Making a difference

I remember a leadership development programme I participated in. We’d been talking about difference, about leading teams made up of people of different temperament, approach, background, heritage, culture. ‘What’s the difference’, asked the facilitator, ‘that makes a difference?’. In one sense, it’s just a clever phrase but Chris Seeley, who lead this discussion, was superb.…

Pernicious and undermining: essay mills

I was scammed a couple of weeks ago.  It began plausibly enough: an apparent LinkedIn message from a senior politician who I know a little.  It was soon clear, from the content of the torrent of messages that followed, that he’d been hacked and his connections were being targeted.  I clicked out of the conversation…

The Heart of the Region

Look very carefully and you might spot some new arrivals on campus this week.  New, and appropriately heart-shaped lapel badges will appear as a visual symbol of our Heart of the Region campaign, celebrating the importance of Sheffield Hallam University to Sheffield and South Yorkshire. We are, as a university, at the heart of this…

Politics and the nation

There’s an old, and no doubt apocryphal, story about a newly-elected MP, who arrives in the House of Commons.  The newcomer sits beside an old hand and, looking at the benches opposite, says ‘I can’t wait to take the argument to the enemy’.  The long-serving MP looks appalled, and replies ‘That’s not the enemy.  That’s…