REAL-WORLD INSIGHTS

Published: Dec 19 , 2016
Author: Robin Copeland

You know, it’s not all sweetness and light in Lapland. People think (and to be fair, why shouldn’t they?), that all the work takes place on 24th December. Santa gets on his sledge and travels the world distributing largesse hither and thither. No one ever asks though what happens for the rest of the year. What – do they think that this mammoth distribution happens by magic? Well, I’ll admit that there is a bit of the magical and mystical about the whole operation; the reindeer-drawn sledge, for example, is a bit of a mystery, but for the rest – well, we’re talking slickness and speed and management of change and… But I’m ahead of myself...

Published: Nov 04 , 2016
Author: Robin Copeland

Complicated negotiations often involve different meetings, different personnel, different issues and, in the case of the upcoming Brexit negotiations, different countries! The key word in this kind of negotiation is alignment and that involves a number of different factors and considerations. We can learn from the insect world; think bees! Perhaps first and foremost, there needs to be a central “go-to” point where all the information and meeting notes are collated and stored. It is vital to have a central hive of information that teams preparing for a new round of negotiation can reference. The old phrase, “singing off the same hymn sheet” has a certain resonance in this regard. The workers need a point of reference...

Published: Oct 21 , 2016
Author: Robin Copeland

This isn’t going to be popular; to write it – even to think it - sticks in my throat as it offends against my innate sense of fair play and good will to all people, but there really are times when I want to take our elected representatives to one side and slap them about the face. They pontificate and they grandstand; they puff themselves up into rice krispies of righteous indignation; they adopt their “holier than thou” positions; they occasionally demonstrate a frightening lack of common sense and commercial nous and, at the same time, they would have us weaken our position in future negotiations....

Published: Jan 11 , 2016
Author: Stephen White

It occurred to me. The most prominent current industrial dispute in England, between the Government and the Junior Doctors, might be an excellent vehicle to analyse how Millennials (defined typically as born after 1983) negotiate, and whether Millennial traits have impacted on the negotiations. For non-UK readers; ‘junior doctors’ includes doctors from the time they leave medical school to the time when they are appointed as ‘Consultants’, typically about 10 years later. There are about 55,000 of them, a very important component of the medical provision in England (the dispute does not affect doctors in Scotland or Wales). The dispute dates back to 2012, when the employers announced that they wanted to update the terms of employing junior doctors. Negotiations have been on and off since then, but on Monday they broke down and the doctor’s union (the BMA) announced strikes for later this month...

Published: Nov 22 , 2012
Author: Yannis Dimarakis

The Hellenic government has been struggling over the last 6 months to finalize an austerity package demanded by its 3 creditors (i.e. the IMF, the ECB and the European Commission – know as the “troika”). The package’s aim is to ensure that the deficit will be checked and that public spending will be reduced to sustainable levels. These measures are never popular as they usually entail steep salary and pension cuts, reductions in social benefits, decrease in the quality of health and education etc. None the less, this package, worth 11.5 bn € (a very heavy figure given the scale of the Hellenic economy), was a sine qua non for the release by the creditors of the next installment of funds to the government in Athens. So the pressure was on to wrap this up as soon as possible...