We’re Dorian Minors and Matthew Addison‑Black. Black Cortex is where
leadership science meets operational grit to change how teams decide,
act and hold themselves accountable.
Evidence you can see in the calendar, the choices, and the culture.
Decision‑led leadership. No theatre.
We help leaders and teams think more clearly, decide faster, and execute
with less friction. Across academic research and frontline command, we’ve
seen the same failure modes: elegant frameworks that don’t change behaviour,
and heroic leaders who burn out the team. Black Cortex combines behavioural
science, operational experience, and hard metrics to turn leadership theory
into durable practice.
Most leadership, culture-change, and coaching programmes lean heavily on one of
two things:
A bustle of optimistic phraseology and a logo cloud.
A charismatic “method” you’re asked to take on faith.
But lore isn’t leverage and buzzwords don’t make you better. If you want to
know which programmes work, ask the question “how do you measure impact?”
If they can’t answer, then they can’t deliver. We can.
Who we are
Two Associate Professors at the globally renowned leadership institution, RMA
Sandhurst:
Dr Dorian Minors: brain scientist, clinician, and leaderhip educator.
From the University of Cambridge and the Judge Business School to Unilever
companies, Sainsbury’s and the Fashion pact, I turn sound science into tools
teams actually use.
Matthew Addison‑Black: veteran officer, coach, and moral psychologist.
From the Royal Gurkha Rifles and counter-terrorism teams in Singapore to
philosophy seminars and fearless coaching rooms, he turns pressure into
clarity and adversity into growth.
Two backgrounds, two specialities, one mission—cut the leadership theatre and
deliver measurable leadership excellence. Scholarship into wisdom. It really
shouldn’t be that difficult.
What we do for you
We change how your top team thinks and operates:
Executive counsel: On‑call support for hard choices, cleaner escalations and clear communication from the top.
Leadership intervention: Evidence‑based assessment, targeted coaching and focused workshops to lift leadership effectiveness fast.
Culture build: Shape norms and rituals that make resilience and adaptability routine — aligned from teams to the board.
Simulations & rehearsals: Scenario drills and incident run‑throughs so teams stay calm, coordinate and recover fast.
Multidisciplinary delivery: In‑person work, digital content and on‑the‑job practice — whatever reaches your people and sticks.
Sustained performance: Simple feedback loops and clear ownership so improvements endure without external dependency.
How we work
Assess: short, sharp diagnosis of leadership, culture and pressure points.
Align: set the intent, agree the rules, and bring People/HR in from day one.
Build: targeted interventions and practice that change day‑to‑day behaviour.
Embed: light‑touch reviews and course‑correction to keep gains in place.
We partner with People leaders, not work around them. Psychological safety, fair process and clear communication are built into how we work. Outcomes matter; so does how people experience the change.
Practicalities
Start with a short diagnostic sprint.
We take on select work where sponsorship and stakes are real.
Tell us a bit about what you want to do, and I'll see if we think we can help.
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Our Tools
Resources for leaders
We build tools to help leaders understand and improve their organizations.
Neurotypica
An experimental guide to brain and behaviour. Learn how a brain scientist thinks about our patterns of thinking and acting, and apply these insights to understand your people better.
One time I was out drinking with some Swedish folks and they told me
about the word <em>killgissa</em>. It means something like ‘man-guessing’,
referring to when you sound like you know what you’re talking about but
you’re actually just guessing. I reckon AI hallucination is just
man-guessing, but on your behalf. To explain, I first have to convince you
that human reason isn’t actually that reasonable. With any luck it’ll make
you better at managing your own processes of reason <em>and</em> your AIs. Let’s
see.
I needed to do a little refresher on motivation for another audience, so I’m
going to subject you to it as well. It’s a messy subject, but at a high
level, there are some interesting frameworks for understanding what makes
people do things. More importantly, what I’ll show you is that motivational
psychology is no different to <em>any</em> psychology. Anything that speaks to how
we think and behave speaks to our motivations. So rather than teach you
motivation theories, let me teach you a framework which will help you apply
whatever theories you prefer to the motivation of people.
I wrote a series of papers on practical ethics. I didn’t really like those
articles. It <em>did</em>, hoever, inspire me to write a 35-page treatise on the
behavioural science of ethical behaviour. There’s no way you’re going to want
to read that, so I made this instead. It’s not actually heaps shorter, but
it’s hopefully a bit more readable. Plus, if you like how the water looks, I
assure you, it’s plenty deep.
