Swap your office’s dominance dynamics for cognitive diversity September 12, 2019 “Meetings predict terrible outcomes even more powerfully than smoking predicts cancer.” This is the verdict of Leigh Thompson, a world expert on group dynamics. Thompson became interested in human relationships as a teenager when she witnessed her parents going through a painful divorce. She almost became a marriage guidance counsellor, but settled for academia instead. [...]
The problems caused by superstar CEOs September 12, 2019 Earlier this year, a new chapter unfurled in the sad saga of former automotive industry leader Carlos Ghosn, when Japanese prosecutors arrested the embattled former chairman of Nissan and Renault for the fourth time since November 2018. Ghosn has been under house arrest since April, awaiting trial. He faces charges that he understated his income [...]
Vestager’s re-hire leaves the UK on the back foot September 11, 2019 Apple last night launched its latest shiny thing to come out of Cupertino, the iPhone 11 Pro, at its now-to-be-expected “high achiever” price tag. The company has forged a reputation of late for putting its hardware products further out of reach of the masses, while placing its services at the more affordable end of the [...]
Service unavailable: Don’t let an outage break trust in your business September 11, 2019 Across the tech industry, there is a crisis of trust that is centred around how companies handle data – from network provider Cloudfare’s outage in July that saw a vast number of websites around the globe go down, to the big four tech firms facing antitrust hearings in the US. Recent research by Veeam highlights that [...]
DEBATE: Has John Bercow done more harm than good as House of Commons speaker? September 11, 2019 Has John Bercow done more harm than good as House of Commons speaker? Lauren McEvatt, managing director at Morpeth Consulting, says YES. John Bercow, with his regular abuses of convention and obvious partisanship, has presided over a gross politicisation of the formerly independent nature of the speaker of the House of Commons. A role which [...]
The anti-Boris establishment has learnt the wrong lesson from the rise of Nazism September 11, 2019 Never ones to shy away from controversy, Britain’s venerable BBC has recently decided to tantalise viewers of its new documentary, Rise of the Nazis, with the suggestion that something similarly awry might be occurring in the UK today. The BBC’s own media centre touts the contemporary relevance of the programme as being “a timely look [...]
Businesses can lead the digital upskilling revolution from their own backyards September 11, 2019 There is much that business is uncertain about at present, but not the accelerating pace of automation, disruption, and the need to improve digital skills. Barely a week goes by without the publication of new research on the rise of the robots. Recent PwC analysis, for example, predicts that 30 per cent of jobs are [...]
Watch out fiscal conservatives – the mood has shifted and the spending taps are on September 11, 2019 The Autumn Spending Review announced by the chancellor Sajid Javid barely raised a ripple last week. Yet the increase planned in 2020/21 for what the Treasury calls “day-to-day departmental spending” is the highest for 15 years, no less than 4.1 per cent in real terms. This spending pays the running costs of public services, the [...]
Just what the doctor ordered: The tech that is freeing NHS staff from pagers, landlines and WhatsApp September 10, 2019 When Lydia Yarlott started working as a junior doctor in 2015, she was handed a pager. With this retro piece of technology, she was expected to communicate with her colleagues in the hospital. For anyone unfamiliar with (or too young to know) how a pager works, the device beeps when someone wants to contact you, [...]
Debate: With its valuation in question, is WeWork’s IPO really a good idea? September 10, 2019 With its valuation in question, is WeWork’s IPO really a good idea? Yes – Andrew Boyle is founder and chief executive of LGB & Co. WeWork’s objectives of establishing a dominant market position and global brand demand substantial funding, so an IPO makes sense from the firm’s perspective. For investors, it offers a chance to [...]