Intuition: Co-worker or Curse?

Just how bankable is intuition? Often it's the way to go, often it's not. Alan looks at ways to assess whether or not you should back your hunches.

Learning from your worst decisions

There are several common element to the worst decisions I've made. A central one is not asking for help when I don't really know what I'm doing. You can avoid a lot of disasters just by accepting that some people do some things better than you. The art of management and the art of delegation are closely related.

Why you need to get out more

It's easy to get stuck in the office, yet that's often the last place where good ideas turn up. To stay at the leading edge, the best managers make a point of getting out more, catching up with customers, suppliers, even competitors.

Letting go of those scary leadership issues

It's is often exhilarating to get promoted. Being handed a challenge is uplifting and motivating. But it can also be scary. Alan talks about the common fears that managers face and what you can do about them.

Breaking out of a rut

All of us can sometimes struggle with inertia. Here are some simple ideas that can help you, your team or your business start leading from the front.

Stimulating new business ideas

We often think we are driving change when all we achieve is a small cosmetic shift. How can you stimulate change that can make a difference to the way you do business? Alan talks about the need for a shift in attitude and gives simple examples of things you can do to bring it about.

A Perspective on Luck

We often think it is an aberration when things go wrong. We tend to think the downside is unusual. Yet, In business and investment, getting it overly right can be just as extraordinary. Are successful people right, or just lucky?

What I learned at the Olympics

In business, just as in sport, peak performance depends on your ability to focus only on the things you can control. The key to optimizing results is work on the things you can actually do something about.

Beer Mat Strategy

Ever heard of "death by one thousand initiatives"? Often fewer ideas lead to better strategies. Even Apple's revival can be sheeted back to a change in tactics of not doing everything. Alan explains simple ways to look at your own business from different perspectives.

The problems with planning

Business plans are a necessary ingredient in creating or maintaining a successful business, but they come with serious health warnings. Expect forecasts to be wrong; build in flexibility that helps you reverse bad decisions; and keep your focus on the planning process, not on the outcome.