I love online shopping!  I use it for most of my personal and professional purchases - in fact I've bought almost all of my business equipment online over the past couple of years and I love the convenience.  But how annoying is it when you've just placed an order and then you find out the next day you could have got the same thing at half the price?? Read More

If (like me) you've been a long time fan of the Balanced Scorecard approach to business management, you may be interested to know that co-author Dr David Caplan is leading a strategy summit next month right on our doorstep...CEO’s, CFO’s, Directors of Strategy Management, Executive Leadership Teams, business unit heads and Strategy Managers and Planners are invited to attend the Palladium Asia Pacific Summit to hear from Dr David Norton as he draws on experience working with countless organisations around the world to show Summit participants how your management system can become a competitive weapon enabling your organisation to execute faster and with more certainty than your competition. Read More

Women are under-represented not only in the C-suite, but also in the high-potential leadership development programs that would help them get there, according to an analysis of 12,000 leaders in 76 countries by Development Dimensions International. Researchers found 28% more men than women in early-career high-potential programs and 50% more men in executive-level high-potential programs. Read More

Quotas or targets?  This question dominated last week’s Diversity on Boards conference as speakers and participants grappled with how to improve gender diversity in Australia’s boardrooms. As the 2-day event kicked off, it seemed that quotas were the odds on favorite: Arni Hole, the director-general of Norway’s Ministry for Children and Equality spoke about the success in Norway of introducing a 40% minority gender quota (meaning boards must have at least 40% representation of both women and men or risk being delisted from the Stock Exchange).  Since the legislation was introduced there has been an increase in female directors from only 6 per cent to 41 percent - in just five years!  Our own Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick suggested quotas might instigate the shift in thoughts and actions necessary for getting women into the top jobs. Read More

With the generous support of Westpac Women's Markets and The Ruby Connection, sphinxx will be expanding our development day program in 2010 to include Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane.  We plan to include a number of panel discussions and presentations involving women in leadership roles throughout Australia - and we'd like to hear from who you'd like to see in the line up. Read More

A study of 288 employed American adults published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology^ found that more women than men felt they did not meet their own high standards either at work or at home. 38% of women and 24% of men said their job performance did not meet their own standards. 30% of women felt they were failing to meet their home and family commitments at a high enough standard, compared to 17% of men. Read More