US pop icon Kanye West’s antisemitism knocks him off billionaire club as his music, fashion businesses tumble
Adidas ended a partnership that helped make the artist formerly known as Kanye West a billionaire and lent the German sportswear an edgy appeal, but ultimately couldn’t survive a mounting outcry over the rapper’s offensive and antisemitic remarks. The split will leave Adidas searching for another transcendent celebrity to help...
Uproot cobwebs: Women consultants should bear in mind that when you focus on struggle, you grow it
Women consultants, I want to share a piece of advice I often share with my clients. The subject of the advice is: What I focus on expands. And it is in the mind – the longer it dwells in the mind, it becomes etched into it and also deeply rooted...
Opportunity gain: With a wiki you can get you can fix any problem in record time, at low cost
Seeing someone’s face while talking with them is nice, and all, but the best part about a video phone call is that I can see whether the person I’m talking with is checking their email during the call instead of paying attention to our conversation. Oh, admit it, we all...
Bringing a knife to a gunfight: How tech-inspired wikis created an ‘organic’ global village, plus satellites
In early December last year, I attended a conference called the Programme for the Future in honour of Doug Engelbart – best known as the inventor of the computer mouse, but more accurately described as a champion of technology and tools that increase our collective intelligence. Years in the corporate...
New minimum wage law throws America’s gig industry into chaos, dance clubs scramble to curb sin taxes
For six years, Teddy earned what she considers good money as a self-employed dancer working in California’s strip clubs. Yes, there were slow nights when wages slumped, says Teddy, who asks to use a pseudonym because not everyone in her life knows she is a sex worker. But the slow...
Lead from any chair: While everyone thinks of changing the world, no one thinks of changing himself
The second instalment on ‘human skills’ of remaining six of the 12 tools examines how to make feelings, actions, communications and thinking productive and rewarding in work places. The heuristics below have helped me transform Feelings, Actions, Communication and Thinking (F.A.C.T.) in myself, my colleagues and the thousands of people...
Diversity of human skills: Making the pie bigger has better outcomes than arguing over who gets biggest share
All my professional life I’ve struggled with what are broadly referred to as human skills. Emotional by nature and rebellious by choice, it’s sometimes been extremely challenging for me to follow the sage advice “Be hard on the issues, but soft on the people.” Now, in perhaps one of the...
Language smooths over rough edges for honest feedback, creates culture businesses thrive on
Words matter, especially in a feedback conversation. Consider the impact of calling sushi “raw, dead fish”, or a colonoscopy…well, never mind. Keep language focused on effectiveness and avoid judgmental words such as good/bad and right/wrong. Even less-charged words such as like/don’t like and agree/disagree should be avoided. You might be...
Why turning feedback into the driver and fuel that power companies to better outcomes
This summer I was invited to Vienna to do a workshop on effectively giving and receiving feedback. The participants came from all over Europe, as well as Japan. But all of these human beings had one thing in common: They didn’t relish the thought of giving or receiving feedback. Why?...
Tyranny of the urgent: Working faster, doing more with less eliminates stone age habits in digital world
Albert Einstein has been widely quoted as saying “There are two things that are infinite, the universe, and human stupidity – and I’m not sure about the universe.” Like most people, I usually write this off as an amusing, sarcastic quip he made on a bad day. I mean, it...
