a good answer once.

The workflow is the product

Platform packages are implementations of a Skill, not the thing itself. You are buying the workflow, not the AI platform.

You keep the judgement

A Skill structures the thinking and asks better questions. It does not decide for you, and it is not meant to.

Every Skill currently available is a one-time purchase. No subscription, no account, nothing to cancel.

Installing a Skill

A file and about a minute.

Each Skill arrives as a single .skill file built around a SKILL.md file - the Agent Skills open standard. You upload it once and it loads when your request matches what it does.

01Turn on Code execution and file creation in Settings → Capabilities
02Open Customize → Skills, or Organization settings on Team and Enterprise plans
03Upload the file exactly as you received it
04Describe your situation; the Skill loads when it matches

Available Skills are built for Claude. Life Chief of Staff is planned for Claude and has not yet been built or tested. Anthropic’s guide: Use skills in Claude.

Premium Skills · €49 one-time

For the problem that needs real thinking.

Nine deeper workflows for the moments where the quality of your thinking matters. Each one is bought on its own.

Paths

Most real problems need more than one.

A path is a sequence, not a bundle. Each Skill is bought on its own and you can stop anywhere.

The other tier

For the work that keeps coming back.

Premium Skills are built for consequential problems. The recurring work of managing a team - 1:1s, feedback, delegation, planning - is what Manager Essentials are for, at €25 each.

See Manager Essentials
Manager Essentials · €25 one-time

For the management work that keeps coming back.

Ten small tools for the work managers do every week and every month. Two to seven minutes each, a handful of questions, one useful output.

The rhythm

These are not ten unrelated tools.

They map onto the actual shape of a manager’s week and month.

When it goes deeper

Start practical. Go deeper when the situation demands it.

Manager Essentials handle the recurring execution. A Premium Skill becomes the right tool when the situation carries material uncertainty, competing options, meaningful consequences, systemic complexity, strategic implications, or needs a deeper diagnosis of the people involved.

Not available

There is no membership yet.

Skills are sold individually, as one-time purchases. A library membership is something I am considering for later, not something you can join now.

Nothing to sign up for. There is no waiting list, no price, no early-access offer and nothing to pay for. If a membership happens, it will appear here when it is real.

How it works today

One-time purchases

You buy the Skills you want. No subscription, no account to create, nothing to cancel later.

Free Skills may follow

A small number may be released free in future, so the quality is something you can judge rather than take on trust.

Yours to keep

A Skill you have bought stays yours. It does not stop working if you never buy another one.

Why a membership might follow

Skills get revised as they are used, and the catalogue will grow. At some point a membership covering updates and new releases may make more sense than buying one at a time - for you as much as for me. That is a decision for when there is enough in the library to justify it, not a launch tactic.

Back to the catalogue

Legal

Drift North Skills Purchase Terms

Last updated: 8 September 2026

These Purchase Terms apply to digital products offered by Drift North through Drift North Skills.

1. About Drift North Skills

Drift North Skills are downloadable digital products designed to support better leadership, decision-making, management, process improvement and applied AI workflows.

Each Skill is licensed for use by the purchaser. Purchase does not transfer ownership of Drift North intellectual property.

2. Purchases and payment

Products are sold as one-time digital purchases unless otherwise stated.

Payments are processed through Polar. Polar acts as Merchant of Record and authorised reseller for the transaction. Buyers purchase the product through Polar, while the right to use the product is licensed by Drift North under these terms and the applicable product licence. Polar handles payment processing, applicable transaction taxes, receipts, refunds, chargebacks and other transaction-related support.

3. Digital delivery

Products are delivered digitally after successful payment through the fulfilment mechanism made available through Polar.

The purchaser is responsible for providing a valid email address and maintaining access to any account or email required to retrieve the purchase.

4. Licence

Unless a product-specific licence states otherwise, purchases grant the purchaser a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the product.

You may not:

  • resell or redistribute the product
  • publish or share the purchased files publicly
  • provide copies to third parties
  • claim Drift North materials or methodology as your own
  • use the product to create a substantially equivalent commercial product for redistribution

All intellectual property rights remain with Drift North.

5. Compatibility

Compatibility is stated on each product page.

A compatibility statement applies only to the platforms and environments explicitly identified for that release. Drift North does not warrant compatibility with unsupported platforms, future platform changes, or account configurations outside the stated requirements.

6. Updates and versions

Products are versioned.

A purchase gives access to the version supplied at the time of purchase and any additional updates Drift North chooses to make available under that purchase. Drift North does not guarantee perpetual updates or compatibility with future third-party platform changes unless explicitly stated.

7. Product support

Drift North is responsible for support relating to the product itself, including installation guidance and issues with supplied files.

For product support, contact hello@driftnorth.nl.

Polar provides transaction-related support relating to payments, refunds, chargebacks and order matters.

8. Refunds and consumer rights

Refund requests are handled through Polar in accordance with applicable law and Polar’s buyer terms and transaction processes.

Nothing in these terms limits statutory consumer rights that cannot legally be excluded or restricted.

9. Professional judgement

Drift North Skills are designed to support human judgement, not replace it.

They do not constitute legal, medical, financial, investment, regulatory or other professional advice. Users remain responsible for decisions they make and for obtaining qualified professional advice where appropriate.

10. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Drift North is not liable for indirect, incidental or consequential loss arising from use of a Skill, including loss resulting from decisions made using its outputs.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot legally be excluded or limited.

11. Customer responsibilities

Users are responsible for:

  • providing accurate information to the AI platform
  • reviewing outputs critically
  • verifying important facts
  • protecting confidential or sensitive information
  • determining whether professional advice is required
  • complying with the terms and policies of the AI platform they use

12. Intellectual property

The Drift North name, product names, methodologies, written materials, templates, renderers, examples and supporting assets remain the intellectual property of Drift North or their respective rights holders.

13. Changes to these terms

Drift North may update these terms for future purchases. The terms applicable to a completed purchase are those in force at the time of purchase, subject to changes required by law.

14. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Netherlands, without limiting any mandatory consumer protections available to a buyer under the law applicable to them.

15. Contact

For product-related questions, contact hello@driftnorth.nl.

For payment, receipt, refund or other transaction-related questions, customers should use the support options provided by Polar.

Back to Skills

Thank you

Thanks for choosing to work on the way you work.

Buying a Drift North Skill is a small decision, but I hope what it enables is bigger.

These tools are built around a simple belief: better judgement does not come from having all the answers. It comes from being willing to examine how you think, practise deliberately, notice what is not working and correct course.

I appreciate you choosing to bring Drift North into that process.

The Skill you purchased is there to support your thinking, not replace it. Use it, challenge it, disagree with it when you should, and make the method your own through practice.

I hope it helps you make better calls, have better conversations and become a little more deliberate in the work that matters.

Thank you for supporting Drift North.

Kyle

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Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 3 October 2026

Drift North respects your privacy and aims to be clear about how personal information is collected and used through driftnorth.nl.

This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, why we collect it, the services we use to process it, and the rights available to you.

1. Who is responsible for your data

The data controller for this website is:

Kyle O’Hagan, trading as Drift North
Netherlands
Email: hello@driftnorth.nl

2. Information we collect

We only collect information that you choose to provide or that is necessary for the website to operate.

Depending on how you use Drift North, this may include:

  • your email address when you subscribe to Between Versions
  • your email address if you previously joined a product waitlist
  • your name, email address and message when you submit a Contact enquiry
  • your name, email address and information you provide when submitting a Coaching enquiry
  • information about your newsletter subscription status, including confirmation and unsubscribe status
  • basic technical and traffic information when you allow optional website analytics

Please avoid submitting sensitive personal information through general website forms unless it is genuinely necessary.

3. Why we use your information

We process personal information to:

  • send Between Versions newsletters and related communications that you have requested
  • manage newsletter subscriptions and unsubscribe requests
  • manage previously recorded product-interest preferences
  • respond to Coaching, Contact, speaking, advisory or other enquiries
  • operate, secure and improve the website
  • understand how people discover and use Drift North, where analytics is used
  • comply with legal obligations

Newsletter subscriptions are separate from Coaching and Contact enquiries. Submitting an enquiry does not automatically subscribe you to marketing communications.

4. Legal bases for processing

Where the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies, Drift North relies on the following legal bases:

Consent - for newsletter subscriptions and other communications you actively choose to receive.

Legitimate interests - where necessary to respond to enquiries, operate and secure the website, and understand how the service is used, provided those interests do not override your rights.

Legal obligations - where information must be retained or processed to comply with applicable law.

You can withdraw consent to marketing communications at any time.

5. Newsletter and email communications

Between Versions subscriptions are managed using Kit, which acts as an email and audience-management service provider for Drift North.

When you subscribe, information such as your email address, subscription status and relevant signup source may be processed by Kit on our behalf.

Drift North uses double opt-in for newsletter subscriptions.

Every marketing email will provide a way to unsubscribe. Unsubscribing stops future marketing communications associated with that subscription, although limited information may be retained where necessary to record your opt-out.

Kit operates as backend infrastructure; Drift North remains the public website and brand experience.

6. Contact and Coaching enquiries

Direct enquiries submitted through Drift North are processed using Formspree.

Depending on the form you use, information may include your name, email address, reason for contacting Drift North and the contents of your message.

Formspree processes this information on behalf of Drift North so that the enquiry can be delivered and responded to.

Contact and Coaching enquiries are kept separate from newsletter subscription consent.

7. Previous product waitlist registrations

The standalone app waitlist is closed. If you previously registered, your email address may remain in Kit with the product-interest preference you supplied.

Closing the form does not subscribe you to the newsletter or change your original consent. Contact hello@driftnorth.nl to ask about or remove that record.

8. Analytics and cookies

If you allow analytics, Drift North uses PostHog, with EU hosting, to understand matters such as:

  • visitor numbers
  • traffic sources
  • pages viewed
  • newsletter signup conversions
  • podcast or content engagement
  • enquiry conversions

Optional analytics is off until you select Allow analytics. PostHog then uses browser storage to recognise visits and measure page views, campaign sources, reading-depth signals, link clicks and successful form submissions. We do not send form contents, names or email addresses to PostHog, and session recordings are disabled.

You can decline analytics or change your choice at any time using Analytics preferences in the footer. Declining does not affect website access, subscriptions or enquiries. Your preference is saved in this browser. Analytics events are retained under our free plan for up to one year. Newsletter email confirmation remains recorded by Kit; a successful website submission is not counted as a confirmed subscription.

9. Sharing your information

Drift North does not sell your personal information.

Information may be shared with service providers where necessary to operate the website and its services, including:

  • Kit - newsletter subscriptions, audience management and previous product waitlist registrations
  • Formspree - Contact and Coaching form submissions
  • Polar - Merchant of Record for Drift North Skills purchases, handling payment, tax, receipts, refunds and digital delivery
  • website hosting, infrastructure or analytics providers where applicable

These providers process information according to their own privacy and security arrangements and, where applicable, on behalf of Drift North.

10. International data transfers

Some service providers may process information outside the Netherlands or European Economic Area.

Where GDPR applies, Drift North will rely on appropriate safeguards required under applicable data-protection law, such as adequacy decisions or approved contractual safeguards.

11. How long we keep information

Personal information is retained only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.

For example:

  • newsletter information may be retained while you remain subscribed
  • unsubscribe records may be retained so your preference can be respected
  • enquiry information may be retained for as long as necessary to respond and maintain reasonable business records
  • waitlist information may be retained while the relevant product or service remains under development, unless you ask for deletion

Retention periods may also be affected by legal or regulatory requirements.

12. Your rights

If GDPR applies to you, you may have the right to:

  • access personal information held about you
  • correct inaccurate information
  • request deletion
  • restrict certain processing
  • object to certain processing
  • receive your information in a portable format where applicable
  • withdraw consent at any time
  • lodge a complaint with a data-protection authority

In the Netherlands, the supervisory authority is the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens.

To exercise your rights, contact hello@driftnorth.nl.

13. Security

Drift North takes reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information against loss, misuse, unauthorised access or disclosure.

No online service can guarantee absolute security.

14. Links to other websites

Drift North may link to third-party websites or platforms, including LinkedIn, Instagram and other services.

Their privacy practices are governed by their own policies, and Drift North is not responsible for how those third parties process information once you leave the Drift North website.

15. Changes to this policy

This Privacy Policy may be updated as Drift North evolves, new services are introduced or legal requirements change.

The latest version will always be published on driftnorth.nl.

Questions about any of this

Contact

Start a conversation.

This is small and deliberately early. If something here was useful - or clearly wrong - I’d rather hear it. Disagreement is more useful to me than agreement.

Enquiries are welcome from managers and leaders internationally. For online coaching or workshops, include your time zone so we can discuss a suitable time.

Worth writing about

Coaching

You’re a manager with something on your plate. Tell me the situation, not your CV.

Drift North Skills

A question about a Skill, how to use it, or something it could do better.

The writing

Something landed, or it didn’t. Tell me which.

Working together

Speaking, advisory, or leadership development for your managers.

Write to me directly.

I read everything myself. Expect a real reply, not a sequence.

No obligation, and no pitch. Privacy Policy

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