Crosswires Blog

This week’s riff: Having moved house recently, I have been in constant contact with BT about my phone and broadband service. After each conversation, the service agent has informed me that I’ll receive an email or text asking me to rank the service. On at least two...

This week’s riff: 11 years ago, I was struggling to plan my future after deciding to leave my role at Boots the Chemists. I was considering various options, including taking another corporate role, joining a management consultancy firm, teaching, becoming a university...

This week’s riff: We recently had an enjoyable week’s holiday in France. We flew from Stansted Airport and I had booked the airport’s ‘speedy parking’. The marketing blurb told us that we could simply hand over the keys and walk over to the terminal in less than a...

This week’s riff. Glen Campbell, the great guitarist and singer, died earlier this week after a prolonged battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Along with Rod Stewart and George Harrison, Glen was one of the first pop stars I can remember. I can vividly recall seeing him...

This week’s riff: As a leader of your business, there are some tasks that you cannot outsource. Establishing the values of your organization, developing the strategic direction and goals of your business, engaging and aligning your people with the strategy and values,...

This week’s riff: I was talking to my son, Dylan, about his favourite pizza restaurants. Without hesitation, he told me his very favourite was Pizza Hut. Why? Well, they have an ice-cream station where you can serve yourself as much dessert as you want! In other...

This week’s riff: I’m not making a political point when I say that the UK’s approach to the Brexit negotiations looks pretty shambolic. Over a year on from the referendum vote to leave the EU and it’s still not clear what the UK government actually want from the...

This week’s riff: One of the most liberating, yet most difficult, strategic decisions you will make is to choose your competitive strategy. How you will develop and exploit specific competitive advantages in your market? The way I put this decision to my clients is to...

This week’s riff: Earlier this week I had the pleasure of meeting with executives from a fast-growing snacking business. What struck me most from our discussions was the company's willingness to accept failure as a learning opportunity and its committed to ongoing...

This week’s riff: Parliament reopened this week with the Queen’s Speech, setting out the legislative programme that the new government will pursue over the next two years. The programme was based on the Conservative Party’s election manifesto, widely regarded as one...