Many of you know, thanks to LinkedIn’s algorithms, that I have now been an independent consultant for four years. In fact, a number have written their congratulations. It does indeed feel like a time to both celebrate and to reflect. So here are some thoughts as well as some tips on the subject. When you first tell people that you are going independent you tend to get a variety of responses....
Read MoreWorking long hours seems to be the norm. Lately we heard from the CEO who was confronted by his daughter with a list of all the important occasions in her life that he’d missed due to work commitments. We also heard of the extraordinary culture of long hours at Google, including a four-hour conference call every Sunday to “prepare” for the Monday morning meeting. Recently I came across an ess...
Read MoreIllusory superiority is the cognitive bias that makes many of us feel that we are better than other people. There are, for instance, more drivers who rate their driving as being above average than there are drivers. It’s sometimes called the Lake Wobegon effect after the fictional town where, in Garrison Keller’s immortal words: "…all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, an...
Read MoreOne of the most extraordinary aspects of modern life is just how much of our attention is dominated by electronic screens. Be it smart phones, TVs, tablets or desktop computers, these devices play a disproportionate amount of time in our lives. We use them for working, socialising, learning and for entertainment; in fact, such is the ubiquity of these screens that working, socialising, learning...
Read MoreOnce every few weeks, or so it seems, there’s another article in the newspaper about sleep. Each new article, based on the latest (scientific or otherwise) survey tells us whether we should be getting more sleep, or less sleep; offers advice on getting better sleep, or how to live with less sleep. Sleep is one of those subjects that, despite years of human progress, we’re not entirely comfo...
Read MoreI recently relooked at some predictions I made at the start of the year. I wrote that I thought that we’d start to see internal communications focus less on the concept of employee engagement and more on employee well-being. It seemed to me to be rather pointless trying to interest and engage people in strategy and values if they were far too stressed and exhausted to care. Six months after I mad...
Read MoreThere’s nothing quite like a dose of fresh sea air to clear the mind. Even better when it’s a bracing East Coast breeze mixed with a Siberian blast. Add in a group of 200 writers, thinkers, and general clever clogs and the resultant mixture is a heady cocktail. I was fortunate enough to be part of this year’s Names not Numbers crowd that gathered in Aldeburgh. For three days we chatte...
Read MoreInterest in the Scottish referendum is finally beginning to pick up south of the border. Previously it seemed that many in the South saw it as a little local difficulty in a far off country of which they knew little. Now, it seems, many are beginning to realise that a “Yes” vote will have far-reaching consequences outside Scotland. Like many change programmes, it’s not until it reaches ...
Read More
