Month: March 2018

I’m interviewed in this Guardian piece on philosophy and business. An excerpt:

A philosopher can nudge and question, take leaders on uncomfortable journeys, even be a disruptive force – and they should, suggests US-based Andrew Taggart, who consults for organisations in Silicon Valley on how to use philosophy in a practical context.

“Doing philosophy as a way of life is inherently challenging and can, at times, be deeply puzzling,” he says. “I see it as my responsibility to push you to think harder and much more clearly about yourself and the world.”

In the midst of business pressures, are you someone who will pursue the truth, even if it means discovering painful things about yourself? A tough question, especially when shareholders and HMRC are banging on the door for your quarterly accounts.

My latest Quartz at Work piece begins:

The trend toward intense 70-hour work weeks is well-documented. Yet even as it has become standard in some industries to work until midnight on most weekdays, there’s also a trend in the opposite direction.

German union IG Metall recently negotiated an agreement allowing workers to work 28 hours (with adjusted pay) instead of the full 35 hours, for instance, and a startup based in Portland experimented with tacking back to 32 hours in 2015 (it reverted to a 5 day 40 hour workweek a year later). Four-day weeks are a regular topic of discussion.

You can read the piece in its entirety here.