19th October 2018
Walking off camera – huge blunder for Persimmon boss
What a blunder for Persimmon CEO, Jeff Fairburn, to walk off camera this morning when politely asked by the BBC about his £75M bonus. Clearly his bonus wasn't what he intended to be there to talk about. And, having been awarded some while back, it isn't news. But - as the biggest ever paid in ....
4th September 2018
TSB boss resigns for poor crisis communications as much as IT meltdown
It's striking that today's resignation by TSB CEO Paul Pester seems to be down at least as much to his public handling of the bank's IT problems as the IT problems themselves. Since first suffering huge operational problems in April when migrating customer data to a new platform, TSB has still not got all its IT systems back on track. Many customers' finances have been thrown into disarray as they've been unable to access their accounts and had money go missing. There's no doubt the IT problems have been enormous. But it's also apparent that ...
1st June 2018
Terrible TV interview from Defence Secretary
I've never thought of Richard Madeley as a hard-hitting interviewer before. But he wasn't going to let Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson off the hook without answering a straight question this week about his comments that Russia should "shut up and go away" following ...
2nd May 2018
Latest media interview lesson: know when the camera is on!
Sainsbury's CEO, Mike Coupe, learnt one of the most basic media interview lessons the hard way this week: make sure you know when the camera's on! In case you missed it, while waiting for his ITV interview about ...
20th March 2018
No-one cares about your company story
I've just read an article by Mark Schaefer which is spot-on. He talks about his favourite 'branded content' — a promotional video from North Face which has had over 8M views. His most important point is: "People don't give ...
23rd February 2018
Five crisis lessons from the Oxfam prostitution fiasco
Oxfam’s reputational debacle continues to unfold following the prostitution scandals in Haiti and Chad. What do you think we can learn from this about how to behave in a crisis? Five points jump out at me ....
20th February 2018
How not to prepare for a plane crash crisis
I received a bizarre crisis enquiry the other day. Is it just me, or is this an extremely strange way for an international airline to ...
6th February 2018
Purpose or strategy – which should come first?
This Harvard Business Review article has an important message for all organisations. It's main point is that an organisation's core purpose should come first. It's the reason it exists. It should be a big, clear, enduring mission which ...
9th January 2018
What behavioural economics means for your marketing
I’ve just read an interesting article in strategy + business magazine about Prof Cass Sunstein - the leading figure in behavioural economics. The article focuses on his work in US social policy, based on the principle that small changes to the way choices are presented ...
31st October 2017
Carpetright covers flaws with corporate gibberish
Britian’s biggest flooring retailer, Carpetright, has revealed its latest figures, with overall growth dragged down to just 0.8% by a fall in bed sales. Nothing too remarkable there – except for this bizarre ...