Michael Skapinker
skapinker.bsky.social
Michael Skapinker
@skapinker.bsky.social
Career and retirement counsellor, FT contributing editor, leadership educator
Reposted by Michael Skapinker
Well-established companies should ask themselves a simple question: “Who in the company is in the business of looking after its future?”’ My FT Big Read on how giants from Boeing to Kodak to GE lost their way

on.ft.com/4jLtLS8

#management #leadership
Have America’s industrial giants forgotten what they are for?
[FREE TO READ] Critics say fragmented ownership, weak culture and a fixation on financial results have harmed innovation
on.ft.com
February 4, 2025 at 8:23 AM
I used to be one of the people selecting the letters to the editor for FT publication. You live for moments like this.
January 26, 2025 at 5:02 PM
Reposted by Michael Skapinker
FT readers will pretty much never have seen Andy Slade's name in print. But he was the kind of person who gets a newspaper out with minimal errors and maximum attention to the needs of the readers. We're all very sad at his death. But this is a beautiful obituary: www.ft.com/content/76e8...
Andrew Slade, FT journalist, 1963-2025
Talented but unassuming news editor who was universally admired in the FT newsroom
www.ft.com
January 10, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Intelligent, nuanced email from @stephenkb.bsky.social today on dangers in Labour's schools bill. There's plenty wrong with England's schools, especially on special needs, but the bill risks reversing the greatest national achievements of previous decades - the improvement in state education.
January 8, 2025 at 10:09 AM
So we can add BA silver cards to the list of things we boomers had which are now denied to younger generations. www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-...
British Airways frequent flyers react to Executive Club changes
Plane Talk: ’Spend, spend, spend’ is the message from BA to passengers who crave elite status with the airline
www.independent.co.uk
December 31, 2024 at 8:22 PM
Thanks to the @financialtimes.com Claer Barrett for letting us know that the latest model of Monopoly is card-only.
December 15, 2024 at 11:01 AM
Reposted by Michael Skapinker
This CD player was my birthday present in 1997 along with the incomparable Fresh Hits 1997. I found it recently and COULD NOT BELIEVE how rich the sound was, after years of streaming Spotify on my phone. My column today is about this phenomenon, which I’m calling “qualitynesia” on.ft.com/3ZlwHf5
December 3, 2024 at 9:18 AM
Here's @pilitaclark.bsky.social writing about how "around" had replaced "about" as the word used when talking about something. While I'm an ever bigger pedant than Pilita, I hadn't noticed this one. It will now irritate me every time.
www.ft.com/content/b589...
The battle around ‘around’ and other awful woolly words
The fuzzy meaning space is becoming depressingly overcrowded
www.ft.com
December 2, 2024 at 9:03 AM
My old friend Peter Grimsdale arguing in the @financialtimes.com that Jaguar's ad is a return to traditional values.
November 27, 2024 at 8:42 AM
People facing retirement often want whatever they do next to have a wider purpose or worry that their career didn't have one. So thanks to Victoria Tomlinson of Next-Up for alerting me to this study concluding that a sense of purpose reduces dementia risk. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC....
Sense of purpose in life is associated with lower risk of incident dementia: A meta-analysis
A sense of purpose in life has been associated with healthier cognitive outcomes across adulthood, including risk of dementia. The robustness and replicability of this association, however, has yet to...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
November 19, 2024 at 7:07 PM
Reposted by Michael Skapinker
Our overdiagnosis crisis

Amid a sharp rise in mental health conditions, critics say we have started to pathologise “ordinary human unhappiness”.

By Rachel Kelly
www.newstatesman.com/politics/hea...
Our overdiagnosis crisis
Amid a sharp rise in mental health conditions, critics say we have started to pathologise “ordinary human unhappiness”.
www.newstatesman.com
November 19, 2024 at 1:33 PM
My old deputy, and then editor, Isabel Berwick and I talk about what we wish we'd known when we started out.
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/w...
What I wish I’d known when I started my career
Podcast Episode · Working It · 12/11/2024 · 21m
podcasts.apple.com
November 19, 2024 at 7:27 PM
Delighted to see @pilitaclark.bsky.social advocating "if you cough, you're off". If you're ill, go home and don't infect everyone else. As a manager, I was sending snifflers home long before Covid, as my deputies @martinbrice.bsky.social and Hugo Greenhalgh will recall.
www.ft.com/content/d79c...
If you cough, you’re off
Why is it so hard to follow this first rule of flu season office etiquette
www.ft.com
November 19, 2024 at 7:27 PM
How to play the organisational politics game. My @financialtimes.com column. (And, no, opting out of the game entirely doesn't work.)
www.ft.com/content/772f...
The dangers of staking your career on the company’s rising star
Succession planning at JPMorgan Chase offers lessons for executives hoping to land the top job
www.ft.com
November 19, 2024 at 7:27 PM
Pleased to have caught the last performance of "Skeleton Crew" at the Donmar Warehouse about the closure of a Detroit car plant. Brilliant portrayal of the middle manager's invariable dilemma: having to defend company line against the rage of your team, who you try to protect against all the odds.
November 19, 2024 at 7:27 PM
Special deal for new Starbucks CEO: he doesn't have to come into the regular office. Baristas will presumably still have to show up for work. www.ft.com/content/ef7a...
November 19, 2024 at 7:27 PM
In today's FT, @lynneguist.bsky.social and @byagoda.bsky.social, admittedly in a report from New York. Is there an increase in UK use of "wait lists" and "wait times" over "waiting"?
November 19, 2024 at 7:27 PM
Brilliant column by the FT's John Thornhill on the Post Office scandal, especially this conclusion.
www.ft.com/content/3cbb...
November 19, 2024 at 7:27 PM
November 19, 2024 at 7:27 PM
I spoke to @financialtimes.com's Isabel Berwick about why we need to stop talking about retirement. It no longer describes what people like me are doing. open.spotify.com/episode/7ae7...
November 19, 2024 at 7:27 PM