The one thing that managers reliably lack is time. They will often be doing their existing jobs as well as supervising others. They have bureaucracies to navigate—expenses to authorise, hiring requests to make—and mini-crises to solve. It is all too easy for the weeks to whizz past; suddenly it is September and the northern-hemisphere nights are drawing in again. But it is possible for even harried managers to ask themselves questions that force useful moments of reflection. For example:
