Articles Tagged Success

“More than two thousand years ago, the Roman orator, belletrist, thinker, Stoic, manipulator-politician, and (usually) virtuous gentleman, Marcus Tullius Cicero, presented the following story. One Diagoras, a nonbeliever in the gods, was shown painted tablets bearing the portraits of some worshippers who prayed, then survived a subsequent shipwreck. The implication was that praying protects you […]

We don’t have a welfare state in Kenya. Or do we? Look at it this way. Of our 35-plus million people, only around 2 million are in any form of ‘formal’ or ‘modern’ employment. Kenya as a country offers proper employment to fewer people than Wal-Mart does. It is these few people who form most […]

“Team titles might be what matter to them most, but football fans are also generally pleased if a player in their team wins an award. Publishers rarely object when their authors win Booker or Nobel prizes for literature. So how should shareholders in a company feel when the company’s chief executive wins an accolade such […]

I went on the attack against the ‘followers’ in this country last week, and asked that we all examine our everyday behaviour rather than wait for ‘leaders’ to sort us out. The attack continues this week. We heard recently that a magistrate had been killed and his body dumped on the roadside. Newspaper reports now […]

Icarus flew too close to the sun, and came crashing down into the sea. He became giddy with excitement at his ability to fly, and was punished for his over-confidence. That is a Greek fable, but all societies have their tales about the phenomenon of hubris – the excessive pride or arrogance that so many […]

“It is easy to see that life is the cumulative effect of a handful of significant shocks. It is not so hard to identify the role of Black Swans, from your armchair (or bar stool). Go through the following exercise. Look into your own existence. Count the significant events, the technological changes, and the inventions […]

“At the end of 2007, Marks & Spencer was lauded as Britain’s Most Admired Company, ranked as the best among 220 companies in a survey conducted by Management Today. Not only did it receive the highest score overall, Marks & Sparks was rated best on five of the nine survey categories… Marks and Spencer’s triumph […]

“One thing this crisis has proved is that the herd instinct is alive and well and global. It led Bear Stearns and Citigroup and Lehman Brothers and AIG to believe that risk was a thing of the past, that housing markets could only go up and that unregulated mortgage-backed securities would forever yield unprecedented returns. […]

“I believed that I would win kudos for my contrarian view when the (internet) bubble burst. But people who had not wished to be told they were talking nonsense before the bubble burst did not wish to be told they had been talking nonsense after the bubble burst either. Indeed they did not recall that […]

“This idea – that excellence at a complex task requires a critical, minimum level of practice – surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is a magic number for true expertise: 10,000 hours. “In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice-skaters, concert […]

“Andy Cole has finally confirmed he has retired from football, but in doing so launched a broadside at Nottingham Forest and their manager Colin Calderwood. The former Manchester United and England striker left his hometown club two weeks ago after failing to make an impression and growing disillusioned with restricted appearances. Cole made just 11 […]

“Many employers ask job applicants for personal references. Justification for this practice is beyond me. There’s no valid reason to believe that these references will help you to identify potentially high-performing employees. The reality is this: We all have friends who will say or write positive reviews of us. If every job candidate can provide […]

Do you want your child to become an ‘expert’? Who wouldn’t? Being an expert in something usually brings great rewards in life: recognition, money, and a sense of deep accomplishment. But what is an ‘expert’? Do we ask ourselves that question often enough? Are experts born or made? In other words, are the factors that […]

We are all deeply concerned about the state of our education system these days, so allow me to stay on the subject for a while. There can be little doubt: if we want to haul ourselves out of the murky waters of third-world status, education is the only known method. Educating our people properly is […]

“…In a 2005 Australian study published in the British Medical Journal, researchers interviewed, during a 27-month period, 456 hospitalized cell phone users who had each been involved in a crash. The scientists combed the drivers’ call records to see how cell phone use affected their driving. Whether they talked hands-free or with a phone clasped […]

I am writing this in the dark, afflicted by a power blackout. It seems a good time to pass the blame around. So let me start, obviously, by blaming our notorious power company, which has been a blight on this country for decades. Let me also pass some blame to my landlord, who seems incapable […]

Let’s talk football this Sunday. But only briefly, so the rest of you don’t run away… A few days ago the captain of Chelsea Football Club, John Terry, stepped up to take a Very Important Penalty in Moscow. His team was facing Manchester United in the final of the European Champions League, the world’s most […]

“Never trust the vast mountain of conventional wisdom. It contains great nuggets of wisdom, it is true. But they lie alongside rivers of fool’s gold. Conventional wisdom daunts initiative and offers far too many convenient reasons for inaction, especially for those who have a great deal to lose. Fortunately for you, you do not have […]

There is a lesson we must all learn: life is nothing if you don’t commit to it. In love, in business, in your career: you can’t ‘succeed big’ if you don’t ‘commit big’. If you want to be a winner, you have to decide what you want and how you’re going to get it. And […]

“Many executives view multitasking as a necessity in the face of all the demands they juggle, but it actually undermines productivity. Distractions are costly: A temporary shift in attention from one task to another – stopping to answer an e-mail or take a phone call, for instance – increases the amount of time necessary to […]

Football pundit Alan Hansen, when surveying the new-look Manchester United team of 1995-96, famously stated: “You can’t win anything with kids”. Those words have probably haunted him every day of his life subsequently. Manchester United went to win the English Premiership title that year, with a team whose average age was 24, and 6 of […]

An unusually dressed man passed through Kenya this past week. His flowing white robes and long hair and beard marked him out as an Indian sage. But this extraordinary man is not a religious leader. I had the privilege of interviewing him, and what he had to say is worth recording during this season of […]

You’re working on a very important report, and you’re behind schedule. An e-mail marked ‘urgent reply needed’ pops up on your computer screen. You start reading it, and see that it does indeed need your immediate attention. You start working on a response. There’s a knock on the door, and a colleague walks in. You […]

If you are in Nairobi and happen to be in the State House area, you may notice a freshly painted bright yellow line in the middle of State House Road. You may also notice another thing: the line is crooked. Why am I telling you this on a Sunday morning? No, I haven’t run out […]

We’d rather talk about success than failure. The human race gets great succour from tales of greatness. We like to idolise, and we habitually build up our ancestors, our leaders, our managers into mythical figures whose successes become legendary. We would do better to discuss failure, says Paul Ormerod, for failure is a more widespread […]

This Sunday, let’s lift the clouds of gloom that threaten to cover us completely. Just for a day, let’s dare to dream again. What lies ahead for this country? What can we look forward to for our children? Go outdoors and feel the fresh air in your lungs. Find a comfortable patch of grass on […]

Remember the seventies? Ah, glory days! The streets were clean, and there was always parking to be found. The town and city councils actually did what we paid them to. Nairobi had mayors who were not drawn from the criminal or professional comedian classes. There were streetlights everywhere, and they actually worked. You could walk […]

Hi youngsters, it’s nice to have your company again. Many of you have just received your examination results, and are busy planning what to do with the rest of your lives. Careers, occupations and flight paths are on your minds. And I’m sure there is no shortage of advisors: parents, teachers, peers and a variety […]