Tag Archives: Wisdom

In a full length feature article for Training Journal, I explained why simply being smart as a leader is not enough. The wisdom of leadership Without a doubt, leaders need to be smart. They need to juggle different aspects of their leadership roles while retaining currency in their areas of technical expertise. They need to have answers – or be able to get them – and they need to motivate and direct the teams who follow them. Not surprisingly, the study...

Read More

Smart to Wise was my hardest book to write, so far. And this includes the new book I have just sent to my publisher, Pearson, which is by far the most complex of my ten books to date. One of the reasons why Smart to Wise was so difficult to write was the discipline of sticking to my editor’s specification of 25,000 words.  Compare this with the word count of a typical business or self-development book that you would also...

Read More

“Clever, fascinating, useful, life-enhancing. It’s not often you can use those words together – but it’s a perfect summary of this book. If you read only one personal development book this year, make it Smart to Wise. Put it this way, I read it and now I’m re-reading it.” David Thompson, bestselling author of The Small Print of Success and The Magic BlackBerry Published by Marshall Cavendish, 2012 Being smart, savvy and knowledgeable during the early stages of your career is one...

Read More

Articles supporting my newest book, Smart to Wise, are starting to appear in the press, and this is one of my favourites. Commissioned by Changing Careers magazine, “Smart is Not Enough” discusses how wisdom opens doors for you as you contemplate your next career move, and it reflects on some of my own experiences.  In the article, I use the framework of Seven Pillars that I developed for the book to show readers where to invest, to help them develop their careers.   You can...

Read More

So, the Final is over; the winner declared.  In the end, it was the business plans that were paramount, but the journey, over the  last twelve episodes, was also important. I want to use this final Apprentice 2012 blog to consider the reasons: why Lord Sugar was right. But first let’s review who the four finalists were:   Jade Nash Strong manager, strong salesperson, creative and forceful. Weak strategist with a background in direct marketing. Nick Holzherr Calm, assured, conciliatory...

Read More

There is plenty to argue about in tonight’s episode and it would be easy to find clear and simple business lessons, whichever team had one, that would account for their victory and the other team’s loss.  But I don’t think that was what today’s episode really taught us. Instead, I think the message is darker; perhaps the darkest yet, since I have been commenting on The Apprentice. The task was simple: to buy second hand goods and to sell them...

Read More

I am not big on following rules, but I guess I have observed and written many of my own over the years.  It all came home to me last week when I got a cold call from “a broker”.  I stopped him mid-flow, not wanting to waste any more of his time or mine: “Rule 1:” I said, “Never buy financial services from a cold call.” “But I’m not selling financial services – this is a fine wine brokerage”. “Ahh…”...

Read More

So, after seven weeks, from twelve candidates, two remained: James McCullagh and Zara Brownless. Here we had two “chalk and cheese” candidates: the rough with the smooth, with different strengths to compliment their contrasting personal styles. The task was to create a brand new online video game, to create a viral video advert, and to pitch their games and videos to a large group of gaming professionals, from the very top tiers of the industry.  As usual with the final,...

Read More

What is management without vision and inspiration? The sad news about Steve Jobs’ untimely death has spurred more blogs than anyone has the time to read, so just a short blog and a simple observation. Making the complex seem easy and the sophisticated, a doddle to use: this is more than talent, or skill: it’s art. Last week, for the first time in my life, I heard a major news story first, not on the radio, not on the TV,...

Read More

Readers of my regular newsletters will have got a newsletter titled “Beat Bias” last week. If you didn’t, there is a sign-up box below. If you did get it and the short article piqued your interest, I notice a splendid and very timely article on the Harvard Business Review site.  It is co-authored by Nobel Laureate, Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman, along with his long-time co-worker Amos Tversky, are the most influential researchers in the area of cognitive bias – I would...

Read More