I was chatting with a colleague a few days ago. He was telling me about the way he likes to scrutinize the numbers every single day and I was telling him how I really don’t. “I’m a mathematician by training”, he offered. “I like numbers.” “I’m a lawyer by background”, I replied. “I like words.” What ensued was one of the most interesting conversations I’ve had in a long time.
Social distancing measures have been in full effect for weeks and legions of people have retreated – more or less happily – to the relative safety of their homes. Workplaces and public spaces that used to teem with people lie eerily empty and many employees – fortunate ones for whom telecommuting proved possible – have carried on with their professional lives in a strange virtual world where newly disembodied organizations large and small continue to operate.
I had lunch, a little while ago, with a friend who had recently vacationed in Japan for a few weeks. As we were waiting for our food to arrive, the sushi chef working close by behind his counter, my friend told me the story of a successful Japanese restaurant owner who had been asked if he had any plans to expand his restaurant—to get a larger space and add more tables.
December 1, 2009. It was on this very day exactly ten years ago that I reported for duty with my new employer. Ten years later, I still work for the same company so today officially marks my 10th work anniversary.
Allow me to start with a disclaimer: This article is a full-on recommendation for a little gem of a book titled “Virtue at Work” by Geoff Moore, Professor of Business Ethics at Durham University in the UK.
I don’t know how much time you spend thinking about succession planning but I think about it a lot. In just a few days, as it does every September, our judo club will be welcoming
In her book Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives, Professor Elizabeth Anderson of the University of Michigan makes a controversial statement about the nature of the corporation: The corporation, she asserts, is a totalitarian regime – a dictatorship. And she means this quite literally, not just as an analogy.
Ask yourself this question and answer it honestly — nobody need ever know how you answered: Do you find yourself being driven mostly by the necessity to abide by your duties and obligations, or by the desire to do your very best at everything you do?
I had an interesting experience a few days ago. I had just responded to somebody’s online comment regarding one of my articles right here on LinkedIn when I received the following message
In his influential book “After Virtue”, moral and political philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre put forward the contentious view that professional managers within bureaucratic corporations – whether public or private – are intrinsically (by their very nature) amoral.
