Talk about the most pejorative of terms you’re ever likely to come across! Traditional corporate culture would have you believe that ‘hard’ things are factual, financial, real, rational. ‘Soft’ things are woolly, emotional, irrational, hard to prove, based on feelings and impressions rather than hard evidence. Soft things are easily manipulated, they’re the domain of the HR function, we’ll pay lip service to them but the real decisions get made […]
Challenging the taboo subjects You know how it is sometimes, you’re in with a client and you unwittingly stumble upon a subject that generates a sharp intake of breath and a moment of silence. That’s often followed by statements like: “I wouldn’t go there if I were you”, “ that is a very sensitive issue and I’m not sure that we should follow that line of questioning”, “I understand that […]
While we’re learning more about Asian style and culture as a result of companies shifting manufacturing and other operations to China and other Asian countries, there’s a big gap in our understanding about the allocation of capital, how Asians make decisions, and how they run their businesses that could turn out to be our undoing. For more than two centuries, capital has traditionally flowed from European countries and the United […]
Inarticulate ramblings of a management consultant 