John Kay

The British retailer John Lewis, owned by an employee trust and long a favourite of metropolitan women, has now become a favourite of their politician husbands.

In the regulation of business affairs, from dress codes to rules on takeovers, it is always tempting to try to translate general principles into specific rules. But the world is rarely sufficiently clear and certain for this to be possible, and if it seems so today it will have ceased to be so tomorrow.

Faced with the choice of over a hundred 100 jams, I reduced the number of alternatives to 30 or so, and then … well, I finally walked out of the shop without having bought any jam at all. People are overwhelmed by variety of choice.

Irrationality lies not in failing to conform to some preconceived notion of how we should behave, but in persisting with a course of action that does not work.

Activities that are good in themselves are good for the economy, and activities that are bad in themselves are bad for the economy. The only intelligible meaning of “benefit to the economy” is the contribution – direct or indirect – the activity makes to the welfare of ordinary citizens.

At the medieval courts Shakespeare described, the exercise of power was not a means to an end, it was itself the end. The political and economic environment has been transformed. But human nature has not, and the factors that drive powerful men today are little different from those that drove them five centuries ago.

Most people dislike confrontation, and, given time, an aggressive minority will find itself alienated. Meet the reasonable demands, and appear to treat the unreasonable ones with seriousness; always engage in discussion, however futile.

Processes matter to us as well as outcomes, and so we genuinely appreciate gifts even if we don’t really care for the item.

Maintain a clear sense of long-term objectives but acknowledge the limits on your day-to-day actions.