Everyone wants power. Control of other people, of resources, of night and day. They now say that Canute wasn’t trying to stop the tide coming in, merely demonstrating to his citizens that he didn’t have the power to do so. Interesting that the story morphed into one of an apparent demonstration of power when, in…
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Work consists of the organisation you work for, your department / unit, your boss(es), things you have to do because the job description says so, things you’d like to do because they interest you, people you work with and people who work for you. If you hate any of these things you risk being unhappy.…
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Politics, it used to be said, is the Art of the Possible. I never quite knew what it meant, something along the lines of ‘politicians have rather limited power’, I think. That would certainly justify it today. The political world is full of eminent people who know – at least vaguely – what is going…
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The two contenders for the role of Prime Minister in the UK have now had most of their self-promoting rallies and the free television time allotted to demonstrate their wares. Martin Wolf, in yet another lucid piece in the Financial Times, has written the saddest article I have read about Britain in my 87 years.…
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Over the last one thousand years – longer, if you like, but reasonably a thousand – a Treaty was cobbled together. Its creation was a complex, onerous task, one that involved disagreements, fights, wars, one that counted bloodshed among its process and tears in its making. Trial and error were its parents, hope and fear…
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Every business has Problems; every day of your life there are Problems. Some are little, some big, some insoluble. For many, problem solving is fun. It can even become an obsession. Then the problem solver starts first looking for, and then creating, problems. In extreme cases life becomes excessively problem solving. But truthfully, are there…
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Do you take risks in your business life? Would you define them as gambles or well-thought-out judgments? Do you expect more than 50% of your risks to pay off? Does your score so far support that view? Can you remember when you didn’t take a risk but now think you should have done? These are…
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In his 03Jul19 Financial Times article “Liberalism will endure but must be renewed”, Martin Wolf describes, with mind wrenching accuracy, the choices to be made if Mr Putin’s dismissal of liberalism is to be satisfactorily answered. He relates the needs to who we are now and what we must do in a society whose world…
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Tyranny comes in various forms. Political, social, financial, religious, emotional, all these and more are capable of becoming tyrannical. Before aircraft, distance was tyrannical, before anaesthetic, pain, before wireless, communication. Today’s No 1 tyranny is technology. How can I say that when technology has brought us such benefits? I am only alive today because of…
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Lack of good leaders is not just an American or British disease. Nor is it only the fault of those who would lead. Leaders need followers, peace-loving people who understand the need for authority. But the followers have discovered Democracy. Now the voters, and that includes those who cannot yet vote but rightly think they…
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