Opinion pieces by leaders and managers
Leaders need to understand the components of a great culture for the digital age – and the levers for achieving change For many leaders, culture is one of the most nebulous concepts in business. It’s talked about constantly and blamed for lots of problems, but rarely seems well understood. Yet we know it’s powerful: when … Read more
There’s an organizational competency which is rarely discussed but much needed READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION Similar to many of you, I’ve been thinking a lot about hope in our personal lives. Sometimes hope feels fleeting – an emotion that I can’t sustain for very long by myself. At other times, it feels as real … Read more
READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION Complex challenges demand a dynamic balancing act Japan has the most hospital beds per head in the world: nearly five times as many as the US. It has had a relatively low number of Covid-19 cases: a total around 25,000 at the time of writing, compared to 4 million and … Read more
READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION Ben Walker reviews the remarkable collection of essays gets that right For a guy who has spent much of his working life on a newsdesk, I’ve had my fair share of workplace accidents. I’ve cut myself with a scalpel when mounting artwork. I’ve fallen over a sandwich board while entertaining … Read more
READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION Around the world, millions of consumers have been spending months in confinement, isolation and quarantine. Lockdown has narrowed our horizons dramatically – and now, consumers are craving satisfying sensory experiences like never before. As restrictions are tentatively lifted and people re-emerge, marketers should aim to create memorable, positive experiences, with … Read more
Arianna Huffington grasped empathy before many leaders even talked about it Sometimes it is easier to define a concept by the things that it is not. Empathy, Arianna Huffington realized, is not “quaint behaviour to be trotted out during intermittent holiday visits to the food bank”. Her epiphany came during a conversation with the late … Read more
A sense of exceptionalism can be deadly Fareed Zakaria had it right. The host of CNN’s Global Public Square gave his take on the Covid-19 response in late September 2020, considering why some countries have handled the pandemic well, others poorly, and what we can learn. He spoke of a global gulf. East Asia and … Read more
READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION A small improvement in safety at work would have a huge impact – and culture is key Around the world, 2.78 million people died last year due to work accidents or work-related ill-health. It’s a shocking, unacceptable number. But it’s also hard to really get our heads around. To break … Read more
READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION Airlines hold their customers’ lives in their hands and culture is critical to keeping them safe Safety, compliance and reliability are at the heart of my work and underpin everything that United Airlines does. Whether it’s one aircraft or 1,000, safety is our number one concern, for both our passengers … Read more
READ THE FULL GRAPHIC VERSION Take a leap Too much so-called innovation is dressed-up incrementalism: a series of entirely predictable changes that are minimalist, gradualist and build on what is already there. I prefer to use a word beloved of Charles Darwin. When discussing trends in biological evolution, he talked about the opposite of incrementalism … Read more