Insights & Musings
What Do CEOs Do Anyway?
I’m a CEO.Have been for a number of years. And so I started thinking about my “role”.Normally the CEO is one person in your organisation who does not have a job description. That’s because it is often – certainly in the world of entrepreneurs- the CEO who has invented the company, set it up, made it all happen. But, largely on account of that, the CEO will rarely have anything resembling a job description. They may never have even thought about what it is they do, while all the time designing jobs and job descriptions for the people they are hiring.
Work, Life And Balance
January is that time of year that reminds us all of that often repeated contemporary mantra: work-life balance.Those three words roll off the tongue and have rolled off the tongue for many an employee, boss or even, heaven forbid, an HR Executive.They have become the sort of benchmark to one’s life. If for any reason you don’t have it – that mythic balance – then somehow you are not a very good human being let alone employee.
Business Leaders and Historical Military Leaders - Really?
In recent years there has been a trend to use military metaphors when dealing with business. Even the straightforward and omnipresent expression “ to hit the ground running” is reminiscent of parachutes and invasions. Advertising agencies talk of “campaigns” which in turn reminds us of Napoleon trudging through the snows of Russia circa 1812.The extension of the military metaphor to the business world is, however, never more so than in the world of leadership training. In recent years the world of business has looked to the great men – and they were mostly men – who led the biggest and the brashest military campaigns in history. Think Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Attila the Hun, Napoleon, and even Winston Churchill. I say “even” because before the glory of the Second World War Churchill had proved a disastrous military tactician, just ask anyone who was on the beaches of Gallipoli.
A New Year With Our Friends Electric
New Year’s Day!Don’t you just love it?Well, I’m here in Scotland. And there is nowhere better to enjoy the end of one year and the start of another. They call it Hogmanay up here, which translates into English as a great excuse for a gigantic party. North of the Border it is not just New Year’s Day that is a public holiday but January 2 as well. Yes, it’s that good a party.
The Real Price of Cheap Television Sets
Ask anyone: we watch less television than once we did.Yes, we may watch more box sets but that’s not really television, not in the old fashioned sense. Once television ruled the roost. It took the place of radio in the family home. Sitting rooms were organized around the television set that sat central in any home arrangement. The viewing figures in countries like the United Kingdom were in the many millions for even some of the more mundane viewing.
How Not to Market a Brand
It’s election time in the United Kingdom.This is the third general election in four years – 2015, 2017, 2019. There have been European elections – 2014 & 2019. In addition, in 2016, there have been elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. Plus a plethora of local elections and the odd by-election. And during this period two divisive referenda: one on Scottish independence in 2014 and the other on the UK’s continued membership of the European Union in 2016.It almost seems like the UK enjoys voting! The fact is I have met no one who is looking forward to this election. This is in large part down to the at times lackluster and then at other times bitter campaigns fought by all the parties.
Tears for Uber? More like Fears
I write to you from London.I am writing this while sitting in an Uber.It may be the last for some time in this city.You see Uber has been stripped of its London licence. The local authorities found that over 14,000 Uber trips had been taken with drivers who had faked their identity on the firm’s app.
How to Handel Money - What is it with Musicians and Money?
Sometimes you come across the most bizarre and, therefore, the most intriguing pieces of research. Like in the case of George Frideric Handel, composer and all round master musician. But did you know he was also a canny investor?Ellen T. Harris is Professor Emeritus in Musicology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has written about Handel and the Bank of England.George Frideric Handel was born on 23 February 1685 in Halle, then part of Brandenburg-Prussia. Although German by birth he is now famous for his musical career in London where he lived from 1712 until his death in 1759. A Baroque composer, he wrote operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos.
Recruiting and Retaining
We talk a lot about recruitment, and rightly so. In fact, there is a whole industry – and a profitable one – built upon the need of businesses around the globe to recruit the right staff to the right job at the right time.There are conferences where people are recruited, there are endless advertising platforms on line and elsewhere, and then there are the digital networks that showcase talent and also allow potential employers to take a look at whose available. It seems to work, people do find work and employers are less stressed about looking for workers these days on account of so much digital assistance.
Another new podcast series from Mount Bonnell
Good news!Mount Bonnell Media have just been commissioned for a new podcast series.That’s right another podcast series will be underway early next year, adding to the already existing roster of exciting and innovative media product currently being produced by Mount Bonnell across many different platforms.How to Succeed in Business Without Selling Your Soul is a podcast series exploring business ethics today in an entertaining, anecdotal and enlightening way. It is proposed as a Mt. Bonnell Media production in conjunction with the alumni network of the IESE Business School.
How Not to Build a Team
The words “team building” fill some with a great rush of enthusiasm.It is a moment when those you work with for so many hours each week, week after week, sometimes year after year, sit down together – or jump up together – and learn so much more about each other. The thing is though that sometimes the things you find out are much more than anyone present ever wanted to know – ever!
New Podcast: Factual America
A new podcast is bornYou may have remembered that a few weeks ago I mentioned Alamo Pictures?It is my new venture to bring some great US based documentaries to the widest audience possible. We’re talking feature length documentaries appearing at movie theatres and film festivals, on Netflix and television. This idea has grown out of some of the work we were doing at Mt. Bonnell Media. There we produced films and podcasts for clients. It was not just great fun also a testing ground for could be done.And, now, what could be done has been born with a name: Alamo Pictures.
All in the Mind or Why It Has Always Been Hard to Concentrate
This week I needed to write something. It is hard enough to do so but with the many and easily available distractions that assail us. At every turn, in recent decades things have got markedly worse than in the days before the digital era. But before you throw up your hands in despair I have some words of consolation: such a struggle was ever thus.Take a look at what is known as the Middle Ages. Now you cannot get a more different time to our own. No electricity, never mind internet, and, yet, it was during such seemingly quieter days that men and women of earlier times dealt with the same issues of concentration as we do today.
Stupid, Stupider and Really Stupid
In 1867 Mark Twain in a letter to the Alta California wrote the following:“I am thankful that the good God creates us all ignorant. I am glad that when we change His plans in this regard, we have to do it at our own risk. It is a gratification to me to know that I am ignorant of art, and ignorant also of surgery. Because people who understand art find nothing in pictures but blemishes, and surgeons and anatomists see no beautiful women in all their lives, but only a ghastly stack of bones with Latin names to them, and a network of nerves and muscles and tissues inflamed by disease.
Brexit – The Real Winners
’m in London this week.It is not a happy place I’m told. The whole of the United Kingdom is riven and disunited like never before. A vote on membership of the European Union three years ago was billed as a once in a generation vote: a vote that would be “respected” by all. Three years on it is not just the vote that has not been respected by all but there is a distinct lack of respect in the political discourse that followed on from it. It has all turned very sour while the UK has left nothing – except its collective mind.However, there has been one big winner in all this.
Remember Alamo Pictures!
Remember the Alamo!Yes, and now, get ready for Alamo Pictures.I was sitting on a plane recently. I was switching through the channels looking for a video to watch. The choice was okay, if you like middle of the road story lines with every predictable plot line going.I switched to the documentaries. Soon I settled into some real films about real people with some real stories to boot.
The Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry?
I have personal beef – sorry – with the beef industry.I’m interested in this for a number of reasons, not least because I owned a ranch in Texas. I know and understand what it takes to raise cattle. I also like beef. I mean you can’t live in Texas and not like steak.Or can you?There is a growing trend for “alt meat.” Yes, you read that right, meat that is, well, not really meat.Alt meat isn't going to stay alt for long though.
All Change!
“To live is to change, and to change often is to become more perfect.”Thus said the late Cardinal Newman who I’m told will be canonized next month at the Vatican. What the good cardinal said is something not just for the spiritual life, however, but something just as true in business too.Allow me to explain.A year after the death of Cardinal Newman, in 1891, a young man, not yet 30 years old, moved from Philadelphia to Chicago. He wanted to start a business but had only $32 to his name
2019 Podcast Ecosystem
In the world of podcasting new technologies - including: AirPods, connected cars, and smart speakers - they have made it easier than ever for consumers to listen to audio content.This in turn encourages others to get on board the podcast revolution. Something we at Mt. Bonnell have done with gusto. There are now another 700,000 free podcasts available to listen to any time with many more coming on stream every month.So with so much choice, and so many creative audio alternatives where do you turn as this next wave of listening products enters an already crowded field?
The Awesome Foursome: Looking for a Team With Personality?
To run your own business means you need to be leader.What is a truism, however, is that to be a leader you need someone to follow you. In your case that’s the team you’ve created and built.What is also common wisdom is that you are only as good as your team. I would go further and say that you and your team are only ever going to be as successful in so far as you understand who they are, what makes them tick, and the mix of personalities within the team you have created.