Bill Gates schedules a week each year to read lots of new books and think… One of the most important decisions we all make every day is how to spend our time. Highly successful leaders often allocate their time in unconventional ways. Take former Microsoft CEO and world’s 3rd richest person Bill Gates. Each year

Have you heard of the Mona Lisa effect? The way the Mona Lisa is framed, hung, and lit is special. The theory is, the effect would not be the same it was framed, hung, and lit in a different museum, in a different city, in a different country. The French call it terroir. It has

Good day, time for a business book review… I’ve always admired what Jack Welch achieved at GE, so I jumped at the chance to read his best-selling book ‘Winning’. It’s not dedicated to his time at GE, rather it’s dedicated to winning in business. Yes, he talks about things that happened within GE, but he

The most wonderful thing has happened… Our Plant a Tree campaign has passed 2,000, in partnership with our mental health charity partner Shiva Trust. We’ve just purchased 1,000 oak trees, which Shiva Trust are planting next week in their empty paddock (see picture). This brings our total number of trees planted to 2,140. Darren Turner

In 1979 hall of fame NFL coach Bill Walsh inherited a terrible San Francisco 49ers team… Because of his track record and legendary status, expectations were sky high. But in his first year there was no improvement in the won loss record. The year before Walsh arrived, the 49ers won two with fourteen losses, which

Change is a critical part of business… You do need to change, preferably before you have too, something we wished we’d done much earlier than our business transformation back in 2015. What you’ve probably heard about resistance to change is also true. People hate it when you announce a transformation initiative. When we transformed from

Our tree planting charity partner Shiva Trust are doing an amazing thing… They are creating kits for children to grow veg at home. This is to support the children of families they already provide food parcels too, who are suffering from poverty / holiday hunger. In total they’re making 100 kits for Burnley and Rossendale

I’ve always steered away from learning about Lord Sugar’s business ventures… Because I’d let false impressions (probably by the press) flood my thinking. Believing he just bought cheap electronics from japan and china and sold them on for a profit. After reading his autobiography ‘What You See is What You Get’ I must apologise and

Today, I want to give you some straight up honest advice… Please don’t let your supplier upgrade your agreement, without checking the financials stack up. This covers telephone systems, printer technology equipment and even IT systems. Why? Because you may end up financing fresh air, and it may cost you much more cash in the

Like him or loath Jeff Bezos, you’ve got to respect his foresight and customer acquisition strategy… When Bezos launched Amazon in 1994 why did he decide to sell books through an online marketplace? Books are heavy, are expensive to ship and generate small margins. At the time people were sceptical, with many business analysts asking