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Monthly Archives: May 2014


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What does Google reveal about businesspeople worldwide?

Our favourite search engine exposes our prejudices.

To find information about anything and everything, Google is the first place most of us head to. The ubiquitous search engine has an autofill feature designed to uncover what people are searching for most often.  Fascinatingly, it can also reveal what people worldwide think about South African businesspeople, and indeed about businesspeople in other countries and continents as a whole. The prejudices exposed make for an eye-opening read. Continue reading →


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Courageous leaders face the heat

courageous-leaders-lion
This article also appeared in Finweek Magazine in their 8-May-2014 issue

Management super-guru Peter Drucker said: “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” Good leaders aren’t afraid to make tough, unpopular and often counter-intuitive decisions. The decisions that prompt their critics to ask: “What were they thinking?” It is their courage in the face of criticism that makes them the leaders of their organisations, while others aren’t. Continue reading →


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Is honesty the best policy?

honesty-interview-cartoonThis article also appeared in Finweek on 25-Apr-2014

For President George Washington, honesty was tremendously important. You’ve probably heard the legendary story when he cut down a cherry tree, and admitted it to his father with the phrase, “I cannot tell a lie.” In his farewell speech of 1796, Washington said: “I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.” And today as parents we teach this to our children. But is honesty really the best policy? Are we being truthful about the beliefs we stand for, when our culture rewards cheats and liars, and whistle-blowers get penalised? Continue reading →