Apparently there is, and it’s 5:1. That is some researchers are arguing that for every barbed remark, or true-word-spoken-in-jest you have to patch on five positive (and presumably sincere) comments for that relationship to be repaired.

A few years ago  I was looking to get into property investing. Feeling like a wounded penguin swimming with a pack of leopard seals I paid for advice from a self-declared, but high profile, property guru. I opened the newspaper recently and found that the same man now lives in a tent in a traffic island.

In the accompanying blog I argued that Air NZ has just made changes to its trans-Tasman ticket pricing that have seriously undermined its customer loyalty program. I made the distinction between ‘reward’ and ‘loyalty’ programs and said that rewarding customers is always going to be difficult to sustain but that loyalty was easier.

Is a value statement just more cynical hissings from the corporate snake pit? More business monkey spank double speak? Or is it a valuable tool to help shape culture and create a competitive advantage?

All choices are evil. The most evil choices are those that require denying short term gratification, and unfortunately they are everywhere. Put down the garlic and crucifixes and battle those zombies by changing your environment.

In my blog 'Choice is evil - deliver yourself from temptation' I raised the idea that decision making is hard and painful– and that has a number of consequences. In your personal life it means that you can increase performance by changing your environment. In the same way companies can improve performance by changing their systems and culture. Just like Super Nanny.

When I cast off from the shore of the Canary Islands to head across the Atlantic I was struck by the similarity this moment was to every other time I had gone out in the boat. And how I wished I had paid more attention to every detail of those practice rows.

This blog is about practicing. It’s not about a big challenge, its about an everyday one.

The recent Walter Isaacson biography mentioned Steve Jobs’ tendency towards binary thinking – how he would put people in one of two camps, ‘very good’ or ‘very bad’.

Is this another powerful management technique from the polo necked guru?

No. He’s being a jerk.