Have you noticed how often the dragons of Dragons’ Den disagree over what is and what isn’t a viable business proposition? Sometimes to the point of aggressive and entertaining argument. This leads me to the unequivocal conclusion that those esteemed business gurus must be wrong – and completely wrong – at least some of the…
Working with a client recently I was reminded of Aesop and his fable about the Tortoise and Eagle. The tortoise wants to fly and gets the Eagle to take her aloft… needless to say it all goes wrong. The point is that many of us, entrepreneurs included, have a bit of the tortoise in us…
Stephen Hawking has an impressive brain. He regards it as a computer. Now there is room for doubt here, but he seems to imply that he – i.e. his sense of identity, existence, consciousness, whatever – derives from his brain; that he is his brain. Now I don’t know what happens when we die –…
Half listening to the British Airways safety announcement for the umpteenth time on the London-Edinburgh flight, the penny dropped: How often do we try – metaphorically speaking of course – to put other people’s oxygen masks on before our own? How often are we gung-ho about solving someone else’s problem before we’ve put our own house…
Andreas Scholl, the great German counter-tenor has a profound insight on learning: “I have this phrase which sums up the process: Imitation, Contemplation, Emancipation. You begin by imitating, you observe yourself doing the action and then you can move on and become free.” This really resonates with my experience but I only realised it…
By way of explanation, Foolery is not meant to carry just the derogatory sense associated with the word fool. In fact I quite like the double-edged, paradox of the wise fool – the person with little intellectual baggage but plenty of sense. With the temerity to ask stupid questions that have surprising answers. The person…
There’s been a lot of interest in Mindfulness recently – particularly in a work context. In our over-active, western business culture, the focus is on how to do it and what benefits it will bring. Well the benefits are potentially huge, depending on what benefit you are seeking. And practising Mindfulness is simplicity itself, but…
Most of the entrepreneurs and business leaders I’ve met have an irresistible urge to lower their prices when the going gets tough. Now that might work for commodities: paper clips, sugar and cement for example, but not many of us operate in these markets. When the product or service has a quality element to…
Of the Top 5 Regrets of the Dying, number 2 (coming from every male patient) is… “I WISH I HADN’T WORKED SO HARD” Enough said?
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity” – General Patton “If you give people freedom, they will amaze you… all you need do is give them a little infrastructure and a lot of room to change the world” – Laszlo Bock, Google…