New Leeson Life

I stumbled across this article in Harvard Business Review this morning  FINALLY! I thought, someone (other than Patrick Lencioni) is talking about trust as a precursor to just about every element of business success. And then I read on, and I pulled a face a bit like this... I mean, I applaud the research (even though it falls everso slightly into the category of “socio/psychological research into the stuff most of us know deep down to be true anyway”). It basically says that organisations with a high level of trust in their culture perform better. Simple right? Logical, non? After all Mr Lencioni has been telling us this for decades. Now the scientists agree. Excellent. Except... What the scientists basically measured was Ocytocin levels. And Ocytocin is the neurochemical of trust, true. But it’s also the neurochemical of connection, love, attachment and (whisper it) the stuff that courses through your veins after really good sex. We need more oxytocin in ...

It was a simple Facebook comment that did it. One minute I was scrolling idly through my mum's page. The next I'm kneeling on the floor sobbing. The comment? "Mimi would have been so proud".  Mimi was what we called my beloved grandmother. (Because she felt that 'Gran' was too old and fuddy duddy, and because she'd got it into her head that Mimi was French for Grandmother and, by the time she'd been gently disabused of the notion, it had stuck. It suited her perfectly.). It'll be a year since she passed away on Tuesday.  The comment, made by one of her dearest friends, was in response to a video of me singing a big band song. It had been posted on Facebook and Instagram by my vocal coach, and shared by my mum. (I'll be 40 in 7 months and my mum is still doing that kind of shizzle - what can you do?). I was sobbing because it was a bittersweet compliment. It was a bittersweet compliment because Mimi never heard me sing. She never heard...