EDITION 905
7 FEBRUARY 2022

There is no escaping it: too much news is bad for you. It should come with a government health warning: “This intellectual diet is fine taken in small doses, and preferably in weekly instalments, via a well-balanced newsletter, such as 10 things from William Montgomery."

So, as another week slips by, here are 10 things which caught my attention and may have escaped yours. Please feel free to share on social media and forward to your colleagues and friends so they can also subscribe, learn and engage. I would be very grateful if you did.

William Montgomery
Editor and CEO of TEN

1. How to be a less autocratic leader. Trying to lead a seasoned, highly skilled team through command-and-control won’t work. These groups need leaders who are emotionally and intellectually agile, and able to modulate styles as needed. To be less autocratic, try shifting: READ MORE >>

2. Failures of leadership. Civil servant Sue Gray said there were “failures of leadership and judgment” in parts of the government in the initial findings of her investigation into gatherings at Downing Street during Covid lockdowns. Significantly, Gray said that some staff had “wanted to raise concerns about behaviours they witnessed at work but at times felt unable to do so” and said there should be easier ways for staff to raise issues outside the chain of line management. Responding to the report, prime minister Boris Johnson apologised and said he “accepted the findings”. Police investigations into 12 of the 16 events covered in Gray's report are ongoing. The Times

3. £9bn ‘wasted’ on Covid PPE. More than £4.3bn has been lost to Covid loan fraud and almost £9bn has been wasted on personal protective equipment, it was revealed last week. In what has been described as “a staggering illustration of government waste”, it emerged that much equipment was faulty or not used before its sell-by date. The combined cost to the taxpayer is more than the £12bn expected to be raised each year by April’s planned national insurance hike. “We stand by the decision to purchase the items that we did,” said No. 10. The Daily Mail

4. Time to keep online meetings small. Narrowing down the invite list for your next virtual meeting may help workers feel less exhausted and more productive. According to research from professors at Stanford University and the University of Nottingham, virtual meeting efficiency takes a dip when the group exceeds 10 participants. Keeping online meetings small can help combat feelings of fatigue and burnout, which workers have been experiencing at elevated rates since the start of the pandemic. If you’re facilitating an upcoming video meeting, consider keeping it between two to nine attendees on the call. Stanford News

5. Stars and Spokes. Two illustrious Royal Navy officers are cycling 5000km unsupported across the USA in just 35 days. Click the link below to watch a short expedition video and find out more about their epic challenge and how you can support military mental health. CLICK HERE >>

6. Our rich and diverse language. Dozens of traditional British sayings are at risk of extinction, a survey of adults under 50 by the Perspectus Global has suggested. 78% of respondents said they never use the phrase “pearls before swine”, while 64% aren’t au fait with “a stitch in time saves nine”. Other endangered sayings include “snug as a bug in a rug”, “a nod is as good as a wink”,“pip pip”, and “colder than a witch’s tit”. Meanwhile, in the House of Commons, MPs are not allowed to call a fellow MP a blackguard, a coward, a git, a guttersnipe, a hooligan, a rat, a swine, a stool pigeon or a traitor. (I quote from the official website’s section about “Unparliamentary language”.) Most importantly, though, they are not allowed to call each other liars. If politicians were allowed to accuse each other of lying, they would do nothing else all day. Editor

7. Bailey criticised over pay rises. The governor of the Bank of England has come under fire for his comment that workers should not seek big pay rises. Andrew Bailey said: “We are looking to see quite clear restraint in the bargaining process, because otherwise it will get out of control.” But the the Financial Times accused him of “hypocrisy” while the Daily Star said the “plank of England” earns £575,000 a year. A Downing Street spokesman said: “We obviously want a high-growth economy and we want people’s wages to increase.” Editor

8. British Gas sorry for delays. British Gas has apologised to hundreds of thousands of customers over its failure to fix and service broken boilers this winter. Customers with broken boilers say they have faced weeks of delays and cancelled callouts despite paying for the company’s HomeCare scheme, which charges from £14 a month to provide breakdown cover and an annual service to around 3.4 million people. A spokesman said: “Our customers are the most important thing. We are sorry and trust us that we’ll improve.” I managed to successfully claim £360 from British Gas after being forced to use a local engineer to fix a problem more expediently. Editor

9. Facebook user numbers fall for the first time. Social media giant Facebook has seen its daily active users (DAUs) drop for the first time in its 18-year history. Facebook's parent company Meta Networks says DAUs fell to 1.929bn in the three months to the end of December, compared to 1.930bn in the previous quarter. The firm also warned of slowing revenue growth in the face of competition from rivals like TikTok and YouTube, while advertisers are also cutting spending. Meta's shares slumped by more than 20%. BBC

10. The bottom line. If you think you belong to the minority that does well on little sleep - i.e., five hours of sleep - the odds are close to nonexistent. The majority of adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep per night to function optimally, with a true average of eight hours and 10 minutes to prevent neurobehavioral impairment. The Lancet