Articles Tagged Success

Sometimes a thought just catches your eye and makes you think. James Clear, he of Atomic Habits fame, sent this out in a recent newsletter: “Don’t worry about being the most interesting person in the room, just try to be the most interested person in the room.” There is such pressure these days to be […]

What kind of 2024 are you expecting to have? Across the world, the prognosis is grim at best. Economies are ailing; costs of living have rocketed; business failures are looming; debt burdens are onerous. It’s not going to be an easy year to navigate, even for the most fortunate. But there is something that a […]

There was once someone who imagined it might be possible to place humans into a vehicle with wings, launch it into the air—and land those passengers back on earth, safely. This had never been done, please note, and it was widely viewed as a crazy, deluded idea. And yet, humans now fly across the planet […]

I was once in an airport immigration queue, awaiting clearance to re-enter my homeland. The queue was long, and we were all tired after a long flight.  A very well known business tycoon came in from a different flight. He took a look at the line in front of passport control and walked right past […]

I have been saying to businesses large and small for decades now: there’s an affection button that you must press. It’s the button that, once activated, creates the emotion: “I like these people.” That is one of the most potent feelings in business, yet it’s also the most ignored. Last week I showed how small, […]

I have a question for you: is your business liked by anyone? We don’t usually view businesses in that way, do we? It’s not one of the regular aims of a business, to be held in affection by any party. We are far more transactional than that. We provide a product or service, customers gain […]

A close reader of this column pointed out to me last week that my recent offerings are displaying a certain pattern. When I asked him to elaborate, he pointed out that there is recurring theme, and it’s all about authenticity. Rereading my own work, I saw his point. In recent weeks I have highlighted three […]

Years ago I was watching The Simpsons, that cartoon series with a real bite to it. Young Bart faced a moral dilemma at school, and was asking his dimwit father, Homer, for advice: “Dad, is it more important to be popular, or to do the right thing?” Homer’s quick response: “You’ve gotta be popular, son. […]

I recently commended a food & beverage manager at one of our leading coastal hotels on the efficiency with which her staff were handling a packed-out dinner service, and the attention to detail they were demonstrating. Rather than bask in the praise, she immediately told me that she had an early mentor to thank for […]

Last week I offered some life advice: don’t compare, don’t compete. The key points were these: that you will have a richer life if you focus on yourself, not others; that you will actually thrive more by comparing yourself against your earlier selves rather than outsiders; and you will be released from the daily angst […]

You’re a schoolchild, doing your best in your lessons. You get good grades most of the time, sometimes exceptional ones. You’re not top of your class, but you’re in the mix. All is well, right? Not really. Because your teachers and parents keep pointing you to the achievements of your classmates who are clocking the […]

This word is everywhere. Everyone seems to be using it, without understanding it. What’s the word? Passion. Every human, it seems, is passionate about something these days. I’m passionate about protecting the planet, say some. Others are passionate about social justice. In professional circles, many will tell you they are passionate about corporate governance, or […]

A recent experience at a hotel made me pause and reflect. I had looked over the wide array of desserts available in the lunch buffet, and chosen a nice looking mousse in a long-stemmed glass. After carrying the sweet dish back to my table, I noticed that the dessert spoon already laid out there was […]

Employee engagement is a very big deal. Much of what differentiates mediocre organizations from excellent ones is this very simple thing: do the people who work there care about their work? Will they give of their best, and will they go the extra mile? High employee engagement, though, is very rare! The people at Gallup […]

Gary Vaynerchuk, serial entrepreneur and digital marketing evangelist, begins his new book, Twelve and a Half, with an interesting anecdote. GaryVee, as he is known on social media, runs VaynerMedia, a creative agency. He tells us he once had to attend a very difficult meeting with a leading client. This stemmed from a bad mistake […]

Arthur Ashe was a true trailblazer. He was the first black player to win tennis’s grand slam tournaments. He won Wimbledon in 1975, and became the world’s number-one ranked player in that year. Ashe’s life reflected some very famous words: “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” So much said, […]

Disruption, says Scott Galloway, is more about the incumbents than the disruptors. What does the Stern School of Business professor mean? In his words: “Disruption is driven by stasis and the incompetence of incumbents.” We have seen this again and again. Take the taxi rides business. Sure, Uber arrived with a game-changing business model and […]

The alarm bell rang in my head, but I did it anyway. I was trying to order dinner using a home delivery app, from one of my regular, favourite restaurants. For some reason the app was showing “restaurant not available” on that day. We decided to call the restaurant directly, to ask what was wrong. […]

I learned with sadness of the unexpected passing of Sir Ivan Menezes recently. I only met Ivan, Diageo’s global chief executive, once—last year, during East African Breweries’ 100th year celebrations. I sat next to him at dinner and we shared many interesting reflections on business, leadership and strategy. I left that dinner thinking: aha, so […]

I read this hilarious tweet a while back and bookmarked it. It is from Andrew Wilkinson, an entrepreneur, characterising entrepreneurs giving advice thus: “Here’s the number I used to win the lottery.”  I’ve stopped laughing now, enough to think and write about that excellent sentence.  Young folks lining up to listen to successful entrepreneurs talk […]

Life is complicated. The idea that we learn things in the early stages of our lives and then apply them for the rest of our existence is long dead. We know we have to be lifelong learners; we know we have to be alert to new information and fresh knowledge; we know we have to […]

When I was young, cars all looked different. The first car I ever drove was a Datsun 120Y—my mother’s—and it had a cutely weird boxy shape. It could not be mistaken for any other car. Similar Japanese makes—Toyota, Honda, Mazda—all had distinctive shapes and styling.  In those days, a Peugeot looked distinctively like a Peugeot; […]

In Ernest Hemingway’s famous novel, The Sun Also Rises, a character is asked how he went bankrupt. “In two ways,” he answers. “Gradually and then suddenly.” A famous sentence, one that aptly describes how businesses go down. We get fixated on the sudden events that occur at the end of the trajectory—banks calling in their […]

Last week I discussed the problem of leadership transitions in family firms. Many founders are unable to make meaningful handovers to new leaders, from either within or outside the business. This problem of refusing to let go of the reins, however, is not confined to family businesses. Let’s take a wider look at the issue […]

I have a lot of time for James Daunt. He is the man trying valiantly to rescue the bookselling trade, against all odds. As a reader and writer I look on, gripped by the hope that bookstores can withstand the onslaught of online sellers and e-books. James Daunt was once an investment banker. In his […]

Last week I discussed the Netflix series Street Food Asia. The foodie in me loved looking at the origins and excellence of various dishes: chaat in India; tom yum in Thailand; jajan pasar in Indonesia; putu piring in Singapore. But the student of human endeavour in me was even more impressed. Street food, you see, […]

Have you watched Street Food Asia on Netflix? If you’re interested in the human being at work, this series is worth a peep. It’s only ostensibly about food; more about the human hustling to eke out a living—and about what it takes to survive and thrive in very difficult environments. One episode, set in Delhi, […]

There is something my father once told me that has never left me. I was a big book-reader as a boy, and much of my meagre pocket money would go towards buying books, often from Nairobi’s two second-hand bookshops of that time. I was once worried about the spend being incurred, and wondered out loud […]