Champion of better capitalism
The current Brexit crisis is grave and it also has dangerous side-effects. While the parliamentary fever rages other maladies are getting neglected in the UK. These are problems that Charles Handy once compared with slowly heating a frog in water. The frog doesn’t recognise, until … Continue readingThe social care crisis deepens
It becomes ever clearer that both major parties in the UK are irreconcilably split on Brexit. It is the worst peacetime political crisis of for over a century. What is the answer? It is to move , for a time, beyond party politics, … Continue readingBrexit and resignations
So (per this Guardian article) in the year of the NHS’ 70th birthday £20bn will be added to budgets. At the same time spending per head on prevention continues its decline. Programs tackling smoking, poor diet and alcohol address will have fallen by 23.5% … Continue readingGiving with one hand…
Many years ago, I worked in paper manufacturing. I vividly remember the day I was told that we, as 70 managers, had the opportunity to buy the business. But then I discovered that it had all been done in a ‘them-and-us’ way. A colleague … Continue readingEmployee ownership
I started my business career in engineering and spent 15 years in manufacturing. I watched the huge gains in investment and jobs that came from total quality management, lean manufacturing and partnerships with Honda, Nissan and Toyota. And now this wealth creation gem faces … Continue readingThe coming destruction of the UK car industry
I never expected to hear Conservative Ministers like Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt telling us in the UK to ignore concerns of major manufacturing and engineering businesses who are the cornerstone of our economy. Johnson and Hunt haven’t actually said ‘we don’t need hi-tech … Continue readingLeading Conservatives dismiss the importance of modern manufacturing
What are we to make of Labour’s new report entitled Financing Investment? As it happens, the report came out on the same day as I joined Professor John Kay, Sir Anthony Seldon and others at a PARC Trinity House event to discuss ‘Productivity – what … Continue readingProductivity: what is the problem and how to fix it?
Since the Lord Mayor’s Mansion House debate I have been reading and thinking about trust and the City of London. This has strengthened my feeling that the real issues extend beyond retail mis-selling, or getting boards to focus on culture. The elephant in the room … Continue readingThe part of the financial services industry we could usefully do without
I’m in Singapore, working with Stewardship Asia, that impressive organisation with which Tomorrow’s Company has been proud to be a Research Partner for nearly five years. Gathered in the same hotel that will, I understand, next week be hosting the Korean summit were 200 … Continue readingStewardship in disruptive times
We need to change the rules as well as promoting individual codes of behavior ‘It’s about character as well as competence’. These words of Caroline Silver, chair of PZ Cussons, and an experienced investment banker, summed up for me the debate we had this … Continue readingReflections on the Mansion House Trust debate