How to unlock creativity as a driver of success April 6, 2015 Most business people are clear that creativity is an essential driver of success. Companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Virgin, Tesla, and Uber set the standard that others aspire to achieve. Regular surveys of business leaders rate creativity as the most important characteristic their organisation needs to show. There’s very little disagreement: creativity is [...]
Team playing: How to ensure you keep your top talent onside April 1, 2015 With the economy picking up and hiring departments headhunting more actively, companies will face greater challenges in retaining and developing their best talents. Indeed, the problem may be bigger than you think. Researchers from CEBR and the Hay Group say that, in 2018, the number of employees heading out the door will rise to 192m worldwide, an increase [...]
What Google’s new office can teach other firms March 31, 2015 You can achieve real flexible working without the tech giant’s budget. Google received its customary share of attention when it released plans for a new headquarters in California recently. While the workplaces most of us travel to each day may not yet reflect the tech giant’s utopian Mountain View vision, the plans provide a glimpse [...]
What neuroscience can teach us about leadership March 30, 2015 Inspire your team to do great work with storytelling and a forward-looking mentality. Leadership is always about people, so being a leader is rarely predictable or mechanical. To drive performance in a team, a leader needs to both motivate individual workers and ensure that the goals of the wider organisation are met. It’s challenging, but [...]
Creativity: Where can you find it? March 29, 2015 You can learn how to use your imagination, and thinking outside the box is usually a daft idea. Too often, businesses and employees fall into the trap of sticking to “safe” work. They are comfortable offering the services and systems that guarantee an easy “yes” from customers, and are so preoccupied with ensuring that their [...]
Flexible working: How to get it right March 26, 2015 Make the most of technology and remember that people still want their own space. When it comes to flexible working, all companies are different. Business and employee requirements will vary, and it’s important for leaders to develop ways of doing things that best fit their firm. A vast majority of employers recognise that offering [...]
Workplace stress? Keep your days calm with these easy techniques March 25, 2015 You don’t need to retreat to the Himalayas to regain your cool. In the past, stress at work was swept under the carpet. Increasingly, however, more businesses and employees are taking active steps to make their offices calmer places to work. Why? Not only are calmer offices happier and more creative, but a better work [...]
Three new ways to up productivity: How to be more efficient in the office March 24, 2015 Economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by the early twenty-first century, innovations in technology would have whittled our working weeks down to a mere 15 hours. While this might seem like an (albeit attractive) impossibility, just a couple of small changes can increase your productivity and bring you closer to this vision. Contrary to [...]
How to survive your IT system in 2015 March 23, 2015 There are easy ways to streamline systems, cut costs and improve productivity in your office. If you polled a thousand office workers in London, you’d invariably find similar IT frustrations: slow broadband and restrictive policies tend to be our biggest bugbears. And if you asked company boards, you’d be unsurprised to learn that incrementally rising [...]
There’s poetry in the business world: How a humanities degree can enrich a career in commerce March 22, 2015 You can move from Shakespeare to supply chain management without being miserable. Some careers follow a straightforward and happy pattern. Many of my business school friends started life as management consultants, did an MBA, and became investment bankers – or vice versa. Or they moved from fund management into industry. Or from equities into debt. [...]