Author Archives: Catherine Holdsworth
BA launch witch hunt for smelly pooer*
17 March 2015 by Catherine Holdsworth in Current events, The corporate wellness bible
British Airways has announced today that it will launch an investigation to rival that of Scotland Yard in an effort to discover who the perpetrator of the smelly poo was that caused a BA flight from Heathrow to Dubai to turn back.
Passengers were told that the blocked and overflowing toilet on the plane was a health risk on such a long flight and that they were forced to turn back. The flight was delayed 15 hours and passengers were put up in a hotel. If there’s one thing people in Britain hate more than delayed transport, it’s health and safety getting in the way of a roaring good time.
While it is doubtful that the culprit will come forward willingly, one can’t help but feel bad for the person who probably had a dodgy Nando’s in Terminal 5 and just couldn’t hold it in for the long haul flight. To aid BA in their investigation, they should compare the sample to the Bristol Stool Chart and read What colour is your poo-chute?, the lesser-known sequel to the popular business book, What colour is your parachute?
We feel bad for the BA cabin crew who probably had to deal with this mess. Perhaps it could have been avoided with a better diet. Kate Cook, author of The corporate wellness bible, suggests that stool movement is an important part of staying healthy:
Your bowels need to be working very efficiently in order to remove the body’s waste. They reabsorb water to be recycled by the body and without an efficient digestive system the result will be like a washing machine where the wastepipe feeds straight back into the drum.
Which brings us to my favourite topic: stools. An important measure of bowel performance is transit time – how long it takes from the time you eat a food until it comes out the other end. The most effective way to measure this is to eat three or four whole beetroots. This is because beetroot can turn the stool bright red and so if you take note of when you eat the beets you can calculate how long your own personal transit time is. Twelve to 24 hours is the optimal transit time. Sweetcorn works well too – you should spot recognisable corn emerging out the other end. If it’s less than 12 hours it’s possible that you’re not absorbing all the nutrients you should be from your food. More than 24 hours indicates that the wastes are sitting inside your bowel for too long and this can greatly increase the risk of colon disease. If you’ve done this experiment and found that your transit time is slow, you’ll be relieved to hear that all isn’t lost.
One of the major elements in your diet to increase is fibre, and generally you can do this pretty easily by upping the amount of fruit, vegetables and pulses (e.g. lentils) you’re eating. Whole grains are also full of fibre, so adding these to your diet will help too. By whole grains I mean unprocessed grains, because processing removes all of the husk and the fibre, which is why brown rice is so much better for you than white. A word of warning though: because of the healthy associations attached to brown bread, some processed loaves are coloured to give them a healthy colour. Look for the key phrase ‘wholemeal’ to avoid this particular trick. Bread should be heavy and more brick-like – light and fluffy says a lot of air and not much substance.
Increasing your water intake is vital. Water shortages do for your digestion pretty much what they do for any other living thing. Foods that react negatively in the gut include sugar, alcohol, high-fat foods and junk foods like chips and pastries, to name but a few of the major culprits. Foods made up of flour are particularly able to slow everything down in there. Remember making glue from flour and water when you were at school? The same principle applies here.
We’re not sure what the unfortunate person put into their body before take-off but we’re guessing that it wasn’t pulses!
*Infinite Ideas would like to clarify that BA is not, in fact, launching a witch hunt, this was purely used as a marketing tool.
Nigel Farage’s leadership in doubt
16 March 2015 by Catherine Holdsworth in Authentic leadership, Business and finance
The general election is only a few weeks away and, quite frankly, we’re already bored with the cat fights over debates and empty promises that are being thrown at us. However, some good news has surfaced today from none other than Nigel Farage (yes, believe it!). Farage has announced that if he does not win a seat in his constituency, South Thanet, he will step down as the UKIP Party leader.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the opportunity you have been waiting for. Vote this man out of our newspapers, off our televisions, and into the ‘Bad People of History’ books forever. No more will we have to suffer his incessant misogyny, racism, bigotry (we could go on) while he sups on a pint of John Smith and drops fag ash all over the floor again. We will banish him.
How can we do this? We hear you ask. Quite simply, the best way would be to move to South Thanet, register to vote there, and not vote for Farage. Why vote for a pub frequenter when you can vote for a pub landlord instead?
There are many reasons that we believe Al Murray should win a seat in Parliament over Nigel Farage. Firstly, he actually went to Oxford University, unlike UKIP member Natasha Bolton, who claimed she studied PPE at Wadham College before the university refuted this. What’s more, he studied there alongside our very own company accountant so he definitely has our vote!
Al Murray’s Pub Landlord is much more in touch with the people of Britain than Nigel Farage. For one thing, rather than sitting in one pub continuously, he takes his message on the road, performing gigs to crowds of adoring fans. Yes, his message might be a little ‘too much’ for some people but it is popular none-the-less.
Finally, we all know that the Pub Landlord is just a character. We think Al Murray is a top bloke really and will make a much fairer and more honest MP than anybody in the UKIP party. We’re hoping that many people of South Thanet who like what UKIP is preaching, will vote for Murray out of stupidity and that the rest will vote out of a desperate act to prevent Farage from gaining any more power. Why should we give these bigots a soap box to stand on?
We have lots of books on management and leadership. Bas Blekkingh’s Authentic leadership will be published in April. We think Farage should give it a read!
Managing Clarkson
11 March 2015 by Catherine Holdsworth in Business and finance, Current events
Once again, Jeremy Clarkson has made a bit of a boob at the BBC. After his racist gaffes and misjudged use of a number plate in Argentina last year alone, the BBC may finally have to take responsibility for putting a bigoted man on prime time television. In 2011, the BBC had to apologise to the whole of Mexico (yes, the entire country) when Clarkson characterised them as ‘lazy’ and ‘feckless’. It would seem that in using such tired stereotypes, Clarkson himself is lazy and feckless.
While the programme Top Gear promotes ‘lads on tour’ behaviour and encourages men to replace women with cars in their sexual fantasies, the ‘banter’ has gone too far. Having exhausted its premise as a show which reviews cars, it is now a programme that is at best a ridiculous documentary about three white, middle-class, middle-aged men driving around the world shouting obscenities at the local people.
Clarkson’s suspension, however, is not due to his racist gaffes or unfunny ‘lad banter’ but because of a violent altercation with a producer. The last two episodes of the current series of Top Gear have been cancelled and Clarkson has been temporarily banned from the BBC (most likely while they work out whether his reputation is worth the money he brings in). The show is fundamentally aimed at men and encourages alpha-male behaviour. Whether you would think that the three presenters were typical alpha-males if you met them out of the safe context of the show is debatable.
Now the BBC are left, once again, to clear up after one of their most temperamental stars. How are they going to manage Clarkson this time? When someone becomes bigger than the team, they are no longer a team player. Clarkson’s reputation was damaged long ago but the BBC are at risk of damaging their own purely because of the money that Clarkson brings in. At times like this, reputation and principal can be more important for a company than profit.
A strong company starts with strong leadership and the BBC needs to realise that Clarkson’s toxic personality will destroy Top Gear and tarnish its own reputation unless it takes strong action. If, on the other hand, Clarkson keeps on being given ‘one last chance’ then he’ll have proved that he really is bigger than the team and can get away with what he likes.
For more advice on how to manage difficult people, why not read 100+ Management Models by Fons Trompenaars and Piet Hein Coebergh.
Warren Buffett knows about the customers’ yachts
6 March 2015 by Catherine Holdsworth in Business and finance
Warren Buffett, the world’s most famour investor, has written to his shareholders dispensing his wisdom and advice on how to be successful. In his letter, he recommended that potential investors read Where are the customers’ yachts? by Fred Schwed. Written in the 1950s, Schwed’s book builds on the idea that customers of stock-brokers and bankers do not earn enough capital to buy their own yachts but merely make the stock-brokers and bankers wealthy.
Infinite Ideas’ Infinite Success series features investment writer Leo Gough’s modern interpretation of Schwed’s text. With Britain and Europe still struggling to emerge from the recession of 2008, Schwed’s book has never been more relevant. The recent HSBC scandal showed that the fat cats at the top of these international businesses are still living the high-life, creaming off their bonuses from the profits while the everyday customers are still feeling the pinch.
Surely with the success of the Martin Scorsese film, The Wolf of Wall Street, we’re all familiar with the above-the-law behaviour of those in the know, who wield the power over international trades and control the stock market. The everyday person is at the mercy of a few money-driven people determined to get as much as they can.
Yet Gough’s interpretation demonstrates that this doesn’t have to be the case. Rather than exploiting others, he draws on Schwed’s experiences and testimonies to show that you can be successful and not always at someone else’s expense. The stock market and investments are, like many things, a game that can be played for profit. The risk of playing too often and risking too much, as 2008 showed, can mean global crisis if not executed correctly. Gough provides an excellent reference tool for aspiring entrepreneurs drawing on the best of Schwed’s book and applying it to modern business scenarios. Give it a go, see if you can buy your own yacht!
Presenting your authentic self to the world
4 March 2015 by Catherine Holdsworth in Authentic leadership, Business and finance
Little did Indhuja Pillai realise a few months ago that her dating profile would go viral. Here’s some background context for those who are unfamiliar with this story. Having grown up in India, Pillai’s parents wanted to arrange a marriage for her and set up a profile for their daughter on a specialist site. However, Indhuja was not impressed with their representation of her, for example, they did not mention that she was a tomboy, an atheist, and her lack of desire to have children. This led to her creating her own profile, declaring that she was looking for a man, ‘preferably bearded’ and extra points if he hates children.
Shockingly, this post got thousands of responses from potential suitors as well as messages from those who are thrilled that Pillai is standing up for herself and presenting her authentic character to the world. In Bas Blekkingh’s book, Authentic leadership, readers are encouraged not to hide behind lies and personalities but to be true to themselves in order to succeed in business and areas beyond.
If you’re familiar with online dating, you’ll know how hard it is to navigate the tricky terrain of how much to reveal about yourself, which photos to choose, what to say to your potential matches. How refreshing, then, to see someone be truly honest about what they want. We all know someone who has been on an online date and the person turns out not to be anything like who they were online. Such are the dangers of being inauthentic.
It is clear that Pillai does not need to heed Blekkingh’s advice as she is already blazing her own trail. Though her actions were clearly not conventional and a little risky, the risk paid off. We can all learn a little about the value of being true to ourselves from this. By being authentic and genuine, people are more likely to trust you and open up to you, helping you to succeed in whatever you want. We all know that one person who is a compulsive liar or name-dropper but are they the ones we want to invite to our birthday parties? Not likely. Find the best version of yourself and show that to the world. If you don’t love yourself, nobody else will.
An authentic mission will ensure that you succeed and achieve your goals, according to Blekkingh, and we think so too.
FREE ebook: 10 Management Models
27 February 2015 by Catherine Holdsworth in 100+ Management Models, Business and finance
We have exciting news. You may have heard of our book, 100+ Management Models, but did you know that you can download a free taster from Kindle? Our new free ebook, 10 Management Models gives the reader a taste of what the main book is all about. Not sure whether you can benefit from the models? Give the free book a try and see if it influences your business.
Fons Trompenaars and Piet Hein Coebergh are renowned business leaders and have compiled the most comprehensive list of management models to help you improve your management and leadership style.
The book, released in September, has been well received by business managers and lecturers alike and was a Times book of the week in January.
Download the free taster ebook from Amazon or click the image below to buy 100+ Management Models.