Think for yourself
See more clearly
Make better decisions
Live on your own terms
Speaking
Training
Unleash your inner | strategist
I’m Alicia McKay. I help people be more strategic: leaders, councils, conference rooms, and readers.
Named one of the world’s top 25 thinkers in local government by the LGIU in 2025.
- 500+ Not An MBA graduates
- Fonterra
- Woolworths
- Hosted 1,000 mayors at ALGA
- LGIU Top 25 thinkers, 2025
- ICMA, Florida
- NZ Herald
- Sky News
- Crown Law
- NZ Treasury
- Mayors’ School
- 40,000+ on LinkedIn
- 11,000+ subscribers
New this week
Latest · Friday 23 October
Watch out for squishies
A PSA about toxic toys and boundary-less relationships.
Welcome to another Friday Flurry - a behind-the-scenes peek at what I'm doing, thinking, and reading. This fortnight I rant about the latest toy craze and use it as a clumsy segue into a chat about boundaries. If you struggle to stand up for yourself, or are surrounded by yes-(wo)men, you'll want to read this one.
Squishy toys
Squishies. If you have a child, or you've had the misfortune of entering a 2 dollar shop lately, you'll have encountered these little bastards. They come in rubber cubes, PU dumplings, and foam butter sticks. They're soft, made for squeezing, and their primary appeal is they squish down, then slowly regain their shape. They tick all the boxes: collectible, cute, colourful, and cheap.
I thought slime was bad, but squishies are next-level. They break all the time - either they pop, or kids can't help but puncture them - which means their insides are splattered across the seats in my car, the carpet in my daughter's room, and god knows where else. I've tried banning them. It works for a week, until I find a floppy, exploded dumpling carcass in a school bag, or a mottled, decaying butter stick under the coffee table.
These little demons are toxic plagues on the environment and terrible for your health. They're a chemical nightmare, they fall apart in days (or minutes) and they don't decompose. For a few bucks, kids get some brief joy, then they're sent to landfill where they'll exist forever, or get incinerated. Kids get injured when exploding filling bursts in their eyeball, and some have choked on toxic fumes after heating them in the microwave. Ghastly.
These toys are beyond me. H, 11, had a friend for a playdate this week, and after listening to them excitedly discuss their favourite squish toys, I wound up exclaiming in exasperation: "THEY SHOULDN'T EXIST!" Her friend was derisive.
"Some people need them," she explained patiently, as though speaking to a moron, which to an 11 year old, I probably am. This stopped me in my tracks, and I was genuinely curious when I asked "What... for?"
"Stress," she told me, rolling her eyes.
If we live in a world where 11 year olds are convinced they need to manage their stress, we've fucked up. But I don't think that's it. I went down an internet rabbit hole (so you don't have to) and discovered squishies have been popular in Japan for decades, but burst into world-wide fad status after some intense TikTok marketing. Never blame psychology when it could just be advertising!
Anyway, speaking of things that morph and change shape...
Squishy relationships
My boundaries have been tested lately. I've worked hard (7 years of therapy and counting) to upskill on boundaries. If you're a people-pleaser (or a Kiwi, or a woman, or god forbid, all three), you might have had to do this, too. Life is much harder without safety gates around our values, sanity, and wellbeing.
Deciding what you will and won't tolerate, and choosing how you will respond to certain triggers requires two key things:
- To know yourself, your needs, and your values (a life's work) and
- The confidence to assert and protect those needs with others - even when it's uncomfortable.
The first part is hard, the second part is where the rubber really hits the road. Knowing ourselves is fabulous, but if we can't bring that to our relationships, it's all for naught. Like most traits and quirks, our boundaries truly come alive in relationships. The cult of individualism tells us we can self-improve, self-manage, and self-everything, but that's poppycock. It's only in connection to others we find out who we really are.
I still find this hard. One of my oldest coping strategies is to go to ground. I shrink from my friendships, stop going to things, and pull away with distance and reserve. This strategy is a bit like kinking the garden hose while the tap's still on - it stems the flow for a bit, but the drama continues to build. Taking a deep breath and communicating what I need, then acting on it, is the challenge.
The hardest bit with boundaries, like driving, or business, is the other people involved. No matter how good your boundaries are, if you're surrounded by the boundary-less, you're in trouble.
Boundary-less people can be very appealing. Without structure and integrity to hold them together, they're lovely and flexible. It feels easy to be around them, because they ooze and morph into whatever shape you need. They don't know who they are, or aren't solid enough to assert it, so they mirror you instead. These (artificial) bonds can feel rewarding and validating. Whether it's a staff member who never says no, or a friend who always agrees with you, who doesn't want to be around someone easy?
To learn more about squishy people - and what they cost you - upgrade your membership.
You'll get a Friday Flurry every fortnight, access to a paid tool library with strategy courses, templates, and guides, plus member-only events.
About Alicia McKay
I’m a former foster kid, teen mum, and high school dropout who talked my way into university at 17.
Since then I’ve worked with over 120 organisations and some of New Zealand and Australia’s most senior leaders, written three books, trained thousands of people in strategic skills, and led major strategy and change initiatives at places like Auckland Council and Crown Law.
These days I read, write, and teach. I read over 100 books a year, have written Wednesday Wisdom each week since 2018, and graduated 500+ leaders through Not An MBA.
From foster care to own boss: how a teen mum defied the odds. — NZ Herald, 2025
My motto
No buzzwords. | No bullshit.
“When the world feels like it’s being driven off a cliff, Alicia helps you grab the wheel.” Michael Sharpe, reader
Writing
I read widely, think deeply, and write plainly.
I've been reading and writing my way to sense since I was a kid. When I'm facing a tricky problem or the noise in my head is too loud, I pick up a book, go down a rabbit hole, and put it on the page. A few years ago, I realised this wasn't just a weird quirk, but one of the most valuable things I had to offer.
Strategy and writing are the same sort of job. Both of them start with a hunch or a question, both get messier before they make sense, and both make the world feel more manageable by the end. I bring the same skills to my essays as I do to my workshops: digging into context, asking curly questions, sorting through what matters, and deciding what to do with it.
My writing brings together my professional experience, bogan voice, and manic nerdery to put a complex world into plain English.
Wednesday Wisdom
A free weekly newsletter on strategy, systems, work, and society. Every Wednesday since 2018.
Friday Flurry
For paid members. A behind-the-scenes peek into what I’m reading, thinking about, and working on, every second Friday.
These are a drop of sanity and therapy for me on days when I am on edge. — Idil Kaplan
Your analysis always makes me think, while being really readable and direct. Thank you! — James Adams
You keep it real, there’s no BS. Every time I read one of your emails, I’m like ‘Yes!!!’ The topics you cover are interesting, relevant, and you get my mind cranking. — Sam Hope
Subscribe
Weekly ideas about strategy, systems, work, and society. Read by over 11,000 people.
An eight-week live online course for experienced leaders working in complex, changing systems. Learn the five skills of strategic leadership from You Don’t Need An MBA.
By the end, students:
- Respond more confidently to change and uncertainty.
- Set firmer boundaries around their time and energy.
- Make better, smarter decisions.
- Tackle systemic issues in their organisations.
- Lead more authentically and with greater passion.
More than 500 senior professionals have graduated from Not An MBA since 2021, from councils and government to construction, banking, FMCG, science, and tech.
Not An MBA shifted my thinking to be wider than me and my team, to think at an organisational level. I needed this course. I wish I had enrolled earlier. — Veronique Gibbons, Pinnacle Midland Health Network
Books
Three books on strategy, change, and leadership.
From Strategy to Action
You Don't Need An MBA
Local Legends