February 14, 2011
Sometimes the worst situations offer the best learning. In a gathering of colleagues recently we shared stories of some challenging consulting assignments. Yes, there were difficult clients and some harrowing stories, but each of my colleagues had reflected on their experiences, learned some lessons and allowed the learning to inform…
January 4, 2010
Quite a lot if this Newsweek article is to be believed. In September 2008 English singer Billy Bragg performed at something called the Big Busk. After posting the chords of the songs he would play on the Internet, he invited all comers to bring their guitars. Some 3,000 did, strumming…
December 29, 2009
It’s that time of the year again when newspapers do their end of year round up and we review the past year and hope for a better one next year. I’ve never been one for making new year resolutions preferring to look at every day as the beginning of a…
November 17, 2009
Interesting study over at Technology Review When it comes to creativity, it’s easy to imagine that more is better. Creativity lies at the heart of science. It solves problems and drives innovation. Then there’s the small matter of art and literature. Humanity’s self expression and aesthetic explorations are born of…
November 13, 2009
Why are fairytales are so compelling? Adam Phillips in the Guardian writes If genius, as Sartre said, is the word we use for people who get themselves out of impossible situations, what is the word for people who find themselves in impossible situations, or even seek them out? And why…
November 4, 2009
From the School of Life Money, Aristotle felt, needed not one virtue, as one might expect, but two. The virtue of Generosity deals with every day amounts. It tells us it is mean not to tip and spendthrift to buy shoes we will never wear. The virtue of Magnificence (as…
November 4, 2009
A very simple exercise designed to get a group of currently under-employed professionals to identify their current skill set generated a very interesting finding today. The first part of the exercise, conducted in private, yielded a skill set readily identifiable as a list of job related attributes – capacity to…
October 21, 2009
I listened to New York Times writer Barbara Ehrenreich speak at Barnes and Noble last week – her new book Bright Sided has just been published and it’s a damming indictment of the cult of the positive that bedevils America. She spoke with wit and elegance about her diagnosis of…
October 12, 2009
Following on from my previous post – here’s a short video about Accord Advisory Group’s Working Knowledge Initiative in New York – it starts on 3 November.
September 23, 2009
In this TED talk Philosopher Alain de Botton invites us to examine our fixed notions of success and failure and suggests that snobbery may play a part in our enjoyment (or lack thereof) of our work. It’s a useful and interesting perspective on the current un/employment crisis. The comments stream…
