corruption included using your power for anything outside the precise purpose for which it was given to you.

The pope was forced to write twice to the Icelandic clergy protesting against the practice (by the clergy, amongst others), and priests were buried with multiple wives and children as late as the 1400s, for example at Skríðuklaustur. The institution was euphemistically known as bi-fruar, translating approximately as ‘side-wives’. Two Icelandic bish

He could not go back and make amends. He could not vindicate Septimus with a raised glass, or bring him back to life with a drunken gesture. He could only – what? What could he do? Go on; and try to be wiser; and keep future promises better; and avoid future mistakes.

MARIA: But it can’t look like mud it’s got to look like engine oil. So it’s not just that he’s dirty but it’s that thing like, all during the journey, he’s clinging to the underbelly of the car, hot engine oil, in his face uh but he holds on, he perseveres. Like that’s what makes him scary. QUINCY: I just think, something on a person’s face is funn

Correcting our flaws means, first of all, managing the task of actually seeing them. When challenged, we often respond by refusing to accept our flaws exist at all. People accuse us of being ‘in denial’. Of course we are: we literally can’t see them. When we can see them, they all too often appear not as flaws at all, but as virtues. The mythologis

she has the natural attributes of a happy high status person, but she also has the attributes of the people who resist this role: an inbuilt cynicism, a little bit of aloofness, a dose of eye-rolling.

On television I caught glimpses of the heroes of the Black Power movement. Muhammad Ali, Stokley Carmichael and Yuri Kochiyama were all preaching about the condition of black people, and Angela Davis was still regarded as the most dangerous person in the USA.

Because your culture is how your company makes decisions when you’re not there. It’s the set of assumptions your employees use to resolve the problems they face every day. It’s how they behave when no one is looking. If you don’t methodically set your culture, then two-thirds of it will end up being accidental, and the rest will be a mistake.

Negotiate in their world. Persuasion is not about how bright or smooth or forceful you are. It’s about the other party convincing themselves that the solution you want is their own idea. So don’t beat them with logic or brute force. Ask them questions that open paths to your goals. It’s not about you.