"CEOs can't wait to read Sunny Bindra's articles every week."

The other day I reached for a box of tissues. As I pulled a tissue out, another five came out of the box. I had not encountered this recently, and wondered what the problem was. It turned out my household has been using imported tissues for a while, which are soft and detach easily. Those […]

“”It is very true that we do not have the high-end ‘mind share’ product, as we speak, but of course we are working to get there,” said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia president and chief executive. At its investor day late last year, Nokia hinted it would produce major new devices this year. Analysts reckon it is […]

There’s nothing like a quiet drive to aid the reflection process. Or so I thought. I embarked on a family trip to the great mountain in the heart of our country recently, and was able to think a little about the land we live in. My first set of thoughts were about our drivers. These […]

“Companies have always cut back on workers during economic downturns, but over the last two decades layoffs have become an increasingly common part of corporate life – in good times as well as bad. Companies now routinely cut workers even when profits are rising. Some troubled industries seem to be in perpetual downsizing mode… …But […]

Here we go again. The headlines say it all: the coalition government is crumbling, the principals have fallen out, the shilling is sliding, investors are nervous, we are facing another meltdown. But I ask you: what exactly has changed since last week? What cyclone has hit Kenya that our prospects look so suddenly bleak? Have […]

“Because starting a business is a huge amount of hard work, requiring a great deal of time, you had better enjoy it. When I started Virgin from a basement flat in west London, I did not set out to build a business empire. I set out to create something I enjoyed that would pay the […]

Amidst the carnage of Haiti, a quiet little drama is playing itself out. Baptist missionaries from the USA were arrested trying to take 33 “orphans” out of the wrecked country, ostensibly to a better life in an orphanage in the neighbouring Dominican Republic. Except that many of the children were not orphans at all, and […]

“When Toyota told the world of the recall of its cars in January, one of its first public statements was made by a Japanese executive who faced television cameras wearing a surgical mask. Masks are common during Japan’s cold season. However, crisis management experts are seizing on the image as a metaphor for a company […]

Picture the scene. The former leader of a global power is summoned to a commission of inquiry. He spends a full day there, in front of the world’s cameras. He is grilled by the commissioners on every aspect of certain decisions he made: why he did and said certain things; what he knew and did […]

“This Wednesday, Steven P. Jobs will step to the stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and unveil a shiny new machine that may or may not change the world. In the magician’s world, that’s called “the reveal.” And the most magical part? Even as the media and technology worlds […]

The green city in the sun. That was what our beautiful Nairobi was famously known as. Well, we’re still in the sun (and increasingly so), but the ‘green’ part of the description may soon be hard to justify. Why is no one worried about the pace at which trees are being destroyed in our city? […]

“Look in the mirror. If you really don’t want your potential successor to get the job, don’t kid yourself. There is a very strong probability that this person will never get the job. You will just look for problems until you find a reason to disqualify him. Don’t jerk around potential successors. This is not […]

What passes for ‘news’ in this country? I want to put to you that what you are consuming is not news at all: it is pointless and irrelevant trivia. Let me start with an admission: I am spending less and less time consuming Kenyan news, and it is months since I watched a full television […]

“Less than two years ago Toyota swept past an ailing General Motors (GM) to become the world’s biggest carmaker. Now its newly installed boss, Akio Toyoda, the 53-year-old grandson of the founder, says that the firm could be locked in a spiral of decline. Toyota is still a hugely formidable company, and some within the […]

For the past two weeks this column has been trying to instil some hope in you, to suggest that maybe, just maybe, things will getter better for Kenya. To end the series, let me move you smoothly to a third reason for hope in 2010: our international position. If you want to understand Kenya’s role […]

“Companies around the world are cutting back their financial-incentive programs, but few have used other ways of inspiring talent. We think they should. Numerous studies have concluded that for people with satisfactory salaries, some nonfinancial motivators are more effective than extra cash in building long-term employee engagement in most sectors, job functions, and business contexts. […]

Last week I asked Kenyans to harbour some hope in their hearts for what this next decade might bring. I suggested that 2010 might turn out to be recorded in history as the year in which we turned the corner by finally attacking, and fatally wounding, the beast we call impunity. Maybe, just maybe, we […]

“FOR over a decade from the mid-1990s until 2007, Ireland’s economy grew more rapidly than any other in western Europe. Foreign investment poured in. Success at selling abroad made Ireland one of the world’s largest exporters per head. Opportunity attracted the enterprising. In less than a dozen years, a country long known for exporting its […]

2008 and 2009 were years of great gloom in Kenya. We kicked off 2008 with a bloodbath orchestrated by leaders and delivered by angry young men. Since then we have been on a tumultuous ride, facing a faltering economy, a hydra-headed leadership and a plethora of scams and scandals. The words “failed state” and “Kenya” […]

“The number of female directors on FTSE 100 boards has stalled at 131 over the past year, a report has said. Furthermore, the number of firms with female executive directors fell from 16 to 15, the Cranfield School of Management report found. There was also a “disappointing” drop in the number of boards with multiple […]

It is time for “A Sunny Day” to announce its annual Sunshine Awards, to honour those individuals and organisations that excelled, and to slate those who brought dismay to the world and disgrace to themselves. Recall two things about these awards: one, that we use the word “sunshine” to evoke both good cheer and the […]

“All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers came, thither they return again. All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. The thing that hath been, it is […]

A board member with whom I was discussing his company made me laugh out loud recently. When I asked him how effective his board’s policy formulations were, he told me, with refreshing honesty: “You know, sometimes I wonder whether the steering wheel is really connected to the tyres…” Hilarious imagery: a bunch of important personages […]

“Sign No. 1: Conspicuously posted vision or value statements are filled with vague but important-sounding words like “excellence” and “quality.” Sign No. 2: Bringing up a problem is considered as evidence of a personality defect rather than as an observation of reality. Sign No. 3: If by chance there are problems, the usual solution is […]

This column doesn’t do film reviews. Every so often, however, a film experience comes along that requires you to break your own rules. Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” is one such experience, and one that I am happy to ask you not to miss, if you have any interest in the nature and experience of […]

“…by far the biggest workplace taboo is the truth – or at least any truth that punctures the self-importance of work. A friend tells me that she was recently on a global conference call and each person in turn introduced themselves and said where they were. One person said she was in a meeting room […]

Your holy war, your northern star / Your sermon on the mount from the boot of your car. …September, streets capsizing / Spilling over down the drains Shard of glass, splinters like rain / But you could only feel your own pain. Please / Get up off your knees. Please / Leave me out of […]

“One of the most common and ambiguous terms in business today is “client-centricity” or “client focus.” Many businesses claim to have it. But if the essence of a relationship is a willingness to earn and deserve what you want by first focusing on the other party in the relationship, few companies are really client-centric. Many […]