Listen to Lucy
Summary: Lucy Kellaway, the FT's management columnist, pokes fun at management fads and jargon, and celebrates the ups and downs of office life. You can find more of Lucy Kellaway's columns from the Financial Times on our website and listen to more episodes of Listen to Lucy on iTunes, Stitcher, Audioboom or Soundcloud.
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- Artist: Lucy Kellaway
- Copyright: Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2009. 'FT' and 'Financial Times' are trademarks of the Financial Times.
Podcasts:
The ubiquitous piece of software can leave one feeling grumpy and passive and in no frame of mind for proper work, says Lucy Kellaway
When the new head of Tesco in the UK said he wanted staff to love customers, I followed up by visiting my local store, says Lucy Kellaway
In business, optimism is good and pessimism bad. Optimists have a monopoly on success, on happiness and even on longevity. Pessimists, with their long faces and dark thoughts are pariahs, thought fit for nothing in the gung-ho corporate world except possibly careers in journalism (where bad news is good news). Otherwise, they have a choice between the couch, the closet or the comedy circuit.
Everyone agrees that we spend too much of our lives e-mailing. Everyone agrees that the answer is to write fewer, shorter, clearer messages. Everyone has known this for years. Yet instead of getting better, the problem goes on getting worse.
Two different women, both of them up to their eyes in different sorts of trouble, last week put forward the same excuse to explain lapses in their behaviour. Each said she was suffering from a new debilitating condition – a compulsion to please people.
It is a terrific relief to find that the true path to happiness involves doing what most of us do most of the time, whether we like it or not – work
Legal disclaimers on e-mails are not only unenforced but unenforceable – making one wonder why they are so popular
Lagarde is right to play the female card – this is the best time there has been to be a woman with talent, charm, and an appetite for advancement, says Lucy Kellaway
I don’t like the idea of deputising for someone who was sorting out the financial crisis and might have been president of France, says Lucy Kellaway.
In the early days of computers I never forgot my password because the top secret word I’d chosen was ‘Kellaway’, which I found could be effortlessly recalled even in the most fraught moments, says Lucy Kellaway.
Research shows that with CEOs overwhelmingly having boring first names, the drearier the moniker, the greater the success – and that diversity is bunkum says Lucy Kellaway.
The reams of justification for executive remuneration are mind-numbing and likely to make one succumb through sheer weariness, says Lucy Kellaway.
Even though I prefer to have genius status granted for big things, I’m prepared to accept it for any achievement at all, even for pressing send on my computer, says Lucy Kellaway.
Last Monday, when Kerry McCarthy MP got up to speak in the House of Commons she made history – not for the words she spoke, but for reading them off her iPad.
A letter posted on a lavatory wall to amuse with its verbosity highlights the deficiencies of another missive by a virtuoso at apology – and guff.
