Bob Diamond is full of energy and enthusiasm. He likes taking risks. He is determined: he knows what he wants and goes for it. He is fearless, cheerfully taking on a job he has little experience of. He speaks (relatively) simply. He has been known to throw tantrums. He is greedy and always wants more.I’ve never met him, but on the strength of what I’ve been reading about him I’m absolutely confident that he’s going to make an excellent new chief at Barclays. This is because he accords perfectly with a brand new theory of leadership that is surprising, radical, yet utterly compelling. This theory says that the best CEOs are just like toddlers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the bank holiday weekend, the political satirist Armando Iannucci was driving along the M40 to spend a couple of days in Snowdonia and stopped off at a Starbucks on the way. As he is a man who likes to record all his thoughts on Twitter, he dispatched this message to his 80,000 followers: “Still surprised that, despite their market dominance, Starbucks haven’t eliminated the slight smell of lavatory you get as you enter.”

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the past decade there has been a steady onward march of objects, activities and emotions from hearth to cubicle, so there is now almost nothing left that belongs entirely at home.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last night I did what I always do when I am feeling jaded - I got out my boxed-set of Mad Men and immersed myself in the hedonistic, glamorous world of Maddison Avenue in the 1960s, when all women were a 38 triple-D cup, all men drank scotch from lunchtime till bedtime, everyone chain-smoked and fornicated whenever they got the chance.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The e-mail was waiting for me on my return from holiday, just as I knew it would be. Shortly before I went away, I had written a column in which I had borrowed not merely someone else’s idea but his very words. At the time I thought I’d get away with it, but in the middle of the night had woken in a sweat. In the age of the internet, plagiarists nearly always get punished.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last Tuesday, during the final assembly of the year at my daughter’s school, pupils said  goodbye to a teacher who was being elbowed out. Miss T was famous for her feebleness at imparting knowledge; the new broom of a head had decided it would make more sense to give the job to someone who could teach instead.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week an e-mail went round the office touting for suggestions on ways to improve our performance appraisal system. My suggestion is dead easy and dirt cheap: get rid of the whole thing and replace it with nothing at all.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Britain they are cutting about a million jobs. In France, they have axed the Bastille Day garden party. All governments are looking for ways big and small to cut spending. But there is a better way that no one has yet considered: cut Fridays.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The only difference between male and female managers, says Lucy, is that women are less confident and more hung up on approval.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's not just Americans or lefties or environmentalists who now hate BP. Everyone else seems to as well.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.