EDITION 740
19 NOVEMBER 2018

As another week slips by, here are 10 things which caught my attention and may have escaped yours. This newsletter is sent to 50,000+ subscribers each Monday. Please share on social media and forward to your colleagues and friends so they can subscribe, learn and engage. I'd be very grateful if you did.

1. How to know if you are ready to lead. Becoming a leader is a huge change in your role. Some newly promoted leaders excel, but others wonder what they’ve gotten themselves into. If you’re ambivalent about making the leap, here’s what to consider: [MORE]
    
2. UK's top 350 companies have 12 female CEOs. Britain’s 350 leading listed firms have just 12 female chief executives and almost one in four of those companies still have only one woman on their board, a government review has found. Five companies have all-male boards, including Millennium & Copthorne. The government has called for women to fill one third of board seats and executive committees by the end of 2020. The Times
    
3. Is modern life raising our blood pressure? The common belief that higher blood pressure is an inevitable consequence of ageing has been upended by a newly published study about two isolated Amazonian tribes. According to the researchers, hypertension may instead be a result of certain aspects of Western lifestyles, such as high levels of salt in the diet, lack of exercise and heavy drinking. High blood pressure is a key risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The Guardian
    
4. New parking rules will allow drivers five minutes grace. New regulations drawn up to tackle rogue operators will allow motorists a compulsory grace period before they are ticketed in private car parks. The reforms will introduce a five-minute buffer zone when motorists drive into a car park before they can be handed a penalty. The moves come after operators demanded charges of up to £100 from drivers who enter but decide not to park. i newsletter
    
5. Properties taking longer to sell than 2017. Properties are taking longer to sell than a year ago, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research. Homes in cities and major towns were on the market for an average of 102 days before being sold or put under offer - six days longer than last year. It is believed that affordability constraints hit demand and led to longer selling times. BBC
    
6. Poll finds Facebook workers less optimistic. A leaked poll found that employees of Facebook have become increasingly pessimistic about the social media giant’s future and are losing faith that it is making the world a better place. In the internal survey of 29,000 workers, just over half said that they were optimistic about Facebook’s future, down 32% from last year. The poll also found that 53% said that Facebook was making the world better, down 19%. Wall Street Journal
    
7. Britain's worst online retailer is named. Homebase has been named as Britain's worst online retailer. A survey by the consumer magazine Which? says the DIY chain's website was tricky to navigate, poor value for money and out of the loop on stock details. Sports Direct also fared poorly in the survey. The highest-rated online shops were Liz Earle and Richer Sounds. Evening Standard
    
8. Decline in fertility rates discovered. Researchers say there has been a “remarkable” decline in fertility rates. A report, published in the Lancet, found that, while in 1950 women were having an average of 4.7 children in their lifetime, the fertility rate nearly halved to 2.4 children per woman by last year. ITV
    
9. Daily commute gets longer. The daily commute has increased by five minutes over the past decade despite billions of pounds of investment in the road and rail network. New research, published today, found that the average worker spent 18 hours longer travelling to and from work last year than in 2007. Long-suffering rail passengers faced the longest commute - more than an hour each way on average. Daily Mirror
    
10. The bottom line. 2.6 million lorries pass through the port of Dover every year, carrying 17% of Britain’s trade in goods, worth £122bn. Dominic Raab, the immediate past Brexit Secretary, was criticised last week for saying he “hadn’t quite understood” just how important the Dover-Calais crossing is to the UK economy. The Independent