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Politics & business are like Sonny & Cher

MUNICH — I really love meeting people with a similar career path but totally different background.  Today I have had a good chat with a top businessman who used to work in German politics, and I loved what he had to say.

Politics, as you know, is bad.

Is that right?

Earlier today someone had said to me, [...]

Walden Pond: My brain at 10,000 meters

 

OVER THE OLD OTTOMAN EMPIRE — I said years ago that the airport lounge has become the Walden Pond of my generation.  It is for me anyway.  It’s a place for respite, relaxation and forced reflection.  (The two big British fellows putting away a bottle of white a 7h30 this morning might not agree.)

I recognise [...]

Credibility of communicators (and transformation)

TCR — Here’s a brave soul.  Through a network of former Towers Perrin employees on LinkedIn I have just been forwarded a note from Robert Cornet on his blog.  I don’t know him.  But I admire his willingness to go into dangerous waters.

In his blog on 10 March (which I can’t get a clean link to) he publishes [...]

Professional services can be professional

"Your bill is ready…"

SIENA — I know that we don’t always get it right.  And writing this might mean that I am more likely to get it wrong.  But there are a few things that seem to me to be straight-forward in professional services.

If we are charging for time — which we are — [...]

Breaking the rules to make things work

AL DUOMO, FIRENZE — I know how I feel about graffiti on historic monuments.  I don’t like it.  There is no value in defacing ancient monuments, like Lord Byron famously did at The Temple of Poseidon in Greece.

But as I stumbled, puffin down the 463 steps from the top of the cathedral in Florence this afternoon, [...]