The Blogworld of Poppyfish People Development

Care for some management speak, your Grace? Let's start with an anecdote. The night before the Battle of Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington was asked a question by one of his junior officers. " What are your plans, your grace? " the officer asked. “ To beat the French ” was the Duke's curt reply. When the questioner went on to suggest that the Duke might be well advised to share his more detailed plans with his men in case he himself were to be injured the Duke tersely replied, “ If I thought my hair knew what my brain was thinking I’d shave it orf and wear a wig ”. How times change. This morning, an e-mail newsletter arrived in my inbox from the McKinsey Quarterly  . It contained the sort of thinking that would have the dear old Duke of Wellington ripping out his hair and which would have curled his toes inside his now famous boots. The McKinsey article talks about “Crowdsourcing”. According to wikipedia crowdsourcing is about "outsourcing ta...

My Dad gave me a calendar yesterday. It was one of those desktop ones on which every date there is a new ‘thought for the day’. I’m not really sure of the theme, Dad had used a few days of it himself so the cover was long gone. In general I suppose the quotes, most which are attributed to 'great thinkers' throughout history,would be considered as ‘life tips’. Not my dear old Dad's cup of tea at all, hence the handover. He knows me well. It's off to a good start. The entry for the 12 th April reads: “ We never do anything well until we cease to think about the manner of doing it ” and is attributed to William Hazlitt. I googled Hazlitt to assess his credentials for such a statement. A contemporary of Wordsworth and Coleridge, Hazlitt was a philosopher, journalist and essayist in early 19 th century Britain. According to The Hazlitt Society he became the first major drama critic in English, the first major art critic, and one of the most gifted literary and...