4 more people predictions for 2024
Two weeks ago we talked about people trends we expect to see this year, and their unintended consequences: the shift back towards office based rather than hybrid working, the use of AI to automate roles, and the increased use of equity as part of compensation packages. This week, we’re exploring four further developments we’re seeing […]
3 people predictions for 2024
It’s easy to say that we live in uncertain times, without giving any thought to times past. Life, and business, have always been uncertain. Farmers sowing their crops could never predict whether the coming summer would bring blight or some ravaging army. They just had to get on with it. Indeed, compared to 2020 (or […]
How Gymshark Became a $1.45bn Brand
“I want to grow a billion-dollar business.” These words may sound like a pipe dream to many, but when Gymshark founder Ben Francis said this to the ORESA team during their second meeting back in 2017, we knew this was a statement of intent – and we were committed to helping make that happen. Three […]
Neurodiversity: Great minds think differently
Neurodiversity has a lot of employers scratching their heads, either because they don’t know what it means or because they don’t know why everyone seems to be talking about it all of a sudden. What it is, broadly, is an umbrella term for a range of neurocognitive differences including but not limited to autism, dyslexia, […]
Hybrid working: Can you drive innovation on Teams?
As we now know, it turned out to be premature. The alpha, delta and omicron waves ensured that the hybrid working experiment would be a long one. Opinion is still divided over whether allowing any meaningful amount of working from home is a good idea and – even more pressingly for the leaders of businesses […]
Do you run your business like an army or a farm?
Something that once was used to store several decades’ worth of half-read family Christmas presents suddenly became a prestige piece during video calls. A little game developed where eagle-eyed, amateur psychologists tried to discern a CEO, politician or professor’s character traits based on his or her book collection. The more erudite, usually, the better. One […]
Leading over the holidays: 3 festive rules
The figure of Ebenezer Scrooge looms large at this time of year. Charles Dickens’ most famous character is also the most famous Christmastime boss, and a yardstick of sorts for the rest of us. Needless to say, it’s a comparison few would like to earn. But getting leadership right over the holiday period is a […]
The future is flat (sometimes)
Unsurprisingly, you don’t exactly find CEOs queuing up these days to show off their towering bureaucracies. Flatness is characteristic of start-ups – they can’t afford middle managers – and is therefore associated with agility, a must-have quality in an age of rapid, perpetual change. The alternative is seemingly to suggest that you are beyond capable […]
The problem with pay rises
Inflation already hit over 5% this year, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine propelled oil and gas prices to yet another level of the stratosphere. Some economists suggest we could see over 8% later in 2022, deepening the cost of living crisis. Naturally this leads to a certain pressure to raise wages. As the Bank […]
How to find entrepreneurial CEOs
It’s vanishingly rare for someone to have the multitudinous aptitudes required to start a business, as well as those required to scale it, as well as those required to lead a mature organisation in all its complexity. Unlike Amazon’s now ex-CEO, most founders of high-growth businesses learn the hard way that radically different situations generally […]
