second thoughts

CURIOUS INCIDENT

LIGHTS! CAMERA! INACTION...

MUSIC AND BONES

10 MISSTEPS TO A VIDEO

Paul Rutherford

Dec 16, 2019
3 min

10 MISSTEPS TO A VIDEO

You can learn a lot from unsolicited promos on social media. Especially what to avoid... Here are the 10 MISSTEPS to making a video that no-one will want to view (unless as a warning lesson): MISSTEP 1. Put the CEO on screen immediately. If you have a handy stained-glass window (see video below), tilt the camera so the boss looks beatific, framed by a halo. Here's the opening pitch: "We’re living in a world of tremendous change; MISSTEP 2. Scare your potential customer. Here-

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SILENT FINNISH

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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THE SELFIE TEST

Paul Rutherford

Nov 18, 2019
1 min

THE SELFIE TEST

Sometime when you're feeling important When your ego is fully in bloom. Sometime when you take it for granted You're the best qualified in the room. Sometime when you feel that your exit Will leave an unfillable space. Sometime when you cannot imagine How others will continue with grace. Take a bucket and fill it with water. Put your hand in it, up to the wrist. Pull it out - and the hole that's remaining Is the scope of how much you'll be missed. For Rutherposts direct to y

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THINKING - CRITICAL!

Paul Rutherford

Nov 4, 2019
5 min

THINKING - CRITICAL!

Four months since I last blogged; four months of Client activities, family milestones, personal ill-health, and - oh yes - the world politically turning upside down. Of course, at the time the reason for not posting wasn't as clear. That's the reality of explanations; they all make perfect sense after the fact. So, for future reference, let me go on the record to explain why I am dusting off my keyboard and re-starting the blog now: It's a recent LinkedIn posting from someon

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JOB TITLE CHASE CODA

Fortune Magazine

Apr 18, 2019
1 min

JOB TITLE CHASE CODA

Excerpt from 'Why Unusual Job Titles are Bad for You and Your Company' by Daniel Bukszpan. Director of First Impressions All About People is a staffing and recruiting company based in Phoenix, Arizona. It has 25,000 successfully-placed candidates to its credit, and co-founder Sherri Mitchell said that she’s seen numerous jobs of old sneak into the 21st century with new-look titles. “Back in the day you would hear ‘receptionist,’” she said. “One of the trendier ways of describ

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THE GREAT JOB TITLE CHASE #5

Paul Rutherford

Apr 8, 2019
3 min

THE GREAT JOB TITLE CHASE #5

So what does it mean to be a Partner? At heart, it's belonging and not belonging – the want to be an integral part of a venture and the need for independence, to be on the outside. PROFESSIONAL PARTNERS Partnerships are most common among professional services – accountants, architects, doctors, dentists, lawyers, management consultants. There are plenty of the legal practices on TV (The Good Wife, Kavanagh QC, Suits,) because the core of their business is conflict, especially

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THE GREAT JOB TITLE CHASE #4

Paul Rutherford

Apr 1, 2019
3 min

THE GREAT JOB TITLE CHASE #4

For 15 years, I was wading through the murky waters of GMs / VPs / CMOs, all of which made me feel important but much of which was mutual stroking. If I’m a Chief of something and you’re Head of something, we’ll both be impressed with each other (and ourselves). Starting afresh at Beaumont Karlson was a welcome change. Two founders – who had already run two (successful) start-ups - invited me to join them in venture number three. I wrinkled my nose, thinking "why on earth do

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BEFORE THE GREAT CHASE

Paul Rutherford

Mar 25, 2019
4 min

BEFORE THE GREAT CHASE

Someone asked me recently about my working life; what have I done in my career? And, like many, I slipped in the audio version of my CV - a well-honed, anecdote-filled summary of 30-something years. That same day, I was on the train out of London. Two Asian lads - 14 years-old, perhaps 15 - sat near me. One of them had money worries. Not mortgage or credit card levels of worry; something much more pressing. New girlfriend levels of worry. How was he going to pay to take her o

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THE GREAT JOB TITLE CHASE #3

Paul Rutherford

Mar 18, 2019
3 min

THE GREAT JOB TITLE CHASE #3

When a stint with a global corporation ends abruptly, the brand still opens career doors. A combination of “you must have been good to get in” and “you must have learned good habits while you were there” carries momentum. Not to say that positive change happens immediately. The futher you rise, the more frogs you have to kiss. After I'd spent many months splashing in many ponds, a head-hunter invited me to meet with a newly-appointed CEO. He’d just joined a software company w

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THE GREAT JOB TITLE CHASE #2

Paul Rutherford

Mar 11, 2019
4 min

THE GREAT JOB TITLE CHASE #2

Three months after my start with IBM, one of the senior managers who had hired me announced he was going somewhere else, and a few other chairs were going to be moved. I wondered if I had bought a last-minute ticket on The Titanic? To be fair, my other boss tried to make good of an unplanned situation: “No need to look over your shoulder; there’ll be more change soon enough, and the cards will fall well for you.” Good to his word, two weeks later I was invited to an ACT* sess

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THE GREAT JOB TITLE CHASE #1

Paul Rutherford

Mar 4, 2019
2 min

THE GREAT JOB TITLE CHASE #1

‘The Great Job Title Chase’ started for me at Xerox. At the time the company had split the UK into six regions. ‘Regional Directors’ held the local resources and the collective responsibility to achieve total revenue targets. Simple and straightforward, except for its largest customers. Financial, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, retail - companies that had the temerity not to fit into the Xerox regional structure. Companies with multiple sites and multiple functions across mul

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STARTING OVER IN 1984

NORMAL ISN'T NORMAL

STANDARD DEVIATION

Paul Rutherford

Oct 14, 2018
3 min

STANDARD DEVIATION

At the start of this week I noticed this bar graph (below). It had been reposted by a LinkedIn 'Strategic Advisor' and subsequently 'Liked' by several LinkedIn members. Suitably inspired, I posted an observation: "So what? Data without meaning." then sat back, like an angler waiting for a bite. It didn't take long. The next post appeared from C, who described himself a student intern at a large corporation. "In my view, the data shows that the world's most performance orienta

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TITHE AND TEA

Paul Rutherford

May 22, 2018
2 min

TITHE AND TEA

Last week, we took a narrow boat down the Kennett and Avon canal. Slow pace, a different time. One day we visited the chocolate-boxy Bradford-on-Avon, and took a walk to drink in some local history. Most impressive, a C15th tithe barn. 50 metres long, 10 metres wide, the building annually stored a tenth (tithe) of farmers’ produce which fed the nuns at the Shaftesbury Abbey - the richest nunnery in England. Before returning to the boat, we stopped at a much smaller outb

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UNDOING A RULE OF THUMB

Paul Rutherford

Mar 24, 2018
7 min

UNDOING A RULE OF THUMB

40 Books in 2018 Michael Lewis THE UNDOING PROJECT 368pp Allen Lane 2016 This is Draft 6. Perhaps it’s number seven. I’ve lost count. Why go to so much effort to write a blog post that will be read by a small audience? Because I’ve been struggling to find the best way to capture Michael Lewis’s book in 1500 words, and to do it justice. Here are some options: 1. The Undoing Project (TUP) is a biography of two brilliant thinkers who helped to re-invent C20th psychology; 2. TUP

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HISTORY REPEATING

Paul Rutherford

Feb 25, 2018
5 min

HISTORY REPEATING

40 Books in 2018 Natalie Haynes THE ANCIENT GUIDE TO MODERN LIFE 275pp Profile Books 2010 “Caecilius est pater” That wasn’t much to remember after two years at ‘big school’ grappling with the orange-covered Cambridge Latin Books. At the time, I didn’t see the point of learning a dead language. Only when we were told that father Caecilius and his family had perished in Pompeii’s ashes did the interest level increase. Not that it had any impact on my summer exams. My percentage

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