“I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him” (Booker T Washington) Revenge is the predominate choice of response in our world today. We see this in the multitude of wars and discrepancies all over the planet. It’s characterised in today’s litigious societies and even experienced in religious…

International sport is fascinating, especially to note the trends, changes in approach, and changes to the rules of whichever game is being played, and the dominance of certain countries in the respective sport expressions that are national favourites. In soccer, Brazil, France, England, Italy, Germany, and Spain have all had their moments. With cricket, Australia…

Over the past three decades, Free To Grow, a consulting company based in South Africa, has created rich, stimulating and meaningful learning experiences for well over 1 500 clients and has trained almost 150 000 people during this time. Through many years of experimentation and research in the field of adult learning, Free To Grow has developed…

I have travelled on but a few of the great and sometimes famous rivers of our world – the Zambezi (near the Victoria Falls) and the Orange Rivers in Africa, the Colorado and Mississippi in the USA and the Thames in the UK. I still need to get to the Amazon, Nile, Volga, Danube, Yangtze…

As a frequent traveller, visiting different countries, staying in many different hotels and eating in many different restaurants, I occasionally got spoilt with fine service or product offerings that “blew me away” and left me smiling: A warm wet towel upon arrival at a restaurant to mop brow and hands A pair of swans (made…

Businesses exist to get results, make profit and deliver value for shareholders. Anything less than this means a lack of fulfilment of the business dream, inadequate execution or a strategy that is not effectively aligned to the money-making model of the industry in which the company finds itself. In my exposure to many hundreds of…

The current world economic context is dismal, to say the least – financial analysts and the World Bank continue to predict slow growth, volatile markets and the possibility of ongoing disruptive wars and global climate disaster events. Governments are attempting to send the “right messages” internationally to continue attracting investment, and fiscal efficiencies, disciplined spending…

“In a child’s lunchbox are a mother’s thoughts” (Japanese Proverb) On occasion, I also took my turn as a parent preparing lunches for my children when they were in junior school. I was not that creative I guess in what I prepared but was very creative in the way that I cut the sandwiches –…

The human being is required to change through all stages of life – these changes are sometimes subtle in nature, but at other times, almost forced.  The changes include adjustments in approach, refinement to character, panel-beating one’s attitude and reversing bad habits. As expectations rise and more responsibilities are conferred on one by people in…

Emotional expression is part of being human – emotions need to be communicated, shared and debriefed whether they are positive or negative in their origin. All emotions need resolution – joyous news needs to be celebrated together with others; sadness needs empathy and closeness within meaningful relationships. The work environment is no exception as it,…

“Our world is not divided by race, colour, gender, or religion. Our world is divided into wise people and fools. And fools divide themselves by race, colour, gender, or religion” (Nelson Mandela) In mathematics, division is a process of splitting a specific amount into equal parts. The number being divided is called the dividend, which…