Listen to Lucy

Last Tuesday, during the final assembly of the year at my daughter’s school, pupils said  goodbye to a teacher who was being elbowed out. Miss T was famous for her feebleness at imparting knowledge; the new broom of a head had decided it would make more sense to give the job to someone who could teach instead.

Last week an e-mail went round the office touting for suggestions on ways to improve our performance appraisal system. My suggestion is dead easy and dirt cheap: get rid of the whole thing and replace it with nothing at all.

In Britain they are cutting about a million jobs. In France, they have axed the Bastille Day garden party. All governments are looking for ways big and small to cut spending. But there is a better way that no one has yet considered: cut Fridays.

The only difference between male and female managers, says Lucy, is that women are less confident and more hung up on approval.

It's not just Americans or lefties or environmentalists who now hate BP. Everyone else seems to as well.

Lucy's list of key "don'ts" for a retiring chief executive

Lucy on Bridgewater chief, Ray Dalio, and the list of his top 300 rules for life.

A summons to a 90-minute interview with the financial regulator sends Lucy reeling through the five stages of grief

One of the comedies of working life is pretending to care about the big things, says Lucy Kellaway.

Is Fabrice Tourre one of the most boastful men in the world, or is the Goldman Sachs trader a man who looks dispassionately at himself and is well aware of his weaknesses?

It was miraculous what the volcano did to conferences, meetings and business trips.

Does 25 years at this paper make me a disgrace, asks Lucy Kellaway

Most successful people have had big lucky breaks at birth and a succession of smaller ones thereafter

The gap between the Facebook/non-Facebook generation is wider than the gap between my generation and our parents

The current trend of using rock bands as models for business school study is deeply flawed.