One outcome of the pandemic lockdowns is the realisation that much office work can be done from home. Client after client is telling me, often with considerable surprise, that they had never realised how little attendance at the place of work was really necessary. It’s not a new trend and it doesn’t only apply to…
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While D Trump is sarcastically pouring Dettol into his family and friends to cure them of coronavirus we should consider the more serious question of how the disease is changing the power, definition and role of boss. One of the signs of a good boss is that s/he understands when to step aside and let…
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We trust people who we think have a good record of doing the right thing and getting the right results. Over the last 50 years the length of that record has shortened from a generation – roughly 25 years – to, well, you guess. Perhaps one year, perhaps less. The absolute figures don’t matter. It’s…
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Everyone is at a different stage of lockdown now. Nobody is seriously coming out of it, not even Wuhan. There are experiments taking place to see if the easing of lockdown precipitates a few more cases or a whole new wave of the disease. Getting economies back to work is crucial for jobs and livelihoods.…
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Sailing ships from time to time run into an area bereft of wind, so they stop moving forward and sit on the calm – or not so calm – waters. They are in the doldrums. Technically, they are in an equatorial region of the Atlantic Ocean with calms, sudden storms, and light unpredictable winds. The…
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It’s when the sea gets choppy that you need to be near someone who understands storms. Your mentor-coach should have prepared you for a rough ride. S/he may not have anticipated quite the violence that coronavirus is doing. You need seven things to hang on to while this storm is raging. First, protection. That consists…
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“I’m sorry this letter is so long. I didn’t have time to make it shorter.” Fyodor Dostoevsky. Often regarded as a bit of a joke, Dostoevsky meant it completely seriously. He was commenting on the zillions of words then yet to be written as well as those already consigned to history. So much long-winded, repetitious…
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To work through day and night to save a life, to battle with the virus till it’s gone, to risk your own sweet life to keep a child’s, to sweat in clothing far too hot to don. To help an old man die without his spouse, To help a medic cope with mind despair, To…
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I think everyone now knows the wicked secret of coronavirus. It offers a choice between life and prosperity. You can’t have both. You can be poor and alive or wealthy and dead. You may think this is an exaggeration. It is true that more poor people will die from the virus. Rich people will have…
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If coronavirus tells us anything it is about how desperately we need to keep our world sustainable. That applies to the planet, to the life processes we have instigated, to the mechanical aids we rely on and to the social systems we have developed. In the last decade we have learnt – and are still…
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