In defiance of mindfulness: Instead of “finding yourself”, improve your circumstances April 29, 2016 Mindfulness is so big these days that someone has even made an attempt at calculating its impact on this country’s GDP. I, however, have not seen anyone to whom mindfulness has made any substantial difference. In fact, all the confused people that I know regularly meditate and go on yoga retreats. Some even teach at [...]
Google Ventures’ new silver bullet for team work – and how you can use it in your firm April 29, 2016 How do the best teams in the world achieve so much? What’s it like being part of a lead team at Google or Uber? Google Ventures Design partner Jake Knapp has spent years working out what makes a team the most effective and productive it can be. The result is his new book Sprint, co-authored with [...]
International Girls in ICT day: What lego can tell us about gender equality April 28, 2016 Let’s hear it for Lego. Long criticised for introducing gender stereotypical brick sets, the Danish company unveiled three new Lego science figures last year: a palaeontologist, an astronomer and a chemist. The surprise? All three scientists were female. The plastic brick has suddenly become a symbol of gender equality. It comes at the right time: [...]
Wisdom of the crowd? Why prediction platforms could be big for business April 28, 2016 How can the C-suite be sure it’s making a good decision? It’s a difficult question. Corporate history is filled with examples of cognitive dissonance, groupthink and other destructive management biases. Having a platform through which staff could offer their own forecast on an event may give bosses more confidence to pursue a certain course of action. [...]
Bonuses not bumper enough for young bankers April 28, 2016 Young professionals are set to turn their back on the financial sector as bonuses fail to live up to their high expectations in the era of bonus caps, leaving the industry at risk of a skills shortage. The Morgan McKinley Bonus Survey released today reveals that a staggering 83 per cent of financial sector workers [...]
Management consultancies could keep women in sector with innovative and flexible ways of working April 28, 2016 Management consultancies have a "huge opportunity" to attract back women who have left the industry, but must fully embrace more innovative and flexible ways of working, according to a new study. A huge pool of talent is being lost in the consulting sector, as women who leave have on average eight years worth of experience, [...]
Baroness Altmann tells MPs that UK pension system not as unfair as critics say April 27, 2016 The pensions minister has today told MPs that the UK's pensions system is not as unfair to younger generation as some critics have said it is. Speaking in front of the Work and Pensions Committee today, Baroness Ros Altmann cast doubt on the idea that today's retirees are living a life of luxury to the detriment [...]
Forget vacuums and hand dryers: The Dyson product might just blow away a whole industry April 27, 2016 It's been four years and £50m in the making, but Dyson's new product just blew in: this time, entrepreneur James Dyson is taking on the beauty market. Yes, fresh from such innovations as the world's first self-righting vacuum cleaner, the company has decided to tackle something altogether more personal: the hairdryer. And naturally, given the company's [...]
Why you need to be far more careful when making notes April 27, 2016 Of all the information your colleagues shared with you yesterday, how much do you remember? What happens to the rest? There is a limit to what we can take in. Our brains cannot store, let alone process, all the facts that cross our path on an average working day. If the information is in a document [...]
Blue chip bosses are a bunch of bean counters, number crunchers, and spreadsheet gurus April 27, 2016 What's the best gift you can get your boss? New research released today would suggest a calculator or an "I heart spreadsheets" mug. A study by specialist recruiter Robert Half found that nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of chief executives at FTSE 100 firms are chartered accountants, while more than half (55 per cent) have a background [...]