It’s not easy to do the right thing.

So, I must confess that for three years we let a field to a neighbour for use in conventional tillage farming.  Previously, that field had been managed organically for over a decade, but we found we could not use it and the rent money would be welcome.  Now, we’re regalvanised to protect the environment and …
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The power of emotional intelligence in a cognitive world.

Breathe to focus. It sounds simple, even foolish, but it’s not. Daniel Goleman recently gave a presentation on his new book Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, which was reviewed by IMD.   Goleman explains why attention is a little-noticed mental asset that makes a huge difference in how well we find our way in our …
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The “Syndrome of Disavowed Yearning”

It’s a weird idea, but something about disavowed and yearning had some truth in it. Sometimes you wonder if celebrities and successful people are happy.  Sometimes it is easy to wonder if it is possible to have friends when someone is so popular or attractive.  Life must be intense.  It wouldn’t be unreasonable to imagine …
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Measuring ethics in business.

When we started managing portfolios with an ethical and socially responsible objective having a pre-screened universe of stocks saved a lot of initial work reviewing every listed company to see how green and clean it was.  In 1999, we came across the Domini 400 which was a great place to start.  It was focussed on …
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Wall Street taking more money out of your pockets

Apparently a bunch of Wall Street executives is suing JP Morgan for a few billion, alleging fraud concerning sub-prime mortgages.  This happened to AIG too.  The trouble is that the executives who committed the fraud are not indicted and have suffered little if any consequence of their alleged criminal fraud.  It is the people owning …
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Big company CEOs earned 275X the typical employee.

That’s a huge difference.  And it’s not the difference between the top and the bottom, it’s the difference between the average and the average of the bosses.  According to a report in The New Yorker, in 1965 big company CEOs earned 20X the typical employee; today it’s 275X.  In terms of productivity and value added, …
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Sadly, evidence proves privilege breeds corruption.

It is convenient to assume that people without resources are prone to unethical behaviour, especially if you’ve got lots of stuff.  You might imagine that someone who lives in a cardboard box is likely to steal, simply because they need to eat. But the opposite is true.  If you’ve got the stuff, prepared to be …
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Time, money, self-reflection and morality.

A recent paper Time, Money and Morality reviewed in The Economist (Time is not money) offered insight into human behaviour that could help make the world a better place. Authors Francesca Gino of Harvard and Cassie Mogilner of the University of Pennsylvania report the results of studies that show that people primed to think about …
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Does philanthropy work?

Yes, of course it does.  But being an analyst, and one who must count the pennies too, it has always been a pertinent question.  I’ve always found it difficult to give money to an organisation that has high paid, educated staff taking a third to half the donations in administrative overhead.  I know that when …
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