As I write this, I’m walking alongside a freeway in Las Vegas, trying to work off a decent-sized helping of Swedish meatballs. I’ve just visited Las Vegas’s IKEA superstore. Why, you might ask, am I in Las Vegas? Why…

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I’m not a petrolhead but I do kind of like the old-school Jaguars. Cars built for a time when unashamed masculinity wasn’t a thoughtcrime. Ahhh those heady days. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about Jaguar lately since it was in…

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New Zealand loves a battler. Two good sporting examples are Peter Blake taking on Dennis Connor or our cricketers taking on a cheat from across the Tasman. We’re less excitable about corporate David versus Goliath stories, but that might…

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I am on the board of an insurance organization. In practical terms, this means that, like all my fellow board members, I spend an inordinate amount of time ensuring that our culture and conduct are always fair to customers—or,…

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The other day, I was heading out for one of my daily runs. As I was getting changed into my running gear, I realized that I had inadvertently brought two socks for the same foot. Now, for those who…

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Recently, I was talking to someone who was telling me about their approach towards hiring. This individual suggested that their business ran a no dickhead policy. As the name implies, the policy was a simple one, which simply determined…

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Last weekend, my eldest son clocked a personal best in the Auckland Half Marathon. Having run for over 20 years and clocked tens of thousands of miles alongside him, I felt a degree of pride seeing him achieve something…

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I spent a few hours in my workshop this weekend, indulging my current fascination with hand-cut dovetails—a laborious departure from my usual rush to get things done. As I sawed away, it took me back to when I built…

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You’d think that, given I own a company that produces some of the world’s best outdoor equipment, I’d have a business motivation to get people into the outdoors. In fact, like other outdoor equipment company founders, from Bruce Macintyre…

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About 30 years ago, after my dreams of medical school were dashed by the small complication of having dropped out of high school, I completed a polytechnic course as a precursor to an apprenticeship. I was studying at Wellington…

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