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I am no psychologist so the thoughts that follow are simply those of my personal experience. I was moved to write this article as I recently had an insight into when a fear might be holding back an individual and their organisation. I use the word fear loosely to mean any form of worry or concern that you may have. I think we all use these terms interchangeably, we talk of “fearing that something may happen”, when we may actually mean we are simply worried or concerned. I think I have lived with fear my whole life and I think it has served me well most of the time, making me alive to and to consider the downsides of any action, but I can also see those instances where it has paralysed me from taking appropriate action. Recognising your fears, addressing them and their cause and channeling them is, I think, the key.Continue Reading Channel your fear

Early in my career as a lawyer I heard about the two rules adopted by a grocery chain in the North-eastern United States called Stew Leonard’s. It encapsulated their policy and they were so proud of it they had it chiseled into a granite rock outside the store. It was very simple:

“Our Policy – Rule 1: The customer is always right! Rule 2: If the customer is ever wrong, reread Rule 1!”

I recently re-read this when thinking about this article. Steve King”s article on it, which I can thoroughly recommend, gives a fuller picture: https://stevekeating.me/2021/01/11/the-customer-is-always-right/.Continue Reading The customer is always right.

What do you do if you cannot think of the answer?

I was out walking my dog on our usual loop early the other day. It is now dark in the morning so rather than do our normal anti-clockwise route we went clockwise to avoid the unlit part of the path early in the walk. Coming back on the unlit part once it had got light I was struck by how different the route seemed despite the number of times we had walked it in the other direction. It really struck me that there was a metaphor here for life and work.Continue Reading Change your perspective