Simon Taylor

Simon Taylor

Ascento L5 Management Tutor.

Recent posts by Simon Taylor

4 min read

Overwork and being Overwhelmed in Lockdown

By Simon Taylor on Nov 17, 2020 11:00:00 AM

Topics: Leadership & Management Digital Marketing Accelerating your career
3 min read

The Despised Words of "Uncertainty" & "Lack Of Confidence"

By Simon Taylor on Nov 11, 2020 11:45:00 AM

I have left my November Blog contribution until now as we look forward to the new democratically elected US president and look forward to the possible impact that a more outward-facing America will bring to the world economy and stability. At least now we can look forward to a period of increasing certainty and confidence. Whilst writing this I am also pondering the uncertainty that the latest COVID 19 lockdown is having and will continue to have on us all. Economically the Bank of England figures estimate an 11% contraction to the economy in Q4 compared to the same Q4 last year. In economic terms, the percentage is enormous and certainly, whilst not a ‘Crash’ level definition is unsustainable. The bank has pumped into the economy (Quantitative Easing) an additional £32,000 per household during 2020. An unbelievable figure, that will ultimately mean the amount of money the UK Government is borrowing, especially, now that the furlough scheme has been extended to March 2021 will be way past 100% of Gross Domestic Product.

Topics: Leadership & Management Accelerating your career
3 min read

The Art of Thinking Ahead

By Simon Taylor on Oct 6, 2020 10:52:15 AM

During most of August, I was on leave and enjoying the remains of the summer heat and the last of the lighter evenings. Consequently, I didn’t sit down and capture any musings in the form of a blog. That didn’t mean however I didn’t have lots to capture or wasn’t constantly musing about what the autumn would bring for us all.

Topics: Leadership & Management Accelerating your career
4 min read

The Responsibility Has Been Shifted Firmly Onto Your Shoulders

By Simon Taylor on Jul 24, 2020 11:00:00 AM

It has been made crystal clear by the PM and the government, that the get back to work message sits clearly on the shoulders of those of you in the organisation making the productivity and safety decisions that will inevitably come back to bite you fairly quickly if you don’t get things correct, right from the off.

5 min read

Leadership when times are challenging

By Simon Taylor on Jul 21, 2020 8:22:20 AM

As we emerge from lockdown, we wait to see what the real and practical effects of the COVID 19 crisis are having on our economy, society, organisations and individuals, I thought I would avert my gaze away from attempting to predict the economic future and shift towards the leadership qualities that are going to be required across all organisations to deal with the future instead.

4 min read

We Don't Have an Auto-Reset Function

By Simon Taylor on Jul 1, 2020 1:52:33 PM

Writing this at the end of a sunny week in June, it’s easy to think that the auto-reset function on our society and economy will kick in and everything will snap back to ‘normal’. 

Topics: Leadership & Management
5 min read

Is it time for the recovery to begin...

By Simon Taylor on Jun 9, 2020 12:00:11 PM

 

I've got this wrong. It's not the V, U or L of economic recovery that might occur. It's the worst of all worlds, it's a W.

Over my last few blog postings, I have covered the work and theories of John Maynard Keynes and the impact that this had on the post-war economic recovery. This, I admit was purely by accident and not by design, as I never expected that only a few posts later I would using his work as part of a recovery discussion from what will be our worst economic depression for more than three hundred years.

Topics: Leadership & Management
5 min read

The Future's Bright, The Future's Long Term

By Simon Taylor on May 6, 2020 10:12:04 AM

In my last blog called “Unprecedented times require realistic expectations of what the future may be like”, I commented on what our future economic recovery may look like and used the letters V, U and L as visual representations. I wrote this during the latter half and the beginning of the first week in April when predictions of infection rates, deaths and both the social and economic impacts were just that, predictions.

Topics: Leadership & Management
5 min read

Unprecedented Times Require Realistic Expectations of the Future

By Simon Taylor on Apr 17, 2020 2:00:00 PM

Having been a student of Business and Economics for too long to mention, I have never been in a position to observe and comment like this before. I have written and commented on the good times and the bad and all of the bits in between when the good times seemed to last for a long time. My first real memory of economic policy shift came as Thatcher came to power and began the change to a market-led system, where ‘Trickle Down’ policies and privatisation replaced state control and the Keynesian theories previously discussed were sent to the ‘Seldom Leant’ shelf in the library of theories. I can recall the miners strike vividly and the shocks the policy changes had on unemployment figures. 

Topics: Leadership & Management
4 min read

Corona Virus | Leadership in Unprecentended Times | Ascento

By Simon Taylor on Mar 23, 2020 7:00:35 PM

Little did I appreciate when I posted my last blog with John Maynard Keynes as its main protagonist that I would be writing the next one, over which such a short passage of time has seen the Bank of England, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund together with the new Chancellor, employ every economic tool in the toolbox to try and avert a global meltdown, including those commented on by Keynes.

Topics: Leadership & Management