Paul Rutherford
- Dec 9, 2019
- 3 min
OUT THROUGH THE IN DOOR
“There’s a lot worse out there.” E – a long-standing friend – was wondering whether he had one more career move in him. “Coming up to 20 years with the company, albeit under four different owners. “A lot of change, and there’s more to come. I wonder if I should get out before the new owners make that decision for me? “But while it isn’t perfect, there’s a lot worse out there.” E’s comments sent me on a flashback, to my first full-time job after graduation. The company owner g
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Paul Rutherford
- Dec 2, 2019
- 3 min
SILENT FINNISH
"I'd like to talk about the tree between our houses." J - a coachee on a development program - was open about the problem with his neighbour: "The tree might be on his side of the fence, but the branches are equally on my side. It blanks out light, even on sunny days." I asked how long it had been a problem for him. "Years. Maybe ten." So why haven't you spoken about it? "Because we're both good neighbours. We have a good relationship, and I don't want to be the person who p
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Paul Rutherford
- Nov 25, 2019
- 3 min
GM 1 SZ 97
Alfa Aid is an Alfa Romeo sales and post-sales garage based less than ten minutes from where I live. Adrian, the owner, started the business in 1993. Now, after more than two decades, he’s ready for his biggest step. Alfa Aid's first General Manager starts today. After years of riding the ups and downs of a commercial roller coaster - of sometimes taking lesser rewards to keep his people on board - Adrian is finally letting go. He has been through multiple cycles in the motor
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Paul Rutherford
- Nov 11, 2019
- 3 min
TAPE FACE LEADERSHIP
There's no obvious label for Tape Face's entertainment. Mime, perhaps? Silent comedy? Both conjour up former practitioners (Marcel Marceau, Buster Keaton), but neither accurately capture what he does. Actually, it's not what he does that's most important. It's what he doesn't. In a world drowned in management speak and leadership oration, Tape Face is a timely reminder of Albert Mehrabian's "7-38-55 Rule" - the percentage weighting of words, tone of voice, and non-verbal sign
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Paul Rutherford
- Jun 24, 2019
- 4 min
CARPET BOMBING
(It was early 1980s: I had my marketing degree, and a new job at an agency. Not long after my first day, I met Larry - a new client who was adding a security hardware business to his growing portfolio. I asked him how he started…) Larry’s first venture was selling carpets.
His office was a back bedroom at home, his logistics operation was a white van. He gave the impression that he ran a big company because his wife answered calls by saying “this is reception”, and he had t
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Paul Rutherford
- Jun 17, 2019
- 3 min
MEMORY OF A GOAT
Robert Rauschenberg’s best-known work is ‘Monogram’ - a.k.a. the goat in the tyre. The artist and the artwork are caught in the same relationship as Leonardo Da Vinci = ‘Mona Lisa’, John Constable = ‘The Hay Wain’, and Damian Hirst = ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’ (a.k.a the shark in formaldehyde).
You can bring to mind at least one of these right now, perhaps all of them. Although it may not be a memory of the artefact itself; instead,
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Michael Lewis
- Jun 10, 2019
- 2 min
THE FOURTH COOKIE
Excerpt #2/2 from 'Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie', the 2012 Princeton commencement speech by alumni Michael Lewis. He is the author of 'Liar's Poker' (Norton, 1989), 'Moneyball' (Norton, 2004) and 'The Big Short' (Norton, 2010). 'A few years ago...,a pair of researchers in the Cal psychology department staged an experiment. They began by grabbing students, as lab rats. Then they broke the students into teams, segregated by sex. Three men, or three women, per team. Then they put
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Michael Lewis
- Jun 3, 2019
- 1 min
RATIONALIZING LUCK
Excerpt #1/2 from 'Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie', the 2012 Princeton commencement speech by alumni Michael Lewis. He is the author of 'Liar's Poker' (Norton, 1989), 'Moneyball' (Norton, 2004) and 'The Big Short' (Norton, 2010). 'The book I wrote was called "Liar’s Poker." It sold a million copies. I was 28 years old. I had a career, a little fame, a small fortune and a new life narrative. All of a sudden people were telling me I was born to be a writer. This was absurd. Even I
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Paul Rutherford
- Feb 25, 2019
- 2 min
LISTEN TO THOSE WHO DON'T TALK
"Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: 'Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?' If you don't ask those questions, your governance will not be good." Pope Francis "I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen." Ernest Hemingway “An appreciative listener i
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Rory Sutherland
- Feb 11, 2019
- 2 min
UBER CERTAINTY
Excerpt #4 from an interview with Rory Sutherland, published in Edge.org. Sutherland is Executive Creative Director and Vice-Chairman at OgilvyOne, a subset of 'madmen' Ogilvy & Mather, which in turn is a subset of WPP. OgilvyOne calls itself 'The Customer Agency', part advertising, part direct marketing, part of something else - 'The Thing for Which We Have No Name'. 'The single best thing the London Underground did in terms of improving passenger satisfaction per pound spen
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Rory Sutherland
- Feb 4, 2019
- 2 min
HOMO ECONOMICUS
Excerpt #3 from an interview with Rory Sutherland, published in Edge.org. Sutherland is Executive Creative Director and Vice-Chairman at OgilvyOne, a subset of 'madmen' Ogilvy & Mather, which in turn is a subset of WPP. OgilvyOne calls itself 'The Customer Agency', part advertising, part direct marketing, part of something else - 'The Thing for Which We Have No Name'. 'In the commercial world it's not in the interests of consumers to be rational. If you imagine a world of rat
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Rory Sutherland
- Jan 28, 2019
- 2 min
STOCHASTIC TINKERING
Excerpt #2 from an interview with Rory Sutherland, published in Edge.org. Sutherland is Executive Creative Director and Vice-Chairman at OgilvyOne, a subset of 'madmen' Ogilvy & Mather, which in turn is a subset of WPP. OgilvyOne calls itself 'The Customer Agency', part advertising, part direct marketing, part of something else - 'The Thing for Which We Have No Name'. 'It is true of quite a lot of progress in human life that businesses, in their blundering way, sometimes disc
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Rory Sutherland
- Jan 21, 2019
- 2 min
APPALLING ECONOMICS
Excerpt #1 from an interview with Rory Sutherland, published in Edge.org. Sutherland is Executive Creative Director and Vice-Chairman at OgilvyOne, a subset of 'madmen' Ogilvy & Mather, which in turn is a subset of WPP. OgilvyOne calls itself 'The Customer Agency', part advertising, part direct marketing, part of something else - 'The Thing for Which We Have No Name'. 'The problem—in terms of understanding human behavior, and I go even further, in understanding economics: Why
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Paul Rutherford
- Jan 14, 2019
- 5 min
STARTING OVER IN 1984
1984: the year when I learned that I knew nothing.
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Paul Rutherford
- Dec 10, 2018
- 4 min
VERBAL VOCAL VISUAL XMAS
It's that time of year, when that level of stress is felt on both sides of the sales counter. Trudging from shop to shop, the only thing that keeps me sane is reflecting on interpersonal behaviour - mine, the Shop Assistants', and everyone else. Hence I've been testing Mehrabian's theory about verbal and non-verbal communication. Scene 1 - The Bookshop. The Assistant stands in front of doors, opened under the stairs. It might be the entrance to Narnia. I've been a customer h
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Paul Rutherford
- Nov 12, 2018
- 2 min
HEROES
(A belated 're-print' of lessons from one of the greatest physical achievements of the past sixty years - by one of the most modest men. RIP Sir Roger Bannister.) After Olympic and Paralymic over-achievement for team GB, the British public will have an embarrassment of riches to choose from for BBC Sports Personality of the Year. This annual sports shindig has become more glitz than game, yet despite the showbiz presentation, at heart it’s a celebration of what we still need
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Paul Rutherford
- Sep 17, 2018
- 3 min
PET. DISCOVERY
A venture fund investor asked me to look into a small company that had attracted him a couple of years before, now he wasn’t so sure.
“Either the proposition is falling behind a fast moving market, or it’s the way the Founder addresses the market. Take up the drains and let me know what you find.”
He was right about both.
Founder wasn’t a bad person, just someone who was in love with the technology and had no interest in his customers.
Of course, he wanted to sell his sol
15 views0 comments
Paul Rutherford
- Sep 3, 2018
- 3 min
PHILOSOPHY AND THE PHYSICIST
The 'reading-writing-learning' loop.
38 views0 comments
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