Last week Stuart Hall, a BBC broadcaster, ‘admitted 14 charges of indecently assaulting girls, one aged nine’.
It emerged in what the BBC call a ‘Respect At Work‘ review, that ‘some behaviour appeared to go unchallenged by senior managers, with certain individuals seen as being ‘untouchable‘ due to their perceived value to the BBC’.
Read more on Gagging clauses: what every business must learn from the BBC…
Last week, as part of a creative project with First World War themes, I was privileged to meet the writer Nicholas Mosley.
Before we met, I researched Mosley’s fascinating life. I did not have time to read his eighteen novels, but I could read some autobiographical work, including his relaxed account of the incident which won him the MIlitary Cross in the Second World War. It seemed to be more force of circumstance than a considered act of bravery. Mosely said:
Further to my last post on whistleblowing, and my own experience thereof, sometimes I get asked to conduct seminars and workgroups on ‘Integrity in Business’.
The most rewarding sessions are when I place the participants into a position where the thin grey line between their moral integrity and financial or career ambitions is challenged.
Let’s take a hypothetical example:
Read more on The whistleblower’s dilemma – what would YOU do?…
That ‘capable, most extraordinary politician’ Caroline Lucas has announced she is stepping down as leader of the Green Party. It says here this is ‘part of a strategy centred on challenging the Liberal Democrats at the next election.’
I wonder if the Greens will succeed in this objective or, indeed, if they are aware of the strategic opportunity that is staring them in the face?
In the recent London Mayor elections Jenny Jones, the Green candidate, did beat the Lib Dems. But will her party overcome their prevailing image as a bunch of environmental dreamers as out of touch with the needs of today’s world as a Woodstock hippy stick-in-the-mud awaiting the resurrection of Jimi Hendrix? Read more on Tomorrow never comes (unless you’re Green)…
My Dad died ten years ago today. As the eldest of his four sons, it fell upon me to give the eulogy at his funeral – the hardest job I have ever done.
You are unlikely to have direct interest in my father as a person but there are two facets of his character, and his life, that you might care to consider.
How many of today’s leaders would have volunteered to rebate all income earned outside their salaried job back to their employers, to the extent that by the time of his retirement my father’s employers were ‘earning’ more from him than they were paying to him?
If you have anti-colonial feelings, please consider the possibility that a great many British ‘expats’ were good people who made a positive contribution to the people and communities they lived with and in. I am proud to say my Dad was one of them. I hope you agree: Read more on A tribute to my father…
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to meet George Galloway. In fact, given the opportunity, I would rather not. I have a personal rule to avoid meeting celebrities. In general, I have found them more willing to talk to other celebrities than ‘normal’ people so what is the point?
By his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, we can be safe in describing George Galloway as a ‘celebrity’. As to whether appearing on this show was a wise decision, or whether he made a prat of himself when he did, these are matters for us to judge on a personal basis.
They are certainly not views we should publish. It is on the record that George Galloway has litigated for libel on more than one occasion and we do not want that. All I can do is point you to Google and YouTube to make up your mind on a cornucopia of subjects as far apart as Iraq, the Tiananmen Square massacre or pretending to be a pussy cat.
The Daily Mail asserts that ‘Galloway’s victory is the last thing Britain needs’. I disagree with this. I think George Galloway is just what we need. Read more on Why I buy the brand ‘George Galloway’…
This is the last of my trilogy on what can happen if your boss gets in the way of your good work – and the consequences of his or her exacting revenge at the threat you have become.
The last line of my last post advised that if you have to leave, do so ‘with dignity’.
You may have gathered that I speak from personal experience. In the world of work, what follows is the one lesson I would pass on to my kids. For those young people who, I gather, read this blog early in your careers, eager to succeed and keen to learn – this one is for you. Read more on When, even if you are right, you are wrong…
What a difference a word makes.
This week, ‘according to American regulatory filings’, Michael Sherwood, joint CEO of
Goldman Sachs London, was awarded a bonus of £9million.
In the late 1960s, in Hong Kong, my late father was appointed a non-executive
director of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank.
He told me that, despite numerous other appointments and directorships, he was
particularly nervous before his first Board Meeting.
This was because the responsibilities and decisions taken, including lending
enormous sums of money to the Governments of other Asian countries, were so
daunting. At this first meeting, he determined to do his homework but say nothing. Read more on Bankers bonuses need re-branding…
I had never been involved in politics, certainly not party politics but, in July 2007, I was asked by a friend, who headed up one of the public sector reviews in Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice, to cast my professional eye over the report his team had produced.
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