Archives

03 February 2012 00:21

The trust in leadership crisis

Popular trust in government and business leaders has fallen sharply again, according to a global survey.

Trust holds the fabric of society together. When trust in leadership in particular goes, it affects all levels and aspects of social behaviour and, as we have seen, promotes growing levels of social unrest.

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27 January 2012 16:26

Purpose, profits and people

Growing public distrust is forcing a strategic business shift from profit to people.

SWELLENDAM - Slowly and inexorably the tide has turned. Being customer driven as opposed to profit driven is no longer an exercise in public relations, but has become a strategic necessity for survival.

The writing may have been on the wall for some time now, but one only notices how far things have moved when one looks back on the debate over a number of years. Since then, the financial crisis, wealth disparities, public debt, global recession, unemployment, and social and political protests have culminated into what a current Financial Times series has called “Capitalism in Crisis”, setting a scene for a similar debate at Davos.

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20 January 2012 13:54

Jobs: the real mismatch

Misguided aspirations and expectations are the real causes of the great labour market mismatch.

SWELLENDAM - When my son had just begun to say his first words, he witnessed my car crush one of his favourite toys in the driveway.

“It’s bonnie”, he wailed with such forlornness, hopelessness and sorrow, that it became for a very long time the family’s favourite superlative for something that is broken, trashed, crocked or destroyed.

The word comes to mind again when thinking about the labour market. It is truly “bonnied”.

These last few weeks we have been inundated with announcements, reports, articles, and talk shows covering the celebrations of improved matric results, the tragic scenes of prospective students being crushed trying to register at Universities, the Green paper on Higher Education and Training, and research results on the number of job vacancies in South Africa.

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13 January 2012 03:16

Making the right choices

Achieving peace and contentment through reflection, patience and changing motives.

“What do you wish for in 2012?” I was asked by someone at a New Year’s Eve social gathering. I was tempted to respond with “That all my wishes will come true”, but then gave it some more deserved thought.

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09 December 2011 04:00

The species that killed itself

How national interests are putting the future of humankind at risk.

Some 200 000 years ago, a dying elderly female was kept alive by the compassion of her fellow creatures. We know this from palaeontologists who studied her fossilised jawbone so many years later.

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