The Productive Pessimist

  Recently, we were asked "if wedding fayres actually make any money, & how resilient they're likely to be." The ask came from someone who had attended a wedding show as an interested observer, and hadn't noticed a great many customers in the time they were there. While the wedding industry is not our focus, challenges to all sectors, including retail, absolutely falls under our strategic leadership focus. The wedding industry, in particular, is very much feeling the impact of people buying formal wear through vintage, thrift, and low-cost online retailers, because it is more affordable. However, many of those people, particularly brides, still want an "experience" as part of their wedding preparations, which is something wedding retailers used to give as a loss-lead, knowing they'd sell high-mark-up dresses as a result of the "pamper day experience", and make a plentiful amount of income from even just one session. Online retail, and its ...

This morning, LinkedIn was being very Monday, very LinkedIn, not very demure, not very mindful. A woman, whose profile suggested she works in recruitment, responded, quite aggressively, to a disabled man asking why companies were still  engaging in discrimination against disabled individuals with: "Because disability is a liability, it costs money, and businesses can't expect to run up their costs to an infinite degree whilst tiptoeing around every single need people could ever possibly have." This isn't an isolated thought.  It's not often said out loud in the UK - but it always has been elsewhere in the world, and it very much is being shouted from the rooftops of the USA. And it's not just recruiters and executive leadership; it's ordinary people, meaning that, even with the most inclusive, welcoming, accommodating leadership, disabled people will still be encountering hostile environments courtesy of the able-bodied people they have to work with  on th...

  Re-skilling isn't about your current skillset being obsolete, or at risk of being overtaken by developments in the business sphere. Re-skilling is the "fourth R" in the sustainability focus cycle, and, increasingly, that sustainability cycle is being seen not as "second best", or "something to consider for some quirky retro content", but as central to personal resilience and business success. Reduce means identifying what's necessary, important, and the cause, not just a symptom. At The Productive Pessimist Ltd, we focus on helping you reduce your problems, down to the one  issue which is actually your barrier. We work with you to reduce the distractions to your strategic focus, and reduce the number of steps from where you are now to where you want to be. Reuse prompts you to hold a 'stock' of approaches, skills, and mindsets which can be applied to a diverse range of challenges and opportunities. For example: communication  is a skill w...

  What do you consider a reasonable commuting distance?  20miles? 30?  Maybe, for a hybrid role, up to a two-three hour drive away, depending on how many times you're expected to be in the office?  The Department for Work and Pensions expects jobseekers on Universal Credit to travel up to 90minutes, each way - yes, including  for minimum wage roles. Well, John Tuckett, the UK's new "Border Tsar" (or Immigration Services Co-ordinator, to give him his official title), considers a commute of 1,834miles, from his "family home" to the UK, to be completely reasonable, and believes it won't have any impact on his ability to effectively carry out his new role - which comes with a £140,000 a year salary. If you were driving, you'd be on the road for almost two days, with a 37hr drive time. Of course, John Tuckett is going to be flying to the UK to carry out his new job (carbon footprint, anyone..?); with a flight time of 2hrs 52mins, plus travel to and from...

  British business spends a lot of time, energy, focus, and yes, money  "developing leaders".  Progression opportunities are secured by "demonstrating leadership skills." Constant calls are made that business, education, government, society at large, "needs more/stronger/better leaders." We need more women in leadership. No, actually, we need a different kind of masculinity  in leadership. Ah, actually, maybe we went too far, and it's time for "traditional masculinity" to be brought back to leadership. What about minority leaders? Maybe we should look at how neurodivergent folks and marginalised communities express leadership differently. The conversations, books, podcasts, and seminars around leadership are endless - and often contradictory.  We spend so many resources trying to give one definitive, always-true answer to the question "What makes a good leader?" The answer is simple: "What makes a good leader is competent, capa...

  It's fair to say there's been quite a few crises doing the rounds recently. What many people may not consider when the next crisis hits the news, and the discourse centres the people impacted by  the crisis, are the people trying to lead through  the crisis, and bring it under control. Recent years have shown a rising trend of anti-leadership rhetoric, especially on social media, with the attitude being that no one actually needs  leadership, people are completely  capable of solving every problem they could ever encounter independently, business leaders don't actually do any work, but just take money from hard working people, and deliberately make life harder for people who are already struggling more than enough.  This attitude is driven by concepts such as the wisdom of crowds, which are increasingly being not so much debunked, but placed back in their original contexts - for example, that it is not that any crowd  will have greater 'wisdom' than ...

  The recent controversy around Meta's whole process of moving away from fact-checking has become, understandably, centred on Mark Zuckerberg's statement that "we need more masculine energy in tech." In the UK and USA, "masculine" and "feminine" are loaded words, and heavily shackled to "men" and "women" respectively; people tend to hear "masculine energy" and jump to "men"...and, from there, jump to "That's misogyny!" But masculine and feminine are simply types of energy  that people bring to a space; they do not have to  correlate to expressed genders of "man" and "woman". Masculine Energy Masculine energy is the energy of determined, often single-minded and individualistic, focus.  It's the energy of direct, concise communication. It's the energy that says "Tell me if you have a problem, and I'll stop it being  a problem for you."  It's the energy...

  This is the main text of an article raising a critical eye at the UK government's recently announced social care reforms - which, themselves, are essential to ensure robust resilience, and an ability to actually implement, the planned reforms to the NHS. Our response here is intentionally brief, and intended to serve as an introduction and invitation to health and social care organisations, and other businesses, in the UK to partner with us to solve the problems they perceive with necessary systemic transformation. The cart before the horse Labour’s burning desire to reform the NHS, reduce waiting lists, and give patients greater autonomy and choice, relies on social care reforms; social care reforms which won’t even begin to be considered - by the groan-inducing “Commission” - until April 2025, with a very slow burn to a potential action plan being available sometime in 2028 - just in time for another General Election, and, very likely - given Labour’s proven ability to alienate...