Common Purpose Blog

What is the cost of not developing your staff in tough economic times? It seems that a lot of employers do not want to find out. A recent survey by the Institute of Directors found that most employers are either maintaining or increasing training budgets during the recession. The IoD poll of 937 directors found [...]

Lord Digby Jones, the former Director General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and Minister of State for Trade and Investment, recently said of Jacqui Smith’s tenure as Home Secretary: “Expecting her to deliver in the post of Home Secretary without a scintilla of experience or training was not only unfair on her but [...]

The best way for them to do this is to take a varifocal approach. They need to begin with looking closely at their areas and identifying the main economic, social and infrastructural questions facing them as well as any emerging issues on the horizon. By exploring how these are being tackled and by whom, they [...]

Sir Bob Kerslake, Chief Executive of the Homes and Communities Agency has called for a new type of leadership by local authorities to drive housing and regeneration projects. He said that council leaders need lead in a way that goes beyond the delivery of services. He said: “There is now an opportunity to establish a [...]

If you are looking for a challenging read over the Summer holidays, here is a selection from Common Purpose’s list of reading recommendations by leaders from across the UK which might inspire you. ‘The Mystery of Capital’ by Hernando De Soto (2000) Professor Charles Handy, Management writer ‘Overschooled but Undereducated: Society’s Failure to Understand Adolescence’ [...]

The new CIPD Learning & Development Survey paints a bleak picture for talent management as the proportion of respondents who undertake talent management activities falls to 36%. This is a sharp decline from 2006 when over half of those surveyed said they engaged in talent management. This confirms the predictions of a survey of learning [...]

Looking for a good leadership quote? Here is a selection of 10 great leadership quotes:  “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” John F. Kennedy “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” Jack Welch “Don’t tell people how to [...]

I have just been reading about a talk given by Will Marré at the recent Employee of Choice Forum in San Diego in which he talked a crisis in employee disengagement. He suggested that it could be remedied by expanding ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ to ‘Personal Social Responsibility’ where employees are offered a chance to make [...]

In his Harvard Business Review blog posting ‘Leading When You Don’t Have Formal Authority’, Steven Demaio explains how everyone at some time will need to be able to lead beyond their authority “whether you’re a manager, a frontline worker, or an independent contractor, at one time or another you’ve surely had to influence, or even [...]

At Common Purpose we talk about leaders who step beyond their authority to solve problems that often times no one wants to own. They are big, complex problems and involve multiple stakeholders. Rarely are these problems easy to solve and more often than not you end up with a big mess on your hands. It is [...]