Champion of better capitalism
What is corporate responsibility? Try answering this question and you enter an Alice-through-the-Looking-Glass world where nothing is what is seems. A few years ago – BAE Systems was criticised because it said it was working on ‘environmentally friendly’ munitions, including lead free bullets. Its spokesman … Continue readingWhat is corporate responsibility and how can I identify it?
Last week I heard our Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, say ‘We need to change our politics’ and ‘I am going to change Britain’. Sunak is not the first political leader to suggest that we need to change our politics. His words took me back to … Continue readingWe need change that will stick. That’s what business should be telling government
Let me take you back in time. The year is 1983. For four years I have been working as a manager in one of Europe’s largest paper manufacturing plants. I have done a stint running the site’s hardboard mill and have now been promoted to … Continue readingInstead of compelling people to work in the office ask: is this office a compelling place to work?
Standing at a lectern embellished with the words ‘LONG-TERM DECISIONS FOR A BRIGHTER FUTURE’ our Prime Minister announced, without irony, that he was pushing back by five years his government’s commitment to stop the sale of diesel and petrol cars by 2030. He was also relaxing the … Continue readingLong term decisions for a brighter future? Yes Prime Minister, here are 12 suggestions to start with.
The front cover of the most recent edition of Private Eye has an infant school pupil saying to the Prime Minister ’Everything is collapsing and we aren’t learning any lessons’. Democratic political systems have many merits. Learning – and then applying – lessons from experience … Continue readingEverything is collapsing and we aren’t learning any lessons
I landed in Barcelona at around 10.30 in the morning. Half an hour later the ground under my feet suddenly seemed uneven. Why such a rough floor in such a modern airport? It turned out that the roughness was not in the floor I was … Continue readingAre you connected with the soul of your company?
A virtual garden. A clothing company for pets. A smart toothbrush that monitors your oral health as you use it. A multi-purpose bedside lamp/charging point/ alarm/ Bluetooth speaker. An app designed to help people in the healthy management of their nutrition, their stock control and … Continue readingDiscovering and nurturing tomorrow’s wealth creators
The tragedy of lives lost in Greece reminds us more than ever of the need to find safe routes for migration. This is a problem that all of us need to confront, whether we are individual or corporate citizens. And all of us includes businesses … Continue readingAsylum – is business playing its part?
I experienced a nasty discordant sound last month on hearing two pieces of news. First I learned from some of the world’s leading scientists who formed The Earth Commission that: Human activity has pushed the world into the danger zone in seven out of eight … Continue readingMemo to the chair: unhappy about ticking those ESG boxes? Then lead from the front
I was standing in the coffee queue at the University of East Anglia, in the break during the closing conference for our first-year business students. I turned to the student in front of me and asked if she had been at the session. “No” she … Continue readingCreativity – a basic requirement for business students