Falconbury Blog & Industry Comment

Are any ‘new’ management ideas actually new?

A phrase I hadn’t heard before has recently entered my purview – ‘hedonic adaptation’. This is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness after positive (or negative) events. But, of course, this concept has been known for a long time and another way of saying it is, ‘a change is as good as a rest’.

In a recently published book,...

Leadership

The pundits were full of praise for the leadership skills of Gareth Southgate ahead of the Euro final. After it, nothing, nada, or, more appropriately perhaps in Italian, niente!

Did he go from being a great leader to a poor one because we lost on penalties? Just how ridiculous is that?

Is winning the only test of leadership in sport? And for that matter, is making a fat profit, incrementally...

A Personal MOT?

We actually look after our car better than we look after ourselves. Discuss.

Barrie Pearson and I – only slightly tongue-in-cheek – included in our recently republished book, Life-coach yourself to success*, an MOT form for self-completion. The idea behind it was simply that individuals should take a good look at themselves from time to time, and even consider doing a basic annual...

Personal Development

I have always been struck by how few people have any kind of planning approach to themselves – to see their personal development as an ongoing project to be worked at.

If philosophy boils down to the practical attempt to live a better life, then our personal development needs continuous attention.

When I met Barrie Pearson, many years ago, we bonded over a shared belief that individuals should...

Corporate and personal ethics in business

Everyone in the pharmaceutical industry (and regulators) should read Empire of Pain – The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, written by Patrick Radden Keefe.

It’s a devastating account of how the Sackler family’s Purdue Pharma exploited OxyContin – selling billions of dollars worth a year – and fuelled the opioid crisis.

The story of greedy, arrogant and ruthless pursuit of profits...