External Articles, White Paper & Podcasts

(Published in Business Day - 11 February 2025) Over five decades at work I have had plenty of management inflicted on me, while I inflicted it on others. But I have also had the opportunity as teacher, researcher, consultant, coach and business owner to observe so many extraordinary people. While we can and should...

(Published in Business Day - 28 January 2025) Rudeness has been shown to have a damaging effect on both individual and team performance. So why has it become so popular? What is the impact on impressionable minds of the success of Donald Trump at the polls and his dramatic impact in enforcing rapid change? He and the...

(Published in Business Day - 14 January 2025) In a time of great fluidity in culture, politics, and economics, I think it would be great if managers held the line on values. Managers have a substantial impact on the thinking and behaviour of their people, so it’s worth considering the impact we want to make. We live...

(Published in Business Day - 10 December 2024) What threat to humanity can ordinary businesses help prevent or mitigate? I don’t think most of us could avert nuclear war, mitigate the next pandemic, prevent intelligent robots from taking over, or shield us from rogue asteroids or solar flares. But there is one threat...

(Published in Business Day - 26 November 2024) As a boy I was captivated by C.S. Forester’s Hornblower series. In one of the books a ship carrying a cargo of rice survives a stormy battering. Each day the inexperienced captain carefully checks for leaks, but finds nothing. But unbeknownst to the captain, the seawater...

(Published in Business Day - 12 November 2024) To grow or not to grow is a key question facing founders once their business is off the ground. Noah (not his real name), a very enthusiastic and clearly effective entrepreneur in Kenya, just loves to sell. He wakes up fully energised by the idea of getting out there and...

(Published in Business Day - 29 October 2024) In what respects will humans outperform AI in management? As a psychologist in management, I have felt pretty secure that my particular gift of understanding and facilitating human interactions would be difficult for a machine to match. But I was intrigued to read that an...

(Published in Business Day - 1 October 2024) I have long been intrigued by the interplay between ordered structure and exuberant energy in human activities. When we have wonderful energy without the discipline of structure, the energy can be wasted in unsustainable ventures. We lack good rules. But when we have rules...

(Published in Business Day - 17 September 2024) Some apparently unique business ideas go boldly where no one has thought to go before, while other ideas fail because they have been tried before, but have been filtered out by some intrinsic flaw. Where is the difference? Let’s turn to the Fermi paradox. The physicist...

(Published in Business Day - 20 August 2024) As I was preparing this column I received the utterly shocking and devastating news that the chief developer in a small company I am associated with had suffered a sudden heart attack and passed away. Gone. It’s a personal tragedy for her lovely, close, adventurous family...

(Published in Business Day on - 3 September 2024) Once upon a time a bright young person launched into a career full of promise and maybe some foreboding. . . . Nothing captures the human imagination quite like a story. In his book The Storytelling Animal Jonathan Gottschall suggests it is stories that make us human....

(Published in Business Day on - 6 August 2024) Corporate executives can learn about leadership from great conductors. Benjamin Zander is famous for teaching the art of possibility to youth and businesspeople. Here in Johannesburg our own impressive, entrepreneurial maestro, Richard Cock, runs an inspiring session...

(Published in Business Day on - 23 July 2024) How do leaders create a shared sense of identity, given that most workplaces are highly diverse? It’s an important concern, because a staff complement that is divided along demographic lines presents almost limitless opportunities for conflict. Members are not going to...

(Published in Business Day on - 9 July 2024) One nonfinancial ratio that could be added to the financial ratios we all track is the ratio of external to internal priorities. Priorities that reach outward include anything to do with customers or clients, market positioning, and products and services; those that reach...

(Published in Business Day - 25 June 2024) In 1968 Jane Elliot, a third-grade teacher in the little town of Riceville in relatively monocultural Iowa, USA, ran a daring experiment. She told her all-white class on the first day that those with blue eyes were smarter and better behaved than those with brown eyes. All...

(Published in Business Day - 11 June 2024) Systemic or ecological thinking tells us that any organisation needs flexibility to respond to changes in its environment through effective feedback processes. Like organisms adapting to changes in the physical environment, those organisations that adapt to the changing...

(Published in Business Day - 28 May 2024) Variety is one of life’s extraordinary design features. It both arises from and leads to evolutionary innovation. Who could possibly have sat down at a drawing board and imagined from scratch a rhinoceros, elephant, giraffe, warthog and dung beetle and then let them all...

(Published in Business Day - 14 May 2024) When I was a young manager, I did not consider mental health to be a management matter, even though as a psychologist I was aware that mental health problems can arise at work. In the unlikely event that a team member might show disturbing symptoms, the responsible thing...

(Published in Business Day - 30 April 2024) Accountability is a popular word at present. It represents many people’s solution to the crisis in service delivery, corruption and general lack of responsibility in public service. When there are no consequences the temptation grows to enrich ourselves or to get away with...

(Published in Business Day - 16 April 2024.) Today is Earth Day although it should be every day. This year’s theme is planet vs plastics. Big companies can afford sustainability managers to direct their environmental efforts, but small business owners have to rely on their own ideas and very limited time. What can we...

(Published in Business Day - 5 March 2024 ) Feedback at work conjures delight for some and terror for others. Those who look forward to hearing what others have to say about them probably have experienced feedback for learning and growth, while those who dread it may have only had to give and receive feedback in the...

(Published in Business Day - 6 February 2024 ) In my last column I argued that wellness at work requires creating a healthy workplace, and not just sending staff on wellness programmes. Afterwards someone suggested I should include more practical guidance. So what should we do? Legislation makes every manager...

(Published in Business Day - 23 January 2024) I have no doubt that employers should pay attention to the growing incidence of stress and mental ill-health in the workplace. Aggravated by the isolation and discontinuities created by Covid, we seem to have a pandemic of distress at work and at school. As always, some...