Monday 16 March 2009

The blame game (again)

I know - I said I would stop blogging about blame. I'm starting to realise why the press enjoy filling their pages with these stories.

Nevertheless - I read Lucy Kellaway's column in the FT this morning and thought that she summed it up very well. As she points out there have been some very strange theories about the reasons for the recent decline - notwithstanding that most commentators thought that some kind of reaction was coming (even it they were incorrect, mostly, about the severity of the "market adjustment").

She quoted Richard Layard, which led me to read his piece about "...less selfish capitalism". I was very taken with his points about private interest versus what he calls "positive sum activities". I think it is true that we have been obsessed with the self  - and been able to wallow in this self interest to the detriment of consideration for Society as a whole. Sorry if this sounds very socialist. How about - reducing self interest in favour of the interest of the organisation as a whole. Perhaps commercial enterprises will be happy with that?

I have also been looking into another Lucy Kellaway recommendation - "The Ethical Executive" by Hoyt and Hersey. I think one of the tag lines sums it up well "Good intentions are not good enough".

Now there's a thought to live by.

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