Financial Times (November 24)
Britain might do better if it tried a page from the Athenians. “If, instead of a general election, Britain held an ostracism vote, there would be plenty of ballots bearing not only the prime minister’s name but those of other party leaders. We would be selecting the most unpopular individual rather than the most popular party—arguably a more precise method of improving the democratic landscape, given the potential for deterring bad leadership. Mr Johnson, take note.”
Tags: Athenians, Bad leadership, Ballots, Brexit, Democratic landscape, Election, Individual, Ostracism, Party, UK, Unpopular
The Economist (March 19)
“Companies are abandoning functional silos and organising employees into cross-disciplinary teams that focus on particular products, problems or customers. These teams are gaining more power to run their own affairs. They are also spending more time working with each other rather than reporting upwards. But the transition to “a network of teams” in place of conventional hierarchy has hardly been smooth. Managing teams is “hard” and research routinely uncovers lapses. And even when teamwork is well managed, things can be taken too far. “Even in the age of open-plan offices and social networks some work is best left to the individual.”
Tags: Cross-disciplinary teams, Customers, Employees, Functional silos, Hierarchy, Individual, Network, Open-plan offices, Problems, Products, Research, Social networks, Teamwork
Washington Post (July 11)
“The eclipse of the long-term shareholder has been accompanied by the eclipse of the individual shareholder.” Over 90% of shares in U.S. companies were held by individuals in the 1950s when the average share was held 7 years. Today, it’s about 30-35% and just 6 months. Institutional investors now make up the difference, but this raises some problems. “Investment funds that hold shares in many different companies often lack the resources to focus on a single corporation’s performance.” As such, they may not be properly fulfilling their role in ensuring effective corporate governance.
