FT Listen to Lucy: Recent Episodes
Financial Times
Financial Times management columnist Lucy Kellaway pokes fun at management fads and jargon, and celebrates the ups and downs of office life.
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After 32 years, you are still an enigma, says Lucy Kellaway
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The exponential rise of guff in business shows no sign of abating, says Lucy Kellaway
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Apple's $5bn headquarters is the world’s most expensive office and Steve Jobs' last posthumous hurrah, says Lucy Kellaway
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Shock over swear words exposes some misplaced prudery, says Lucy Kellaway
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Interruptions help cut short boring discussions. So instead of making men interrupt less, women should be made to do it more, argues Lucy Kellaway.
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The main difference between yes and no is that one is easy and the other hard, says Lucy Kellaway
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It was wrong to punish someone who tried to get his colleagues to write text that people might conceivably want to read, says Lucy Kellaway
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The tables are turning on Ikea and the fashion for Skandi tat, says Lucy Kellaway. Image credit: Chris Tosic
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Voice bot Experimental Amy might represent serious competition if what she produced was halfway decent, but it isn't, says Lucy Kellaway
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Modern fiftysomethings are perky, well-rested and free from domestic ties, says Lucy Kellaway. Image credit: Chris Tosic
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Abbott’s difficulty with a simple sum is evidence of a troubling assumption, says Lucy Kellaway
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‘Breakthrough’ is so stale it makes me almost feel sorry for the author, says Lucy Kellaway. Image credit: Chris Tosic
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Good intentions led to a tour de force of clangers, says Lucy Kellaway. Image credit: Chris Tosic
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Expensive ‘holistic’ leadership programmes do not solve anything, says Lucy Kellaway. Image credit: Chris Tosic
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Puffed-up nonsense has been deemed worthy of academic study, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Everyone will tell you they are too busy to talk — but it is not true, says Lucy Kellaway. Image credit: Chris Tosic
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Like most humans, I am not naturally drawn to small print, says Lucy Kellaway
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Viral video of domestic mishap shows the artificiality of the professional self, says Lucy Kellaway
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Unlike Angela Ahrendts, I am not ‘on 24/7’, say Lucy Kellaway.
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The Sage of Omaha tells old and unfunny jokes without recrimination, says Lucy Kellaway. Picture credit: Chris Tosic
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A disrupter of habit, it stops the living in their tracks, says Lucy Kellaway
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Telling others what you did before can be a sign of mediocrity, says Lucy Kellaway. Illustration by Chris Tosic
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What people wear to work at investment banks, management consultancies and top law firms is ridiculous. Individualism is to be avoided at all costs, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Start with please and thank you, then spoon on the flattery, says Lucy Kellaway. Image by Chris Tosic
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In the workplace and in life, being troublesome can be useful, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Office life is better than ever before, but dissatisfaction is rising, says Lucy Kellaway
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When handing out my annual guff awards last week I said clear language in business was perfectly possible if you tried hard enough. I now find it’s not as simple as that, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Contenders for 2016’s gong ranged from euphemistic to ‘plain moronic’, says Lucy Kellaway
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After 31 years at the Financial Times, Lucy Kellaway is leaving to set up Now Teach
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Starbucks boss has no business sending a missive to staff to tell them how to be.
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Remind yourself how awful most business leaders are: the bar is low, says Lucy Kellaway
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Faddish organisational trends that shut out older workers are in danger of spreading, says Lucy Kellaway
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Time spent waiting is an opportunity to catch up with emails, reading and phone calls, says Lucy Kellaway
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Just as with other skills, we benefit from clear and direct views that help us improve, says Lucy Kellaway
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The rise of the gender-neutral toilet in the workplace is not an entirely good thing, says Lucy Kellaway
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The Tiger Oil chief’s missives were rude, but his style was perfect, says Lucy Kellaway
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The aftermath of leaving my iPhone in a Washington DC taxi was frightening, shaming, then liberating, says Lucy Kellaway
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After being taken for a ride, customers should bridle at the guff in the bank's apology advert, says Lucy Kellaway
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Forget calling staff "imagineers" or "sandwich artists"; companies need more modest skills to evolve, says Lucy Kellaway
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Staff are more likely to be excited by a new vending machine and for good reason, says Lucy Kellaway
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Not being able to switch off is becoming seen for what it is — a sign of poor time management, says Lucy Kellaway
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Rich Lesser risks widening the gap between expectations and reality for twentysomethings, says Lucy Kellaway
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Despite the Yahoo chief’s ire, we will go on being interested until there are more women at the top.
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Now it is unacceptable to boast about spending, company bosses are turning to the summer reading list
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To appear exasperated but poised is as good as it gets, says Lucy Kellaway
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Your departure offers a rare chance to voice what you like while everyone is listening, says Lucy Kellaway
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The 10 minutes I debated high heels on the radio were the sanest I have had since the referendum, says Lucy Kellaway
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I did not set out to be uncivil to my colleagues. This is just how office life has become, says Lucy Kellaway
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A hat trick of honesty, ignorance and blame: it is plain, simple — and insidious, says Lucy Kellaway
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Clever technology is bad for our brains, says Lucy Kellaway
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A champion tweeter and receiver of thousands of likes may be the opposite of prolific, says Lucy Kellaway
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HR departments will soon laugh at the fuss they made over keeping spoilt millennials happy, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Not all rejections are equal and those followed by successes stop mattering at once, says Lucy Kellaway.
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There is not a single example of a business putting its values to music without mass humiliation, says Lucy Kellaway.
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The longer I suffer the commute, the more likely I will stop asking if it is mad to cycle, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Typing and using the mouse are so hard that I’ve had to pick a task and stick to it, says Lucy Kellaway
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Graduates are up against the widest gap between expectation and reality ever seen in the professions
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Hillary Clinton’s summary teaches two lessons in how not to do it: no jokes and stick to the point, says Lucy Kellaway
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Predictability is boring and unglamorous in a world that reveres creativity and disruption, says Lucy Kellaway
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A company wanting to show it values women at work uses images where they are not always gorgeous, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Whether it be silence or brevity, the medium is perfect for communicating quiet hostility, says Lucy Kellaway.
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What the banker was trying to tell demoralised junior colleagues is that careers are a long game, says Lucy Kellaway
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Trick-playing Schwab CEO was spot on in one thing at least — inviting job candidates to a restaurant, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Companies wanting a higher purpose should simply produce things and jobs that people want
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Any sign of unhappiness or doubt is taken as tantamount to an admission you are unfit for the job, says Lucy Kellaway
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Meg Whitman’s lieutenant was ‘disappointed’ with what I’d written. Here is my considered response, says Lucy Kellaway
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The World Economic Forum’s 36 best quotes are almost all dismal. But the idiots are not the speakers, says Lucy Kellaway.
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In elite circles it is becoming vulgar to flaunt workaholism and that view may be spreading
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After reading Punit Renjen's new year memo, anyone in possession of even a normal IQ would wonder why they were working there, says Lucy Kellaway.
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My generation couldn’t resist a spoof email but millennials can, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Many entries in the 2015 Golden Flannel Awards made the flesh creep as well as offending eye and ear, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Lucy Kellaway unveils a repository for the worst jargon she's seen over the years — and appeals for fresh examples submitted by readers
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The fad for presenting your career or company as a ‘story’ has gone too far, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Just when designers are building better work spaces, people are losing the habit of working in them, writes Lucy Kellaway
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One problem of getting older is that your self-knowledge goes up but so does your complacency, says Lucy Kellaway
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The Yahoo chief’s move to make staff vow to stay is smart, just like ‘Wizard of Oz’ dress-up idea for management, says Lucy Kellaway.
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When executives fall for an employee and overpromote them, they ensure disaster, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Jes Staley’s email to underlings starts well but fails on its use of the ‘v-word’, says Lucy Kellaway
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When you have lost some financial security, every pay cheque becomes a cause of celebration, says Lucy Kellaway.
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It is disingenuous to refer to staff with the term because most people are merely average, says Lucy Kellaway.
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We need to go to the office to convince ourselves that what we do has some purpose, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Seventeen of Britain’s 100 best companies get along fine without listing corporate traits, says Lucy Kellaway .
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"UBS head should make clear that all can take risks but none may make light of mistakes," says Lucy Kellaway.
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On the one thing that customers would have liked to hear about, the new CEO’s letter is silent, says Lucy Kellaway.
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The bank’s advertisements pose a difficult question — one Lucy Kellway has avoided asking herself for 24 years
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A meeting where you are never sure who is talking yields a discussion of the lowest order, says Lucy Kellaway
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This form of showing off is as vital as ever and women remain feeble at it, says Lucy Kellaway
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Too many companies have started to talk as if being wrong were superior to being right, says Lucy Kellaway
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The system appears to have been designed deliberately to cause me maximum pain, says Lucy Kellaway
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Accenture’s decision to remove the annual performance review is welcome news, says Lucy Kellaway
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The number of unattractive employees hired says a lot about the company, says Lucy Kellaway
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Never was there a more naked display of cunning in a Regulatory News Service announcement
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After a lot of posturing, Satya Nadella finally slips in two words that mean something — ‘tough choices’, says Lucy Kellaway
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There is nothing morally superior about walking a lot — the craze is head-bangingly boring, says Lucy Kellaway.
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The ego that throws its weight around is the most tiresome. But the silent ego is most dangerous, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Caring about our work has become a weird status symbol. But it can make us mad and unproductive, says Lucy Kellaway
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Help is needed because even the sanest people become unhinged when buying and selling houses, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Lucy Kellaway explains why wielding a can of boot polish and a brush can result in greater job satisfaction
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He is living proof that it is nonsense to argue that the most successful leaders are the humble ones, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Crystalknows uses public information to fake empathy but the real thing is more reliable, says Lucy Kellaway.
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It was not only the social media platform’s financial results that were lowering, says Lucy Kellaway.
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It is remarkable how many of the super-successful have stuck by their first spouse, says Lucy Kellaway.
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We don’t approve of promiscuity in relationships, so why do we admire it in employment? asks Lucy Kellaway.
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The senior and the self-important should jump through the same hoops as new graduates, says Lucy Kellaway
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The more someone can recall small talk at previous meetings, the more you like and trust them, says Lucy Kellaway.
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How people arrive at and leave an office building provides rewarding insights for companies, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Parenting is hard work that requires well honed management skills, only you do not get paid for it, says Lucy Kellaway.
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His Kilimanjaro-inspired resignation memo mixes work-life epiphany with pitch for job offers, says Lucy Kellaway
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Knowledge of how others rate us can be useful, but too much of it is unhealthy and confusing, says Lucy Kellaway
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The thirdpartybrag is a sort of boasting that needs exposing even more than the humblebrag as it is more widespread and more lethal, says Lucy Kellaway
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Hard work is harming not only sleepless executives but the companies that employ them too, writes Lucy Kellaway
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If a mismatch is fundamental, there is no such thing as too quick, says Lucy Kellaway.
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There are better ways to gauge employee contentment than just asking, says Lucy Kellaway
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Not responding is a sane response to inbox overload but it breeds insanity on the other side, says Lucy Kellaway
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A black eye is not the best start for a non-exec director interview, says Lucy Kellaway
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The fear of being found out is just one reason why the rot sets in but entrepreneurs offer hope, says Lucy Kellaway
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The company’s creation of a dedicated ‘empathy team’ does not amount to an emotional awakening, says Lucy Kellaway
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Under Tim Cook’s leadership, Apple succumbed to drivel, says Lucy Kellaway
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AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong’s directive — to spend one-tenth of each working week thinking — is in need of a rethink.
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The Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger’s exit shows how our aversion to brown-nosing has got lost along the way
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Two new trends are emerging in greetings, both bad. Sign-offs are getting worse too, writes Lucy Kellaway.
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Few covet the job of middle manager, and who could blame them? says Lucy Kellaway
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We sometimes envy the trappings of other people’s jobs. But the work itself? Never, says Lucy Kellaway
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The chatroom banter of the forex traders shows little has changed in the banking culture, says Lucy Kellaway
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Work anxiety tends to decline with age, but watch out for the complacency catch, writes Lucy Kellaway.
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Great ideas can sometimes come from a chat with the unlikeliest of people, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Sport does not broaden an executive’s worldview. Virtually everything else does, writes Lucy Kellaway.
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It's time to flirt with Tinder for a new approach to recruitment, says Lucy Kellaway
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Employers should specify ‘being conscientious’ as the top skill they are looking for, says Lucy Kellaway
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Hiring events should not turn into hen nights, says Lucy Kellaway
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A fixed holiday entitlement tells us it's OK to take a break - even though our work is far from done, says Lucy Kellaway
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Years of drudgery have a way of taking the shine off brilliance, says Lucy Kellaway
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McKinsey's predictions will come to nothing, says Lucy Kellaway
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Taking drugs, getting drunk, smoking roll-ups help at being cool and are still just as bad for you, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Users of electronic calendars can take six times longer to scribble something down says Lucy Kellaway.
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To exclude a job candidate simply because they have transposed two letters makes no sense, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Stephen Elop’s job-loss announcement is a case study in how not to write, think or lead, says Lucy Kellaway.
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People feel compelled to review everyday items but are more reticent regarding their work, says Lucy Kellaway.
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The only excuse for a beauty contest is that you meet the individual people involved, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway suspects that the vast majority of office apologies, delivered by both sexes, are insincere
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Shirking is necessary for survival and is a vital skill, not only in early July, but all year
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A wide cross section brings with it the danger of falling within the narrow confines of groupthink
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The ugly words in an Apple job advertisement suggest the group has got too big to hang on to what once made it different
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All the average employer wants is people who like their job and care about it.
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To reward bosses for working late or reading the briefing papers doesn’t seem quite right
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Why bother with introductions when you can tell your story on your forehead - or even your bottom?
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Lucy Kellaway says these marriages tend to work when there is no need to prop up a male ego
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Lucy Kellaway says there is a need for a new investment bank that would sell itself on low pay
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Lucy Kellaway says technology is steadily ruining all the old favourites
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Only a strict routine can stop our jobs silting up our lives, says Lucy Kellaway
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If I changed career now I would put my back into it like never before, says Lucy Kellaway
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The disease of overwork is partly in our minds and it has a bearing on how stressed we feel
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Luke Johnson is wrong. Flattery is crucial to survival in the corporate world and beyond
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Lucy Kellaway says pieces of advice are positioning statements that tell the world about the values the issuer holds
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Your performance is only the half of it. The rest is down to the early dynamic with the audience, says Lucy Kellaway
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The true value of such morsels has nothing to do with the subject and is all to do with purveyor
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So long as everyone knows they are being monitored and why, it is not such a bad idea
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If you don’t chat, people don’t like you much. So if women keep quiet at work, it matters
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Now we know why so many dyslexics and people who lost a parent young make it to the top
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Lucy Kellaway says the idea that employees are part of one big, corporate family is delusional
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Lucy Kellaway says she is ditching al desko lunches. Anticipation, ritual and smugness point the way ahead
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For privileged professionals at least, working life is better than it has ever been
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Women may be more resilient, as we don’t take minor slights as a heinous attack on our egos
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All winners of the 2013 Golden Flannel Awards are exceptional, original, giants of jargon
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The world’s most successful business women have impeccable hairdos.
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Laboured quirkiness is common and Stephen Fry may be to blame with his ‘Prince of Swimwear’
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Whenever I interview anyone, I do not consider I’ve done the job properly unless I slip in how old they are
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Lucy Kellaway says to eradicate those truly unsuited to office we need random checks on their level of knowledge
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If people used the stairs, we would be deprived of the office equivalent of behind the bike shed, says Lucy Kellaway
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Disarm others, make them forget you are scarily powerful and lull them into liking you, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway says bosses can learn much by watching a prospective employee on a bicycle
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A diet of drudgery in a takeaway might seem wholesome but it does open the eye to better things, says Lucy Kellaway
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Germany, strong enough to carry southern Europe on its back, stays home at the slightest twinge
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Lucy Kellaway says it’s all very well thinking we are good at what we do but it’s better to try to be good at it
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To bring about change, it is criticism delivered in person by random strangers that counts, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway says welcoming gestures require global regulation to spare us crushing embarrassment
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On praise, the experts have got it wrong: it should almost never be given in public. It is a dangerous, corrosive substance that has a powerful and positive effect on the person it is aimed at but is better administered behind closed doors, says Lucy Kellaway.
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There is little to suggest that viral revenge leaves any lasting marks on target companies, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway says gauging yourself against others is a nasty drip-drip of poison into the bloodstream
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It is a mystery why the banks inflict a working day on employees that exhausts them, says Lucy Kellaway
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LinkedIn could learn something from the Girl Guides to prevent the skill inflation and sucking up that are rampant on the social network, says Lucy Kellaway
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The vitamins-socks-wife combo was not quite Watergate but hints at something slightly creepy
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Talking like a regular human being does not guarantee success
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To work for free means you value yourself at nothing, and that should make you feel bad indeed, says Lucy Kellaway
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What is the most off-putting thing you can write in the subject line of an email? Lucy Kellaway has compiled a list, in ascending order of obnoxiousness.
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Lucy Kellaway says the stubbornly enduring group stays that way by flouting the rules in every success manual
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A ‘tall’ beige milk comes with unlimited table, chair and WiFi – but my back is killing me, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway says the position of chief operating officer signals a sad succumbing to the language of corporate America
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People may come to dislike their jobs a little less, but seldom learn to love them
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Sleeplessness is the biggest reason for me turning up crabby and inefficient in the mornings
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I have no folders, no system. That is because I don’t need one, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway says students need not change the world – getting a job will be an achievement
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Calling it a summit, forum or ideas exchange doesn’t make a gathering any more important, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway says her test shows that those with firsts are neither better nor worse than those with seconds
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Lucy Kellaway says the craze for taking something we all think is bad and telling us that it’s good is crazy
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Studies say the good looking are more successful but that is not a good way to recruit, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway says the average office worker never relaxes in the lift
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All this stuff about employee engagement is nonsense says Lucy Kellaway
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How do you spot an April Fools' Day joke from the real thing?
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Lucy Kellaway says that a survey showing that teenagers in Britain want to pursue the ‘wrong’ careers was pointless
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In insisting on a chilly conference room, Mark Zuckerberg is exhibiting dotcom dogmatism, says Lucy Kellaway
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No one complains about earning too much, says Lucy Kellaway
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Now is the time to break my silence and tell my story of being sexually harassed at work, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway says we need the equivalent of the stocks to persuade people to get off the net and get on with their work
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J&J’s ‘Our Credo’ got me excited. Alas, since it was written in 1943 there has been some slippage
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The death of the old-style phone may help us individually but it loosens the bonds between us, says Lucy Kellaway
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If everybody knows what their manager’s little ways are, it is better all round, says Lucy Kellaway
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The only risk is that the boss gets wind of the arrangement and cuts out the middleman
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Last week I read a blog saying that sitting is the new smoking. It makes you fat and then it kills you. We must act, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway says that a CEO ought to be able to explain what he does in a way a child can grasp
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Bosses have been rampant in the world of bull, says the FT's Lucy Kellaway
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It is quite wrong to think about it as the enemy, says the FT's Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway says lessons learnt from family life can pay off at work
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Lucy Kellaway says it is a nonsense to boil down something as qualitative as influence into a single number
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If laughter varies with gender, it varies even more with power, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway says the ubiquitous coffee chain cannot be forgiven for the way it grinds out its message
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When it comes to the quest for the perfect match, it helps to keep your expectations real, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway finds that apparently a game of ‘Angry Birds’ is good for us
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The world of work is supposed to have changed beyond recognition since I started out on a bank's graduate training programme three decades ago, but actually it hasn’t. For graduate trainees, nothing of any importance has changed at all.
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Lucy Kellaway says alumni connections are not a problem at all – in fact they are a thoroughly good thing.
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Study after study shows an interview is not much better than picking people at random.
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Lucy Kellaway says it’s not just the objects that are telling – it’s the juxtaposition
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With design so overbearing at Google’s London HQ, the individual can’t get a look in, says the FT's Lucy Kellaway.
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Lucy Kellaway says that top executives should take an annual hubris test
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Anyone batty enough to aim for perfection in their work isn’t a force for good. Such obsession comes with a dark underside.
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Lucy Kellaway says the joke should be on the even more stupid people who voice their approval in their millions
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Lucy Kellaway discovers that Helen Gurley Brown had a great deal of exceedingly sensible, realistic things to say about work
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The FT's Lucy Kellaway says that there is no balance. It’s a continuous, fluid game of survival, the rules of which are unclear
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To stage this festival of sporting competitiveness every other sort of competition is being stifled says the FT's Lucy Kellaway
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More expensive does not necessarily mean better, says Lucy Kellaway.
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The FT's Lucy Kellaway says that Angela Ahrendts’ language meets the most important criterion for jargon – it is utterly impenetrable.
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Wimbledon’s teenage volunteer training has produced strong results, says Lucy Kellaway
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We can study Bill Gates all we like but we’re not going to end up where he is, says the FT's Lucy Kellaway
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It is a CEO’s job to take things very personally, says the FT's Lucy Kellaway
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Being boring is no barrier to great leadership, says the FT's Lucy Kellaway
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Upholstery has shown Lucy Kellaway that losing yourself is a far better idea than finding yourself
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The story of Bain and the buffalo makes one question business travel says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway on why smart people will always make stupid errors
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Lucy Kellaway discovers that our stock of brands is so ingrained that they have become part of who we are
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Lucy Kellaway argues that facts have little traction in the art of persuasion
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Lucy Kellaway on why the ambitious should go for prestige every time
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No amount of huddles will crack Royal Mail’s rubber band problem, says the FT's Lucy Kellaway
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Successful women are more frightening than men, says the FT's Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellway on whether virtual working might one day happen properly
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Why listening to departing employees is foolish
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The thing that is killing the finest sort of gossip is the internet: email, Facebook and Twitter.
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Everything I see at work (apart from surveys) tells me that there are more women doing better and having a better time.
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Lucy Kellaway on why working alone is the best way to get things done
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Lucy Kellaway on her eight rules for this trickiest of literary genres
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It is time to worry when companies write witless things and then hand them to their customers, says Lucy Kellaway
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No one appreciates hollow good wishes from someone who is telling them to shove off, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lloyds bank has found a new way of saving money. It has banned all staff from travelling on the third week of every month. If this is a good idea, a similar system should be deployed for all the other ways in which We Are Not Wise with our time, says Lucy Kellaway.
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The judging is now complete and Lucy Kellaway is ready to announce the winners of her annual business jargon awards.
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What is acceptable and what is shameless? The answer is that no one has the foggiest – we are all making it up as we go along, says Lucy Kellaway
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It is surprisingly hard to be good at having money – harder than acquiring it in the first place. The perfect amount of money is when you hardly have to think about it at all, says Lucy Kellaway
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‘Protected conversations’ between employees and bosses are a good idea but they won’t make any difference in practice, says Lucy Kellaway
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Thinking strategically about your life isn’t necessarily such a great idea, says Lucy Kellaway
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So long as top people in the City are continuing to behave in an uncivilised fashion, the world as we know it isn’t coming to an end, says Lucy Kellaway
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No one seems interested in teaching us how to get better at mimicry, despite it being the key to success, says Lucy Kellaway
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When the guff germ arrives big time in China, my prediction is that they will be better at dealing with it than westerners, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Most email messages are exceedingly stupid, and none more so than the ones that arrive from LinkedIn, says Lucy Kellaway
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All companies need someone on board who stirs things up and couldn’t care less what people think, just don’t confuse it with ego, says Lucy Kellaway.
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All sorts of things are just plain wrong when translated from maths to business talk, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Power may corrupt, but absolute power corrupts much less than partial power – as too many lower down the pecking order show, says Lucy Kellaway
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Sufferers from WET aren’t skiving or lying; they just have an inadequate notion of what it means to be reliable, says Lucy Kellaway.
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The sacking of Carol Bartz last week made theatre of the most superior kind. Watching the former chief executive of Yahoo go down spitting obscenities was exhilarating in an immediate sort of way, says Lucy Kellaway
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Research from an expert in ethics at Harvard University suggests people behave better when teddy bears are in the room, says Lucy Kellaway
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Larry Page’s thinking on his decision to spend $12.5bn on some mobile handsets, patents and set-top boxes is woolly at best, says Lucy Kellway.
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Is working with people of different ages really a problem?
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What keeps you in your job? What would your six-word answer be?
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The ubiquitous piece of software can leave one feeling grumpy and passive and in no frame of mind for proper work, says Lucy Kellaway
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When the new head of Tesco in the UK said he wanted staff to love customers, I followed up by visiting my local store, says Lucy Kellaway
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In business, optimism is good and pessimism bad. Optimists have a monopoly on success, on happiness and even on longevity. Pessimists, with their long faces and dark thoughts are pariahs, thought fit for nothing in the gung-ho corporate world except possibly careers in journalism (where bad news is good news). Otherwise, they have a choice between the couch, the closet or the comedy circuit.
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Everyone agrees that we spend too much of our lives e-mailing. Everyone agrees that the answer is to write fewer, shorter, clearer messages. Everyone has known this for years. Yet instead of getting better, the problem goes on getting worse.
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Two different women, both of them up to their eyes in different sorts of trouble, last week put forward the same excuse to explain lapses in their behaviour. Each said she was suffering from a new debilitating condition – a compulsion to please people.
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It is a terrific relief to find that the true path to happiness involves doing what most of us do most of the time, whether we like it or not – work
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Legal disclaimers on e-mails are not only unenforced but unenforceable – making one wonder why they are so popular
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Lagarde is right to play the female card – this is the best time there has been to be a woman with talent, charm, and an appetite for advancement, says Lucy Kellaway
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I don’t like the idea of deputising for someone who was sorting out the financial crisis and might have been president of France, says Lucy Kellaway.
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In the early days of computers I never forgot my password because the top secret word I’d chosen was ‘Kellaway’, which I found could be effortlessly recalled even in the most fraught moments, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Research shows that with CEOs overwhelmingly having boring first names, the drearier the moniker, the greater the success – and that diversity is bunkum says Lucy Kellaway.
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The reams of justification for executive remuneration are mind-numbing and likely to make one succumb through sheer weariness, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Even though I prefer to have genius status granted for big things, I’m prepared to accept it for any achievement at all, even for pressing send on my computer, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Last Monday, when Kerry McCarthy MP got up to speak in the House of Commons she made history – not for the words she spoke, but for reading them off her iPad.
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A letter posted on a lavatory wall to amuse with its verbosity highlights the deficiencies of another missive by a virtuoso at apology – and guff.
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In accepting the invitation to go on a debating tour, I had expected to return with a mind full of management ideas and a suitcase full of rip-off handbags.
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When it comes to describing their dark sides, leaders feel bound by one rule: any weakness is perfectly admissible, so long as it is really a strength.
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Last week I went out for a pizza with a man I hadn’t seen for a while. The bill was low; I picked it up. Two days later, a small, cream envelope arrived on my doormat. Inside was a folded piece of paper on which he had written a short note saying how much he had enjoyed the occasion.
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If you are listening to this during office hours on Monday, you can think of me sitting at a large table engaged in deep discussion about dividends, internal controls and appetites for risk. With me will be my fellow directors of a FTSE 100 company, 11 of us in all: nine men and two women.
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She is beautiful, rich and famous. She has two television shows, one of which is named after her. She’s got her own foundation that helps deprived girls. She’s been to bed with Barack Obama. She is taking a course at Harvard Business School on how to be an entrepreneur.
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When I watched Tim Armstrong on CNN last week talking about the brilliance of his decision to buy the Huffington Post, I found I didn’t believe a word he was saying.
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Last week, there were two stories in the papers about bankers being taken for a ride by conmen and nutters. Both tales were profoundly enjoyable: seeing investment bankers with egg on their faces is always cheering. They were also enjoyably profound, making one question what bankers get up to all day and which talents are needed to perform those tasks well.
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Last week, Fortune magazine published its latest survey of the 100 best companies to work for in the US. As I have never worked at any of them I can’t offer first hand corroboration of the rankings – though in 1981 I did try to get a job at Boston Consulting Group (rated number two in the Fortune list), but was rejected after letting slip in an interview that I had no idea what a learning curve was.
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I was sitting on a train coming back to London after a board meeting in Cardiff. Life felt good: the meeting had ended a bit earlier than I’d feared and I was just getting stuck into a gin and tonic and a packet of Quavers when the ticket inspector came round. I handed her my ticket, which she pronounced not valid.
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Lloyd Blankfein is in need of advice on the principles of business. Fortunately, I have just the man to give it to him: Hannu Penttilä, a Finnish shopkeeper who runs a chain of department stores.
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At the beginning of every year I hand out prizes to companies and individuals who have shown the greatest flair in butchering the English language or in talking through their hats during the previous 12 months.
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Even though it’s a weekday and during working hours, I’m in bed. The reason for such slovenliness is that I’m not feeling my best. Too unwell to feel like getting up, yet not so unwell that I can’t move my fingers over a keyboard.
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This week I’ve decided to focus on two things that are always popular at this time of year. Layoffs and stand-up rows.
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Last Monday I had a delightful lunch with the turkey ambassador. He didn’t appear to know anything much about Ankara or care whether Turkey joined the European Union, but seemed more interested in what people eat for Christmas. He was the chef, Marco Pierre White, who had just been given the title by Bernard Matthews, the biggest British turkey producer, and was therefore flying the flag of the battery bird.
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At a party last week I met a man who told me he had just lost his job. I commiserated, but he said it was OK, he was well out of it. He explained that his boss was a fool who could not cope with having an underling who was far brighter and more charismatic than him. The man looked perfectly cheerful and reassured me that his pay-off had been large, and the move was his employer’s loss.
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On the front of Wednesday’s Financial Times was a picture of Kate Middleton smiling adoringly at the future king of England and giving every impression of delight over her new job as the nation’s foremost corporate wife.
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Wearing socks on the outside of your shoes makes you less likely to slip on icy paths.Promoting people at random makes companies more efficient.These two hypotheses were among the winners of this year’s Ig Nobel prizes – handed out by Improbable Research, an organisation set up to promote academic work that makes you laugh, then think.
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There is a teenage boy I know who worries me quite a lot. He was born to a good family with plenty of money. He is extroverted and optimistic; people appear to like him. He’s relatively easy on the eye and reasonably bright. His health is good and he can kick, hit and catch balls of various shapes and sizes. He does not smoke, or take drugs, or do any more binge drinking than the next person.
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The only problem with losing stuff is not that harm is done, it is that people fear that harm will be done and the loss does not look pretty in the papers, says Lucy Kellaway
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It is usually men who talk more management nonsense, but Lucy Kellaway finds they are no longer the only ones capable of talking guff
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Management accepting humiliation in order to satisfy customers seems like a good thing but Gap’s climbdown on its new logo is feeble, says Lucy Kellaway
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Everyone lives in mortal dread of getting into trouble – CEOs are all shacked up together in a glass house in which no stones ever get thrown, says Lucy Kellaway
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To make it, you simply have to fake it, according to Lucy Kellaway
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The exchange between Steve Jobs and Chelsea Isaacs prompts Lucy Kellaway to congratulate him on his clarity, tetchiness and for being completely in the right
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Like most Brits, I find success in others pretty hard to cope with. When that success is combined with good looks, I can’t tolerate it at all.Apple’s continued glory eats away at me like a maggot at my core.
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Bob Diamond is full of energy and enthusiasm. He likes taking risks. He is determined: he knows what he wants and goes for it. He is fearless, cheerfully taking on a job he has little experience of. He speaks (relatively) simply. He has been known to throw tantrums. He is greedy and always wants more.I’ve never met him, but on the strength of what I’ve been reading about him I’m absolutely confident that he’s going to make an excellent new chief at Barclays. This is because he accords perfectly with a brand new theory of leadership that is surprising, radical, yet utterly compelling. This theory says that the best CEOs are just like toddlers.
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On the bank holiday weekend, the political satirist Armando Iannucci was driving along the M40 to spend a couple of days in Snowdonia and stopped off at a Starbucks on the way. As he is a man who likes to record all his thoughts on Twitter, he dispatched this message to his 80,000 followers: “Still surprised that, despite their market dominance, Starbucks haven’t eliminated the slight smell of lavatory you get as you enter.”
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Over the past decade there has been a steady onward march of objects, activities and emotions from hearth to cubicle, so there is now almost nothing left that belongs entirely at home.
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Last night I did what I always do when I am feeling jaded - I got out my boxed-set of Mad Men and immersed myself in the hedonistic, glamorous world of Maddison Avenue in the 1960s, when all women were a 38 triple-D cup, all men drank scotch from lunchtime till bedtime, everyone chain-smoked and fornicated whenever they got the chance.
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The e-mail was waiting for me on my return from holiday, just as I knew it would be. Shortly before I went away, I had written a column in which I had borrowed not merely someone else’s idea but his very words. At the time I thought I’d get away with it, but in the middle of the night had woken in a sweat. In the age of the internet, plagiarists nearly always get punished.
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Last Tuesday, during the final assembly of the year at my daughter’s school, pupils said goodbye to a teacher who was being elbowed out. Miss T was famous for her feebleness at imparting knowledge; the new broom of a head had decided it would make more sense to give the job to someone who could teach instead.
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Last week an e-mail went round the office touting for suggestions on ways to improve our performance appraisal system. My suggestion is dead easy and dirt cheap: get rid of the whole thing and replace it with nothing at all.
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In Britain they are cutting about a million jobs. In France, they have axed the Bastille Day garden party. All governments are looking for ways big and small to cut spending. But there is a better way that no one has yet considered: cut Fridays.
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The only difference between male and female managers, says Lucy, is that women are less confident and more hung up on approval.
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It's not just Americans or lefties or environmentalists who now hate BP. Everyone else seems to as well.
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Lucy's list of key "don'ts" for a retiring chief executive
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Lucy on Bridgewater chief, Ray Dalio, and the list of his top 300 rules for life.
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A summons to a 90-minute interview with the financial regulator sends Lucy reeling through the five stages of grief
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One of the comedies of working life is pretending to care about the big things, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Is Fabrice Tourre one of the most boastful men in the world, or is the Goldman Sachs trader a man who looks dispassionately at himself and is well aware of his weaknesses?
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It was miraculous what the volcano did to conferences, meetings and business trips.
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Does 25 years at this paper make me a disgrace, asks Lucy Kellaway
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Most successful people have had big lucky breaks at birth and a succession of smaller ones thereafter
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The gap between the Facebook/non-Facebook generation is wider than the gap between previous generations.
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The current trend of using rock bands as models for business school study is deeply flawed.
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The problem with feedback? The wrong questions are asked at the wrong time to people who generally are in no frame of mind to answer them properly. But spontaneous feedback can be a good thing.
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‘A client a day’ makes no sense at all, especially in a business where people often work with the same client for months on end, says Lucy Kellaway
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This is the single most sensible word I’ve seen on the flabby subject of leadership in at least a decade, says Lucy Kellaway
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Latin gives oomph, partly because it lends an air of learning but also because most people have to look it up, says Lucy Kellaway
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The only essential things to remember are one’s computer login, pin number and the names of a few workmates, says Lucy Kellaway
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I can think of three possible explanations why in mainstream corporate life in the UK and the US, the ugly mug rules, says Lucy Kellaway
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The most depressing day of the year is upon us. But Lucy Kellaway says she has found a better way to keep up morale than the motivational gurus
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Cold air has been blowing out of the Arctic, and hot air has been blowing out of the mouths of business forecasters, says Lucy Kellaway
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Even in bad times, some can still push the envelope and go the extra mile when it comes to talking bull, says Lucy Kellaway
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There is no shortage of bad business books, but Lucy Kellaway feels that giving them as ironic presents to bankers would be irresponsible
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I come across a lot of angry people in the course of my work, writes Lucy Kellaway. They take exception to anodyne things written by me.
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A bright tie, red socks, a flash of crimson in the lining of a suit – these attempts to stand out in the office smack of desperation, says Lucy Kellaway
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What Lucy and J-Lo have in common; and how to avoid boring your audience when speaking in public
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Staff are responding to overload by not digesting anything. No one reads e-mails any more – except from the boss, writes Lucy Kellaway
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The bear market in bull may be over but the bear market in courage is not. Fear and paranoia are even more a part of corporate life, argues Lucy Kellaway
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To allow husbands and wives to co-work has always been a bad idea financially, socially, practically and emotionally, says Lucy Kellaway
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Work is a bit like taking exercise. It can be boring and stressful while you are doing it but it is preferable to not working, says Lucy Kellaway
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Chilling is seen by today’s children as the natural order of things. However, taking it easy in the office is not a good idea, says Lucy Kellaway
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A search for the sacrosanct subjects of the workplace was almost fruitless as most of the old strictures at work are on the way out, but there are still some no-go areas, says Lucy Kellaway
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Gordon Brown’s questioning over whether he takes pills to cope with the pressure reveals the new taboo in the workplace, says Lucy Kellaway
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Anna Wintour's longevity in the fashion industry and hard-nosed approach provide a useful model for women executives
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With their ruthlessness and brilliance at managing cash flow, hustlers such as the reformed 50 Cent can provide useful lessons to executives, says Lucy Kellaway
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Bring your dog to work day may uncover some uncomfortable office truths, says Lucy Kellaway
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In my book, cleanliness is not next to godliness. Necessary up to a point, but quite dull, and not something that deserves a place in management literature.
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After decades of discussing women in the boardroom we should have gained enough confidence to go post-PC, argues Lucy Kellaway
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As contemporaries seemed to have stopped playing the obsessive game of age comparison - its time to join them, says Lucy Kellaway
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With employees paid to stay at home, the relationships between work and leisure, and money and no money are breaking down, says Lucy Kellaway
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They teach lessons about work that you need to unlearn pretty smartly if you want to get ahead in business, says Lucy Kellaway
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It does one good to fail in a small way. It means one then has to work hard to catch up, and that one may have a fresher way of doing things, says Lucy Kellaway
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It was a great morale boost that this time I was victim rather than perpetrator, and people have been astoundingly sympathetic, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway says anti-boss rage is more in vogue than it has ever been in her lifetime. She watches the display with alternate surges of glee and discomfort
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The trick is not for husbands and wives to get to a 50:50 share when doing the housework. It is to stop counting and to stop minding, says Lucy Kellaway
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The whole idea of advice is hopeless: the best tests in the world would not help, as there is no formula for matching round pegs to round holes, writes Lucy Kellaway
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Work has been overlooked in pop lyrics: there are office novels, office sitcoms and office movies, but almost no office songs, writes Lucy Kellaway
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There are many theories about the mess we are in, but it is simply what you get when you take human beings and put them in an organisation, says Lucy Kellaway
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What has happened to the office desk over the past few hundred years tells of the fall of the craftsman and the rise of Ikea but it also says much about what has happened to the penpusher and office worker, says Lucy Kellaway.
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I have seen an article that marks the first evidence from the management guff industry that a soft approach is finally on its way out and a hard one is on its way in.
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The pendulum has swung away from slouchy language towards correct usage of punctuation in emails, helped by the recession.
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To survive this economic downturn we need to smarten up and buckle down. We really need to get some work under our belts.
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An idea about the happiness of happiness that had given me solace these last two years has been rudely overturned by the conclusions of a report, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Through blogs, websites and e-mails the economic ills of the world are fed to us on a drip all day long, multiplying troubles everywhere, says Lucy Kellaway.
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I dare say the US president hoped his words would resonate beyond the toy cupboard and sweetie jar, but even so they are feeble advice, says Lucy Kellaway.
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The first episode of a business reality television programme rammed home the message that being a trader is the worst job in the world. But it is in reality TV that Gordon Brown could really make his mark in hard times, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Lucy Kellaway finds she has little time for those who abandon work for their beds because of a cold, despite the chill wind of recession blowing outside
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Lucy Kellaway laments that management twaddle and gobbledygook haven't faded away with the recession
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If your occupation involves making off with money from investors, then it is proper the name Made-off reflects that. There is a fine tradition at work here.
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When your job is at risk and your savings are a shadow of their former selves, the search for meaning at work becomes meaningless in itself, says Lucy Kellaway
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In the cause of research for a novel, Lucy Kellaway explores the world of internet adultery, and finds that, as the market for banking jobs goes cold, the market for adultery is getting hotter.
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Newspaper articles in these tumultuous, fatal, not-seen-since-the-Great-Depression times are so tightly packed with cliche that it is hard to do anything other than join in, says Lucy Kellaway. But she says we must be careful not to overstate things.
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If bankers want to understand the global financial crisis, what better way, Lucy Kellaway suggests, than to watch classic film Mary Poppins. They will find a film, she says, that manages to be 'soothing, perspicacious and upbeat all at once.' Time to listen to your inner chimney sweep.
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As the global financial crisis deepens, Lucy Kellaway says the glory days of the management bullshit industry are well and truly over. But she admits the return of sense may not be entirely welcome.
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What chief executives could learn from reading novels
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Should we be sickened at the news of formerly well-paid Lehman bankers jostling with their vending cards for the last Mars Bars? Lucy Kellaway asks just what kind of character is needed to survive the financial meltdown and to find another job.
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The global movement to end salary secrecy is flawed, says Lucy Kellaway. It is relative, not actual, pay levels that determine happiness, and sometimes it is better not to know
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If you are a business leader your children can screw up as much as they like without harming your career prospects at all, says Lucy Kellaway
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Lucy Kellaway goes back to school with a brand new pen lid, which offers a lifetime of pleasure - putting modern gadgets to shame
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You don't need to be a lawyer to know that strip club, summer intern and clumsy pass all up to trouble, says Lucy Kellaway.
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Thinking about death generally encourages people to come up with dodgy philosophies about life, says Lucy Kellway. The best way of living is not to think of death at all
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Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, set a 'lousy' example by turning down a pay rise, says Lucy Kellaway. For a capitalist economy to work, we all need to believe that more money is a good thing.
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Easily the most satisfying job I've done in two dozen years as a journalist was writing a series of articles describing the offices of famous chief executives. For a brief period, I was allowed to indulge my natural nosiness - and get paid for it.
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Nearly half of the chief executives of Britain's biggest companies have gained awards for their prowess in the field of sport, says Lucy Kellaway.
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To mark the retirement of Bill Gates, inventor of Windows, Lucy Kellaway decides to turn off her computer and Blackberry, and write and think with a fountain pen. Can she survive?
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One might think that the American purposeful complaint is better than pointless bellyaching, but in fact both can prove to be highly enjoyable.
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I have been out collecting a botanical array of dangerous workplace blooms, words that can spoil our day, our week - or our career.
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I am running a competition in which a chief executive has to woo his customers with a letter. My finalists are Vikram Pandit and Johnnie Boden.
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Being in love is like being on drugs. Do we let people who are off their heads on cocaine make important decisions? Of course not.
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The only answer to the growing problem of worker unhappiness is to stop trying to find a solution and get on with what you do.
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Even though in offices 1968 did not happen until about 1988, the ideas of the 1960s still affect how we behave and think at work.
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In truth we don't have the foggiest idea what life would be like if women ran the show. So far we have only isolated, untypical examples.
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Win-win? Instead of pretending that everything is a win, the good leader needs to get better about wining and losing
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It isn't easy to keep a person happy in a job that is poorly paid and involves much wiping of bottoms. Managing a nanny is management at its most extreme.
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Knowing the difference between personal fiscal prudence and being a spendthrift is one thing. But being able to keep a tight rein on your personal spending is quite another.
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'Your call is important to us'... Lucy Kellaway provides a rot analysis of business talk, looking at phrases that mean the opposite of what they pretend to mean.
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It is wrong to see doodling as something to do when bored. Instead, it is what we do when we are forced to listen to someone else.
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E-mail is much derided for interrupting our day's work, but it is as nothing when compared to the noisy, intrusive, brutal phone.
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The National Trust gave its 5,000 employees a leap day holiday - but they had to spend time making their own homes more environmentally friendly. Should companies force us to be charitable?
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At the annual get-together of the alumni of JPMorgan I realised that part of my life may have been weird but it was not an irrelevance, says Lucy Kellaway
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When we were young we had something to prove. As we grow older, we realise that just as few doors are open to us as when we were young.
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A local shoe mender has unknowingly supplied me with all the delightful things that large service companies are striving in vain to provide.
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An e-mail from Accenture's group chief executive is troubling because it shows top people write jargon even when they think no clients are looking.
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Artists are no different to any other profession; they need to be managed too, so they can go on getting better. Lucy Kellaway delves into the business-like approach that financier Guy Hands plans to take with musicians at EMI, and asks: should you be prepared to discipline a creative at the risk of losing them?
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The granting of investment bank bonuses is a ruinously expensive, tiring and highly political game in which almost everyone emerges a loser. Here's how the game works.
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What do workplace experts and coaches tell us about making new year resolutions? And can Lucy find one she can keep?
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Lucy gives out her 2007 awards for management nonsense
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At work I'm a pussycat, compliant and pathetically keen to please. At home I am a tyrant, brooking no opposition from anyone. So why do people think there are parralels between good marriages and good colleagues?
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For me work is one long rage opportunity - starting with the fact that the machine that dispenses hot water for tea is on the blink.
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The title 'thought leader' offends for several reasons. And when the term is used there is usually no sign of any thinking or leading going on
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Saying anything that makes any sense at all is enough to disqualify one from joining what practitioners call the 'executive search space'
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Has Lucy been getting it wrong for 600 columns? A US professor in psychology and marketing has explained how some campaigns can work, including plying your audience with caffeine
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The three things that really make most workers unhappy are actually rather basic - they are the work, the people and the general environment
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Going backward: how the phrase 'going forward' has infected business conversation
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This column is about strong language, which explains why it contains some. Swearing can be useful in the office, but there are some rules you should follow.
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Imagine a brave new world where electronic tagging of employees brings the study of management out of the dark ages. Lucy Kellaway peeks into a frightening future as scientists strive to answer why some companies and managers are so good - and others so bad.
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A new theory of happiness says the only reliable pleasures in life are the small ones. So what small pleasures can you find in an office?
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Listening is really easy - any old fool can do it - so it can't therefore be a key skill for CEOs, argues Lucy Kellaway. So why do so many business leaders go on about it?
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The problem with being truthful about missing work is the reason can be embarrassing or implausible.
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The glass ceiling or labyrinth fall short of explaining why women don't make it to the top. Perhaps, argues Lucy Kellaway, women should look at themselves.
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Long ago, before e-mail, the return from holiday was a leisurely thing
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'We' doesn't imply teamwork or even people who like each other. It is just the mundane experience of office life
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There are many reasons to be happy in the office in August - but needless e-mails from control freaks on holiday isn't one of them.
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For people in any position of authority the ability to say no is the most important skill there is.
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Being generous as a millionaire doesn't make you different to the middle classes, says Lucy Kellaway. An act of true generosity is a rare event whether you are a millionaire or not.
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A corporate bollocking just isn't the same as it used to be: PR people have taken over and emotion has been outlawed.
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Forty-one years ago, chairman Mao distributed 900m copies of The Little Red Book to the people of China. A couple of weeks ago, Deloitte distributed thousands of copies of The Little Blue Book of Strategy to its US employees. Apart from the difference in colour, the two books have much in common
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Business telly, so the newspapers tell us, is 'the new rock and roll'. While it isn't exactly cool, it is increasingly popular. But is it really about business?
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Lucy sees reasons for cheer in the new 'world without secrets'
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Lucy asks 'what is the worst motivational memo ever?'
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The crossover of business and private parties creates problems for the guest. It is helpful to know which sort of do you are at, so you can behave accordingly, says Lucy Kellaway
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When it comes to retirement, are you Buffet, Gates or potato?
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Do you work well when you are miserable? Are happy workers the most productive? This week, Lucy keeps a diary to see how her moods affect her work.
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This week, Lucy looks at rage, pettiness and rivalry between companies.
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