Who wouldn’t want to be a CEO. It’s a role that comes laden with extras: status, authority, power and money. And for those at the very top, there’s the chauffeur-driven car, and even perhaps a private jet whisking you between Davos and some other gathering of the great and good. Not only does the job provide recognition o...
As the Euro referendum debate hots up, both sides are in full storytelling mode. And this means storytelling in both senses of the phrase: that of offering compelling visions of an In/Out future, and telling stories of the wild, exaggerated, porky-pie variety. Many people, including seasoned campaigners and commentators...
How to change Executive Pay How to change executive pay? These words are, frankly, less of statement preceding a solution than a plaintive cry. We have arrived at a point where pretty much everyone agrees that there is a problem. However, it’s a bit like London house prices where everyone recognises the issue but no one is...
In the good old days one could usually rely on August to provide a steady stream of seasonal silly stories. The long, hot month served up nothing but ephemeral flotsam and jetsam which could happily be ignored. One could set aside newspapers for a few weeks in the sure knowledge that nothing of significance would settle on the idle...
Summer is over, annual leave has ended, Autumn is upon us, and it’s back to work. Despite the summer break it is all too easy to settle back into the same old routine and roll downhill to Christmas. All those dreams and ambitions of the summer, the wistful feelings of another way of living, all land with a bump when real life comes...
We are now living in a post-truth world, apparently. Recent political events have led some to conjecture that truth is passé, that facts are debatable, and that fake news is to blame. Some of this analysis comes from people genuinely concerned by how public discourse has become fact-lite, but the rest seemingly comes from those st...
Regular reader(s) of this blog will know that I find work fascinating. Like Jerome K Jerome, I can look at it for hours. And for a while I’ve been interested in how we organise ourselves to jointly create (*) goods and services that provide a value for society. It has always seemed to me that, given the opportunity, in most case...
May you live in interesting times, says the famous Chinese curse. Well, it certainly feels as if we’re all cursed at the moment. Social, political, and economic turmoil, coupled with growing environmental issues, are all combining to such an extent that we’re seemingly suffering from corporate discombobulation. Every day ther...
I used to think that I was good at change; after all, I coach people and organisations on embracing change and even call myself a change agent. But, as Bob Dylan said, things have changed. And I don’t think I’m alone in finding it all rather wearisome. I sense that one of the chief outcomes of the political, social, environ...
As cheesy romcoms go, You’ve got mail is on most lists. We all remember the visceral excitement of getting our first emails: the sense of communion, and of being part of a brave new digital world. 20 years later and perhaps we have hit peak email. Few work-related issues seem to stress people out more than the size o...
