‘Take more risks’ you hear your mentors and advisers plead. They are right. In today’s world of unremitting change only brave hearts win the battles of innovation and reap the prizes of achievement. ‘Take more risks’ is not only sound advice, it is inevitable. Almost everything you do today is riskier than it would have…
Read more
Beware when industry and trade bodies take it upon themselves to police their own behaviour. It won’t work. If they didn’t do it because it was the right thing to do why would they start when they have appointed an organisation made up of themselves to do it for them? The Banking Standards Board was…
Read more
Each of us knows how the consequences of negative events in our childhood persist throughout life. We may even use our history as a prop for when things go wrong for which we do not wish to take the blame. We hopefully forgive but we never forget. Countries, too, can be haunted by their past.…
Read more
When a man and a woman commit themselves to a lifelong relationship of love and fidelity we describe them as ‘engaged’. When an army hurls its firepower against its opponents we say it has engaged the enemy. When someone is charming, perhaps with a winsome smile and the gift of the gab, we call them…
Read more
In the same way that the silverback gorilla in the wild is the centre of his troop’s attention – taking decisions, driving his family’s behaviour and ensuring every member is subordinate to him – so it sometimes is in the corporate jungle. The Head Honcho is usually easily identifiable – the person who has the…
Read more
“There is no neutrality in faith; one is either for or against.” So said the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore in a recent statement advising Catholics not to attend a performance of Madonna when she came to the country recently. Leaving aside the question of whether such advice is prudent or wise, let us look at…
Read more
You can tell when people are getting into trouble these days. From Bishops to Bankers they send out strident messages telling others to do the right thing. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has just done this in style. I quote from Financial Times of 25th February 2016: The International Monetary Fund has urged the world’s…
Read more
The prospect of Donald Trump getting the Republican nomination for the forthcoming United States elections is about as frightening as it gets. Being half American I think I can comment as freely about their politics as I do about Britain’s or indeed anywhere else’s. I love both my countries of origin as well as the…
Read more
Samsung, Sony, Huawei, Apple, Microsoft (the old Nokia brand) and others are battling it out in what they see as a single market. Not, of course, geographically but technologically. I think they are getting it wrong. Why? Because the smartphone is increasing its versatility for those who want rather primitive communications and cartloads of entertainment…
Read more
What do we do when we are not working? “Enjoy life” is the most common answer. It poses the next question “How?” You will have read about the rapid progress robots are making, about the driverless car, for example. Think of this: Ten percent of the jobs in America involve driving a car. Quite soon…
Read more