Articles Tagged Success

Mar 30, 2025
Do you think people respect you for your wealth?

“The respect a person receives due to wealth is not their own; it is the respect for their wealth.” That was written by the writer Munshi Premchand, perhaps a century ago. A man draped in money is often showered with deference, but let him lose his fortune, and watch how quickly that reverence evaporates. What […]

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Mar 23, 2025
The first tissue problem—or why you should eat your own dog food

You reach for a tissue from a brand-new box, expecting a smooth, elegant pull. Instead, nothing budges. That first tissue is glued to the second like a child clinging to its mother’s leg on the first day of school. You poke, you pinch, you wiggle a corner free. Which then rips off in your hand. […]

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Mar 16, 2025
Just because you’re busy doesn’t mean you’re winning

Some football teams are all fire and fury—quick passing, relentless pressing, constant attacking. Others are patient, methodical, waiting for the right moment to strike. These are tactics—the specific ways a team plays in a given match. But behind the tactics lies something bigger: a strategy. A team’s strategy defines its long-term approach—whether it builds around […]

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Mar 02, 2025
A perfect world? Which one is that?

“In a perfect world…” How many times have you heard that, or said it yourself? The human yearning for things to be better, more conducive, more acceptable, seems to be insatiable. We bring our children up in the pretence that the world is far better than it really is; that life is manageable and addressable, […]

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Jan 26, 2025
What makes employees step up?

The year began for me with a series of setbacks. Life is often like that; the challenges come thick and fast. It has always been thus, and there is nothing to be done except deal with it. But when the season of setbacks is upon us, we need to step up, focus, stay calm, and […]

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Jan 12, 2025
Let your people eat and bond together

I often do walkabouts at interesting organizations when I want to know more about them. Far away from the boardroom and C-suite, down to where the action is. The aim is to look away from the corporate fru-fru and get to the heart of the matter: what’s the vibe here? Are people happy and engaged […]

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Jan 05, 2025
To be present in the now, or to plan ahead?

A New Year is the time to look ahead, to plan for the future, to make preparations. Right? And yet. Last week I closed the year urging you to be aware of the words of the wise since time immemorial. Be present. Be rooted in the here and now. Tomorrow is a dream, today is […]

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Dec 15, 2024
Do you have the gift of the gab? Use it responsibly

I saw Phil Rosenthal attempt to learn dancing in Buenos Aires, in an episode of Netflix’s Somebody Feed Phil. When he later spoke to his parents back in the US on a video call, his father gave him this advice: “Your dancing was a little klutzy. Maybe leave that alone and stick to what you’re […]

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Nov 24, 2024
Saying no is an essential part of your strategy

Do you find it hard to say no? You’re not alone. We are conditioned to say yes to things. We find ourselves bounced into socials, meetups, one-on-ones and the like all the time. Many of those time-sinks we had no desire to say yes to, but social and peer pressures won the day. Professionally, there’s […]

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Nov 17, 2024
Why every empire eventually falls

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Liverpool seemed to be an unstoppable football club, clinching trophy after trophy and blowing other teams away season after season. But that era came to an end in 1990, and the club didn’t win a league title for the next thirty years. Enter Manchester United. Under Sir Alex Ferguson, they […]

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Nov 10, 2024
To really sell? Focus on beliefs, not products

We find ourselves in photographs all the time these days. Even diehard introverts like me can’t escape the lens and are constantly dragged into photos by family, friends, and even colleagues and clients. Ever since the smartphone camera landed in billions of hands, photography exploded. It’s as if every moment now needs its stamp. I […]

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Nov 03, 2024
Your company might be just fine—until it’s not

When was it clear that BlackBerry was on its last legs? Around 2013, when its top line had already halved. Yet it had clocked its record revenues just two years earlier. When Apple launched its first iPhone in 2007, quickly followed by the first Android phone in 2008, BlackBerry still had reason to feel secure. […]

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Oct 13, 2024
Why the lazy may be your best innovators

Why is innovation so difficult? Is it because coming up with brilliant new ideas is so hard? Not really. Innovation is a team sport. Put some talented folks together under the right conditions, and the ideas will flow. The real problem with innovation comes well before the team gathers to generate ideas. Lech Walesa once […]

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Oct 06, 2024
Customer complaints are as old as humanity

Customer complaints are a modern phenomenon, right? Nope. They’ve been happening for as long as humans have traded with one another. The oldest known written complaint was sent nearly four millennia ago, from the southern Mesopotamian city of Ur, in what is now Iraq. The complaint is etched on a tablet now housed in the […]

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Sep 29, 2024
Who owns the time in your life?

Most of the people reading this column right now are billionaires. Don’t believe me? That’s because you naturally assumed “billions” are about money. Jade Bonacolta, a writer on personal growth and productivity, has a different way of looking at it. One billion seconds equals 30 or so years. If you have that much time available […]

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Sep 22, 2024
Why 60 per cent is often an excellent result in life

Today I want to share a magic number, a target that you should aim for: 60 per cent. School plants strong ideas about what a winning grade is in all of us. The way we get marked tells us that 80 and 90 per cent are the great numbers, the ones that give you ‘A’ […]

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Sep 15, 2024
How to understand and use the S-curve

Let’s talk about the letter ‘S’ today. Picture it lying on its side. That’s a curve you should be paying attention to—the S-curve. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s high time you did, because once you see the S-curve, you start seeing it everywhere—in business, education, social movements, and even biology. So, what is […]

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Sep 08, 2024
Some unusual principles for success

Would you seek life advice from a money-man? Not as a rule. Those fixated on the accumulation of wealth tend not to have too much general wisdom to impart. There are some exceptions, though. Jim Simons passed away recently. He’s not the best-known name, but he probably made more money than virtually anyone else on […]

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Aug 25, 2024
Faith Kipyegon has lessons for her nation

For a while it looked like this year’s Paris Olympics were going to be painfully disappointing for Kenya, but in the end our women athletes came through. Two women brought us three of our final tally of four gold medals. Beatrice Chebet pulled off the remarkable feat of double gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 […]

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Aug 18, 2024
Support those brave souls who start businesses

So many hopeful souls start new businesses every year. Whether it’s a tiny single-person venture, or a well-funded startup, new firms come teeming into existence. Some studies suggest that at least 100 million new businesses are created annually around the world. That’s good, right? These businesses should meet genuine needs in the market; make the […]

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Aug 11, 2024
Your barber will always recommend a haircut

“Don’t ask the barber whether you need a haircut” is folksy Warren Buffet at his best. This little bit of wise advice has more layers than a wedding cake, and it’s really about incentives and the distortions they bring into our lives. The barber’s livelihood depends on giving you haircuts, whether you need them or […]

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Jul 21, 2024
To be a great leader, think like a farmer

As an educator focused on leadership, I am constantly searching for good metaphors. This is because leadership is one of the most misapplied concepts of our time. Those who are given the privilege and the honour to lead others mostly do it very, very badly. They lead through coercion, through inducement, and through a mistaken […]

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Jul 14, 2024
Don’t be surprised by surprises

The outgoing British government is throughly surprised. It came in on a landslide in 2019; it exits on an even stronger landslide in 2024. In 2019 the opposition Labour Party looked like it could be marginalised forever, so bad was its defeat. This time round it has a super-majority. Surprise! Life is a capricious beast. […]

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Jul 07, 2024
It takes mavericks to change the game

Paul Auster passed away recently, and I went back to his breakout book, The New York Trilogy, as a form of homage. The first novella begins with Daniel Quinn, a writer. Quinn uses a pseudonym, William Wilson, to write detective novels. The investigator in these novels is called Max Work. Quinn reflects that in this […]

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Jun 02, 2024
Learning from two fascinating football managers

“I will miss him a lot. (He) has been a really important part of my life. He brought me to another level as a manager. I think we respect each other incredibly. He helps me so many times.” The person who said that was Pep Guardiola, manager of Manchester City Football Club, soon after winning […]

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May 26, 2024
Don’t waste time looking for the perfect strategy

When I was starting off in my career decades ago, I really wanted to be a strategy consultant. But there was a problem: how does one learn strategy? There was certainly no subject by that name at universities. It was not taught to any depth in management programmes. So what to do? Naturally, I taught […]

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May 19, 2024
Is it ever enough?

I never thought I would resonate with a book about money. All my life I have had a sceptical mistrust of matters mammon. I have observed the derangement it causes in many: individuals, corporations, even entire cultures. And as I have written here many a time, a manic obsession with money leads to nothing good […]

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Apr 21, 2024
Make yourself a truth worth telling

Let me return to the subject of “fru-fru” today. Regular readers will recall that fru-fru (or frou-frou if you prefer the original French) refers to empty embellishment—frippery for the sake of ostentation, having no substance behind it. In communication and branding terms, fru-fru is feel-good look-good messaging, devoid of meaning. We all communicate, all the […]

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