IRIS Blogs

Despite the government’s revolving door policy for new regulation, Martin Leuw says he’s seeing more rules coming in than going out.  He asks: when will we see useful long-term measures to help young entrepreneurs?

My friend Steve Cunningham is blind. He is also one of the most inspiring people I have ever met. Although Steve lost his sight at the age of 12, he is the holder of not just one, but three world records – achieving the record for fastest blind man on land (in a racing car), [...]

I barely remember life before e-mail. It must have been about 15 years ago, yet seems like we’ve had it forever. That was when I went almost completely paperless, using my PDA for meeting notes that I could retrieve quickly and easily. Not long after, was the switch to internet banking and online shopping, followed [...]

Real Business: A happy workforce is a productive workforce, but what can you do to put a smile on your employees’ faces? Having a happy workforce makes sound business sense. Recent survey findings show that those organisations with the most engaged workforces significantly outperformed their peers throughout the recession, despite having also had to restructure [...]

As Mathew Rock reported in his editorial, Luke Johnson wrote an interesting article in the FT about what makes a great entrepreneur and how difficult it is to “spot a winner”. For business owners, selecting really good people is one of the hardest, yet most vital tasks we face.

Some people spend their time making excuses, others invest the same time in getting things done. When Walt Disney came up with the concept of Disneyland, he struggled to find the then-gigantic $17m construction fees to build his first theme park in California. So, in 1955, he enlisted Coca-Cola to help finance the project. A [...]

Poor communication is something that drives me nuts. But what can we do about it? A few years ago I attended a two-week executive course at Wharton Business School in the States. On the first evening, all 40 delegates gathered together and the professor leading the course asked us to form a circle. We were [...]

Not only is this week the start of the new IRIS financial year, but it’s also the week in which we will finally see who we have chosen as the next UK Prime Minister.

I was very fortunate to sit next to Ben Hunt-Davis at a dinner last week. Ben is an Olympic gold medallist for rowing, with an inspirational story for both the sporting world (as we prepare for 2012) and for business. Read more http://realbusiness.co.uk/martin_leuw/ten_tips_on_coaching_your_staff

I don’t usually get irate about politics but when I read Peter Mandelson’s recent suggestion that some of our top business leaders had been “deceived” by the Tories’ position on NI, it seriously wound me up. Do some politicians just forget where tax revenues come from?