Lucy Kellaway

PATH TO HAPPINESS RUNS THROUGH THE OFFICE – 12 June 2011 – Click Here to Read Full Piece –
There are few things that make me feel grimmer than reading about happiness. In the past few years, an entire library of dismal titles on the subject has been published including, in escalating order of duffness…

E-MAIL CONTRACT IS NOT WORTH THE KILOBYTES – 5 June 2011 – Click Here to Read Full Piece –
This column may be illegal. In writing it, I am inviting Philips, the Dutch electronics company, to sue me – and I’m rather hoping it will. Then I would be the first person in history taken to court for disobeying the most annoying and most pointless legal paragraph ever drafted…

THE WONDERS WORKED BY WOMANHOOD – 29 May 2011 – Click Here to Read Full Piece –
When Christine Lagarde launched her bid to be the new head of the IMF last week she declared that she would bring to the job all her “experience as a lawyer, a minister, a manager and a woman”. The first three strands of her experience are self-explanatory – and formidable…

DESPITE THE OFFER, I WON’T FILL IN FOR DSK – 21 May 2011 – Click Here to Read Full Piece –
Since Saturday May 14, when a chambermaid at the Sofitel hotel in New York claimed she was the victim of attempted rape, the law of unintended consequences has been hard at work. Some of these consequences have been rather large…

WRITING IS ON THE WALL FOR “Customer Care” – 27 Mar 2011 – Click Here to Read Full Piece –
On the lavatory wall of a colleague’s flat in Hong Kong hangs a framed letter. It is written on HSBC notepaper, and dated January 22, 1998. “Dear Sir,” it begins. “Please note that we have had occasion to return your cheque due to insufficient funds in the above account….

CHINA REKINDLES FONDNESS FOR WESTERN WAYS – 20 Mar 2011 – Click Here to Read Full Piece –
“How was China?” everyone asked last week when I pitched up at home bleary-eyed after an overnight flight. In reply, I found myself repeating the line from Noel Coward’s play Private Lives. “Very big, China.” This was not an especially impressive insight…

FINNISH LESSON ON PRINCIPLES FOR GOLDMAN – 17 Jan 2011 – Click Here to Read Full Piece –
Lloyd Blankfein is in need of advice on the principles of business. Fortunately, I have just the man to give it to him: Hannu Penttilä, a Finnish shopkeeper who runs a chain of department stores. His company, Stockmann, and the mighty Goldman Sachs are rather similar.

BETTER TO SAVE FACE THAN LOOK IN THE MIRROR – 28 Nov 2010 – Click Here to Read Full Piece –
At a party last week I met a man who told me he had just lost his job. I commiserated, but he said it was OK, he was well out of it. He explained that his boss was a fool who could not cope with having an underling who was far brighter and more charismatic than him.

WE NEED MORE CEOs WILLING TO SPEAK OUT – 10 Oct 2010 – Click Here to Read Full Piece –
“I’m speechless,” Larry Ellison said last week about the appointment of Leo Apotheker as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard. Only it turned out the Oracle chief wasn’t speechless at all. He had rather a lot to say and e-mailed various newspapers to protest…

LISTENING TO CUSTOMERS CAN BE BAD BUSINESS – Oct 2010 – Click Here to Read Full Piece –
Last week, for the first time ever, the mob on Twitter and Facebook forced the management of a big company into defeat. This victory of democracy over autocracy was scored over something people feel strongly about: whether three letters belong inside or outside a box.