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The business news that matters

Hello and welcome back to Off to Lunch…

This is our first edition of Off to Lunch in 2024 so Happy New Year to all our readers. The newsletter has been on an extended break over the festive period so we could work on our exciting plans for 2024.

These plans involve bringing together Business Leader magazine, Off to Lunch and our podcast as a new agenda-setting business media powerhouse in the UK. At the heart of those plans is relaunching Business Leader magazine. There will be more details on that soon, but you can expect to see our new magazine and website next month.

Business Leader will be a business publication for businesses. It will be essential, engaging, and entertaining. I can’t wait to share the plans with you.

Off to Lunch’s role in all this will be to carry on sharing news, ideas and expertise that matter in a concise daily format. We want every edition of Off to Lunch to leave you feeling smarter and help you understand what is going on in the world.

While Off to Lunch was taking a break we continued to publish our Business Leader podcast. Our podcast takes a second look at big business stories by interviewing a key figure involved and exploring what lessons can be learned. For those who missed the episodes, it is not too late. Our episodes are designed to be interesting and useful for many years after they were published. Here is a quick summary of those episodes and links to listen via Apple or Spotify:

-Jeff Kelisky, the chief executive of Seedrs, the crowdfunding platform, on what it is like to replace a founder as boss of their company
Listen on Apple here or Spotify here

-The up-and-down story of Peloton’s attempt to revolutionise fitness, with Amanda Gilmore, the UK boss
Listen on Apple here or Spotify here

-How Go-Ahead Group, one of the UK’s biggest train and bus operators, got itself out of a major crisis, with Christian Schreyer, the former chief executive
Listen on Apple here or Spotify here

The next episode of Business Leader will be with you tomorrow morning and it is a cracker, probably our best episode yet. All Off to Lunch subscribers will be notified when the episode goes live…

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Other stories that matter…

1. The jobs market in the UK appears to be weakening significantly. PageGroup, the recruiter, has issued a profit warning this morning because of weaker-than-expected demand from companies to hire new staff. This follows a similar warning by rival Robert Walters last week. BDO, the accountancy firm, has also published a report this morning that shows its employment index is at the lowest level for more than 10 years. This index tracks how many businesses in the UK are hiring extra staff. You can find PageGroup’s statement here and more on BDO’s report here

2. Artifact, a news app launched by the co-founders of Instagram, is closing down. Kevin Systrom, the chief executive, has written an open letter explaining the decision. “We have built something that a core group of users love, but we have concluded that the market opportunity isn’t big enough to warrant continued investment in this way,” he says. “It’s easy for startups to ignore this reality, but often making the tough call earlier is better for everyone involved.” You can read more here

3. The chief executive of Adidas, Bjørn Gulden, gave his mobile phone number to all of the company’s 60,000 staff to encourage them to share their concerns about how it is being run. He was contacted more than 200 times every week. The move was part of Gulden’s attempt to revitalise the culture of the struggling company and “wake up the people who didn’t understand we were losing”. Interesting case study by the Wall Street Journal here

4. The Economist’s management and work columnist Bartleby has tackled the knotty problem of encouraging competition among staff. The column points to a recent study that involved managers ranking workers in order of their creativity. The initiative didn’t work. ”People tried harder but they also became less creative,” the piece says. Ultimately, Bartleby concludes, you need to balance individual incentives with group ones. “Adding a bit of fuel to the fire can be fine. Spraying petrol everywhere is unnecessary.” You can read the piece here

5. Basketball coach Tara VanDerveer is close to setting a new record for the number of matches a man or woman has won in the sport - more than 1,200 over 47 seasons in college basketball. The New York Times has interviewed her and tried to look into the reasons for her success. It has picked out experimentation, asking for help, and controlled meltdowns as important, but there are many more things in there. It is a fantastic piece. This was her answer when asked about the rules for leading a winning team. “Hire right. As my dad said, ‘You can’t win the Kentucky Derby on a donkey.’ And not just players but staff. Be sure they complement you more than compliment you.” You can read the full piece here

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And finally…

I didn’t watch the first series of The Traitors on the BBC last year despite a load of recommendations from Off to Lunch readers. However, I have watched the new series because of those recommendations. The show is worth the hype and is strangely addictive. I don’t want to take the show too seriously, but amidst all the fun, it is a fascinating insight into the power of herd mentality, first impressions and the inherent biases in the way humans think, which cause our decision-making to go astray. You can find more about the show here

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Best

Graham