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For over 20 years I’ve played a small and insignificant part in the movement towards better, more responsible, corporations. I’ve joined organisations, been to countless events, and attended endless debates where the same issues are parried back and forth by people violently agreeing with each other. A whole eco-system of consult...

It would be wrong to say that I’ve fallen out of love with platitudinous exhortations to personal betterment. I always found those self-improvement statements of being the best version of me, awakening the giant within, and pushing yourself to the summit to all be rather fatuous. If “excellence is not a destination; it’s a cont...

Every now and then you get an email that cheers you up. I had one recently from a mate which simply asked if I fancied joining him on a day out for a walk in the country. He hadn’t got any work that day and he thought a bit of a ramble would do the world of good. And so it turned out to be. A day gently strolling through fields and...

How often do you think about money? Now I’ve raised it, many of you will start singing to yourself. Maybe it’ll be Money makes the world go round from Cabaret; or a bit of Pink Floyd, or Abba, or Dire Straits, or perhaps, like the CEO of Sainsbury’s when he thought he was off camera, you’ll sing We’re in the money from 42nd...

“May you live in interesting times”, says the famous curse.  The pace of social, political, technological and environmental change means that we live in a VUCA world.  Every sector of activity is facing disruption.  And added to these global challenges comes Brexit, a battle that is far from over. What many forget is that any ...

It is curious that nowadays when asked “how are you?”, the fashionable answers are “good” and “busy”. Variants include “good but busy”.  For the word good I think we can all blame Friends, but for busy we have to blame ourselves and, by extension, society at large. We have become a civilization of doers. We ...

There are many things that I can be accused of but being a dedicated follower of fashion is not one of them.  My hairstyle, for instance, is essentially unchanged since the late 60s.  And recently I was going through some family photographs with my grown-up daughter when we came across a photograph of me taken 15 years ago. There I...

There’s nothing like a good crisis to bring people together.  At times of catastrophe and urgency, it gladdens the heart to see society embracing its shared humanity as it fights for the last hand sanitiser in the supermarket. Self first, family second, and neighbours and everyone else third.  Ser...

What is the proper way to react to the current situation?  Ought we try and make the best of it by carrying on regardless?  Should we panic or volunteer, write a novel or learn the piano? Is it ok to feel scared and must we blame others? And is work more important than family? And talking of family,...

A crisis is, by definition, not business as usual.   It requires different ways of thinking, acting, and behaving.  Everyone knows this, but not everyone makes the necessary shift.  One of the most consistent things I’ve heard in recent days is how manic people are, how frantic everythin...