Today’s book review is Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What’s Obvious But Not Easy, by David Maister. First, a disclosure. In a first for me, I got this book as an advance copy for review on my blog. And given that David Maister has been one of my favouriteContinue Reading
One of the reasons (apart from general laziness) that I didn’t do Globlopomo is that I was called for Jury service for a month starting today. But I’m posting now because I got off. I got as far as sitting in the jury box of a trial of someone for sexualContinue Reading
I’ve long had a theory that psychological bullies in the workplace have a real productivity cost. And wandering the McKinsey site looking for something else, I found an article that suggests they do. The article seriously suggests that you calculate the “total cost of jerks” in your workplace – ifContinue Reading
Paul Frijters at Club Troppo has a post up about maternity leave – a disucssion of the recent policy announcement from the Greens and the Democrats to guarantee 14 weeks of maternity leave (at minimum wage) and the pros and cons from an economic perspective. I commented there that IContinue Reading
I recently read two, at least superficially contradictory, pieces of research on whether gender diversity improves performance. The first (abstract here), reported in the International Herald Tribune, studied performances of mutual funds managed by different combinations of men and women. The all male and all female teams did about theContinue Reading
With APEC visiting this week, my team took the opportunity to dress in casual clothes. The theory is that we are less likely to be pelted with fruit by ratbag protesters. My team, as befits a bunch of actuaries, is not much into dressing especially well. So the chance to dressContinue Reading
Once a month, I spend the best part of two days in a series of Board meetings. Occasionally, the topic of conversation drags, particularly if it is a paper that I’m not expecting to be questioned about, and I watch the interactions play out in the meeting. Our meetings areContinue Reading
I wnet to a speech from a new CEO today. One of the things he said, when asked his goals for the new role was that he was determined to root out politics. “If anyone starts playing politics, they are out the door, no matter how senior they are”. ItContinue Reading
Back in the late 90s early 2000s, I did a lot of consulting work for Asian clients. Mostly from Australia, but occasionally I would fly up for a week or so to do a job. I gradually learned just how culturally different all the Asian countries are from each other.Continue Reading
I managed this week to avoid jury duty, mainly by politely begging them to give me an exemption because it was end-of-financial year (which is one of the three or four busiest weeks for me at work). I do feel somewhat guilty about it. The jury system is a vitalContinue Reading
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