SOUTH KEN — The win seems easily in hand.  It will be more of a TKO than a real back-slapping, headline-grabbing, crowd-pleasing victory.  But that’s okay.

And then the player kind of clumsily sits down and then leans forward and back… and falls down.

Suddenly the game is not over yet.

I think I am describing an indescribably painful final 2 minutes of the SuperBowl this past Sunday.

But I could also be describing the twists and turns of the GOP presidential nomination process in the Land of the Free.

It’s not there that the comparisons end either:

• the vast amounts of money spent on the event consistently exceed its real entertainment value.
• the commercials are more fun than the live action.
• the most important players are not on the field.
• the strategists and power-brokers are in no shape themselves to play the game (physically or morally).
• really, really short bursts of activity are followed by endless replays, analysis… and more commercials.
• the average American sees the whole thing as an excuse to drink and eat more… and complain about everything.

Not bad.  As far as analogies go.

And when you think about how much American voters like a quarterback (Kennedy, Reagan) it starts to actually get quite frightening.

And how far is big business removed from this kind of pantomime?  To what extent are companies run as artifice, with rules that are too complicated, by actors who are standing in for the interests of others?

You can start to think of a compelling case, which institutional shareholders taking on a ‘strategists’ role, and unskilled middle managers stumbling around a field doing a job that is unclear to them.

But the comparison doesn’t hold up for long.  Not in most well-run or actively trading businesses anyway.

Executives and managers are still surprisingly powerful.  The decisions they make can have an immediate affect on the organisation.  The enterprise should — and most often does — show results and involve people in a genuinely consuming way.

In fact, if there is a complaint about the work that we do (as white collar workers in the industrialised world) it is that it is too all consuming and too fulfilling.  People complain about working too hard, getting stressed, not taking enough holiday, etc.  None of those behaviours are driven by real coercion.  

Business strategies are usually fairly coherent.  The implementation sometimes needs work.  But you’ll rarely find a business sitting down when the action starts.

/df

MARYLEBONE — This year is a big year of change. In technology, in the world economy, the world of sport, even in the way all our countries are run.  There are elections in America, France, India…

What is more significant in a country than a change of government?

And that’s what is promised in India, Malaysia, Taiwan, Serbia,  Kuwait, El Salvador, The Gambia, Armenia, Algeria, Madagascar, Libya, Mongolia, Mexico, Cameroon, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Belarus, Ukraine, Ghana, Angola, Bhutan, Guinea, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Togo.

New presidents in Yemen, Senegal, Mali, Russia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Albania, France, Kenya, Turkey, the United States of America, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, Egypt, Kosovo and Zimbabwe.  Yes, Zimbabwe.

We know that the United States presidential election of 2012 is to be held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. It will be the 57th presidential election.  And it will get a lot of attention.

But how about the world’s largest democracy?

Yes.  That’s India.  How about that one?

Or the big red splotch above?  Russia.

That’s important too.

There are other changes coming too.  Some, we seem to know for sure:

• Gold prices will keep going up.  And hit $2,000 and ounce in 2012, they say.
• The Internet is going to change.  A new IP address protocol will mean that companies may start building two sites for a doubled up Internet — the old one, and the new one.
• We’ll all be talking about faster, slimmer smart phones and The Cloud.  If you don’t know about either, now is the time to do some research.
• Plus many more things you may want to share?

This time next year things will be very different.

I promise.

Businesses will fail.  Some will be dominant that you haven’t even heard of.  Yours will merge, divest, make a 90 degree turn, or implement similar significant changes.

So, what are you doing about it?

Well it is a topic that is quite dear to our hearts at Able and How.  We are launching our Able and How Change Index this year.  And our change management work the world over continues at a pace.

We will be keeping an eye on business, political and social trends this year.  And keeping you up to date with the Able and How Change List (look for it soon in our News section).

Change is good.

Get into it with us.

/df

P.S. And, by the way, NASA assures us that the world is not going to end.  After many years of fielding wild calls, they were forced to put up this website.

PICADILLY CIRCUS — Looks like the sun might actually come up in London today.  That’s a relief.  And one of my biggest concerns.  Yesterday was dark and I can’t handle that.

So, how lucky am I?  That trivial issues like that concern me?

Yesterday umpteen decisions were made that affect all of our lives and futures.  Not just in London, New York and Beijing.  But in Rome and Athens.  In Geneva and Berlin and Paris.  And in Damascus and Doha. And…

Open the paper and have a look through.  There are an amazing amount of fundamental, big decisions being made by people in places all around the world.

Last Monday Chancellor Merkel said she thinks we’re in the biggest global crisis since 1945.

And she and a group of other diverse, independent leaders, are trying to make sense of the whole thing.  New leaders are being sworn in.  Senior financial gurus are being tapped up.

And big decisions are being made.

In recent years here in the UK a chorus goes up of people saying: easiest job in the world! Paid for nothing! Crooked! Useless!

And today they are doing more than any of us to save our collective backsides.  That’s what leadership is — and probably what we need.  It may even be more than we deserve.

/df

HYDE PARK CORNER — I had a run of texts from a politically obsessed British friend last week. “Have you heard the latest joke about Chris Christie?”

I hadn’t. In fact I hadn’t even heard of Chris Christie.  I was still catching up on the impossible rise and fall of Rick Perry (who I also hadn’t heard of a few months ago.)

So, yes, we’re talking about the US Presidential race.  And Mr Christie, as I have just started to find out, is the current Governor of New Jersey.  Furthermore, it seems that for a few hours last week he was also going to be “the next President of the United States.”

It’s not hard to see why he backed away, even after backing away before.

In many respects you could argue that business is much more forgiving than politics.  Corporate leaders don’t have to submit themselves and their families to the kind of attention and ridicule that politicians do.

However, on the other hand, leaders in business have to appeal to more demographics than politicians.  They have to be leaders of divisions, countries, hierarchies and Boards. 

Being religious might be a requirement for the US Presidency.  But it’s a detriment to a business career.  Leaders of industry need to be able to appeal to people of every background, so long as they can hold a job.

Similarly Presidential candidates have to submit to comments and sniping about everything from their weight to their daughters.  While business leaders may be able to keep their peccadilloes hidden, they also don’t have staff at their disposal to burnish their image.

As Chris Christie found out, leadership comes with it’s challenges that have little to do with the job.

Some days you have to wonder, who’d want to do it?

/df

CHELSEA — The problem with change is that you cannot always foresee what might happen next.  So you create an anticipated direction of travel and risks, issues, dependencies etc. along the way.

That’s how it’s done.  In a nutshell.

The problem with Britain’s big banks though is not that they don’t know what might happen next.  They do, but they’re determined to fight against it.

It is clear when you compare the banking systems of, say, Canada, what the problems of the UK and US systems were.  You can’t really argue it.

As the Chancellor George Osborne has said:

Take the financial sector out of the equation and economic growth in the rest of the economy during recovery has actually been above its average rate of the last two decades.

In fact, the Office of National Statistics says that Britain’s banks are responsible for 1/3 of our national fall in output since 2008.

That’s not really all that funny.

According to many of the banks the recovery is too unclear for action to be taken now.  However, for all the lack of clarity they see around the recovery, the implications of further regulation do seem clear to them.

And they know that that change wouldn’t be good.

Which, of course, is total rubbish.

Change is good.

When it comes to further regulation… and ring-fencing of retail banking, for example… there can really be little argument.

Let’s get on with managing the change.

/df

LONDON — I am still a bit disturbed by an interview I read while on holiday. I have no idea why, while off the grid for a fortnight, I managed to read Lucy Kellaway’s interview with Roland Rudd. But I did.

Have a quick read of it and then come back.

Let me start by saying that I have no agenda with either. Lucy Kellaway will never report on my business.  I have seen her speak once, but never met her.  Rudd is in a parallel business to mine, and although I have met him once, I will never be invited to dinner at his, and for many reasons out companies are guaranteed never to work together.

There is no doubt in my mind that Public Relations (PR) is a dark art.  To many it seems like a job that isn’t really a job.  Even if the PRCA Training manual just landed on my desk and has 55 pages of courses.  Many people feel that PR people sell influence and that influence is hard to measure.

Again, I don’t want to argue that point.  What I am interested in is the way in which Mr Rudd is fairly ruthlessly dispatched.  He’s been “making a handsome living” advising CEOs.  It’s all about people “having their egos tickled”.

It’s not a wholly abusive article.  But it’s not exactly like other profiles in the FT either.  It’s gossipy, dismissive and not particularly fun in the process.  There is something about it that is quite dark.

And I wonder if the uncomfortable relationship between journalists and business has something to do with it?  Why is it for example that these two people in the story, who started their careers together, can have had such different lives as a result?

What I wonder is would a film producer, or a Royal Academician, or a computer company owner have received the same treatment…?

/df

MY HOUSE — I come from a family of journalists.  And I think that’s a great thing.

Naturally curious.  Opinionated.  Excellent at explaining complex things.  Able to bring the world the news it needs.

My grand-uncle help set up the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.  My dad won awards for his work as a foreign correspondent.  There’s a story that one of my rellies loaned a dis-credited Lord some cash to buy his first newspaper.  But I’m not sure that’s true.

When I was a boy we were surrounded by mighty upright typewriters, coffee and politicians.  We were taught to ask about what UNESCO did, who Marshall Tito was, and what the heck the Marshall Plan was all about.

I loved it.

Today I still have great friends in the Fourth Estate and I will walk the extra 100 yards to see all the morning’s paper laid out, like a row of fresh painting each morning in my struggling newsagent’s shop.  Each screaming something slightly different.

This city I live in feels like home, in part, because we are sunk, knee-deep in the tradition of the daily written word.

A great thing too.

So the troubles of News International ought to be more troubling to me than they are.

But they’re not.  I love newspapers for the things they teach me that I don’t know.  In my world newspapers cover news.  They don’t create it.

The whole issue with newspapers and journalists today is a sorry, sad state of affairs. No one can come out of it smelling good in any way.

Today’s ridiculous stack of Sunday papers in the UK show only bitterness and cynicism.  The tabloids have nothing on the troubles at News Corporation on their front pages.  And we think it’s something about casting the first stone…

And the few broadsheets are covering the Murdochs with way too much glee …

The problem is that we have got to the point in London that there are not many papers that are worth reading.  The Sunday Times today… while carrying a full-page ad apologising… carries two cover stories attacking News International’s enemies (an ex-PM and the entire London Police Force).

It’s just not right.  Newspapers are conduits of information.  We risk losing more in the UK and I put it down to proprietors who have forgotten what business they are in and journalists who have become too cynical to ask.

We’re used to seeing industries in transition.  This one is in for a big one.

I worry that it’s more likely to move towards extinction than improvement.

/df

He is without a doubt one of the most interesting and amusing guys I have ever met. (And I’ve me a LOT of people.) And his candidacy in 2011 is inspirational.

He recently posted a note on Facebook early in the UK morning – so the middle of the Ontario night – to say he’d just come from his garage where he’d finished building his campaign secret weapon. “Stay tuned as it is unleashed at the Stratford Farmers Market on Saturday,” he promised.

And sure enough his “Truth Booth” showed up on Saturday as threatened.

Although it is state of the art, fully mobile and with wifi, Candidate Cowling did say “the truth is it is almost impossible to use a laptop in bright sunlight.”  Honesty from the outset.

I am filled with admiration for John’s conviction. And for his creativity and determination. I like the way he is unbowed.

And you’d have to be very unsympathetic not to recognise that the world has moved closer to John over time — rather than his having to bend to it.

I read a great line somewhere today that said: People will only criticise your leadership skills if you’ve managed to get yourself into a position of leadership in the first place.

And we know that getting into leadership roles in business and in public life actually means that you’ve had to be very good at working with others and building consensus… read ‘compromise’.

So whether it’s into the Canadian Parliament, or when running a local hardware chain store, you have to applaud people who can stick to their convictions and champion what they believe to be true consistently. Without wavering.

Canada would be a better place with John Cowling in Parliament.  When the people of Perth-Wellington vote for him in, his determination and conviction will finally be rewarded.

/df

Washington, DC — It’s great to read good American newspapers again, like the Washington Post.  For the first time ever it has made me think about retirement.  Because that’s when I will be able to read the Post, and weekly editions of the New Yorker, from cover to cover.

It was alarming to hear two weeks ago that online news readership has now surpassed the reading of newspapers.  Because newspapers give you so much more to think about.

However, even I, a child wrapped in newsprint at birth, couldn’t bring myself to pay the $22 to get into the Newseum in Washington this week.  Sometimes newspapers and the news media can be their own worst enemy.

For example, I am quite horrified to find that even when reporters are talking on CNN – live from the battlefield — there is now music playing in the background: Dun-dun, dun-dun…  It’s like the world has turned into a comic strip.

Last night, in a rainy Georgetown, I was delighted to find a paper copy of The Onion.  A paper that I started reading online many years ago.  And some say the most credible paper in America.  Unfortunately it is all spoof news.  But often spoof news that is right on the mark.

“Deaths Of 20,000 Japanese Afford Planet Solid 15 Minutes In Which Everyone Acts Like A Human Being”

It’s a top Onion headline that is too long to be read by many of the busy people who should find it worrying.

Distance in many cases has turned news and communication into a bad mix of adrenaline and the need for sensational ‘breaking news’.  What ever happened to sitting and thinking about it a bit?

Whether it’s at work or at home, it feels like we could all do with a chance to sit down and really understand what’s going on.

Meanwhile, the local ABC station tells us: “Breaking news: Don’t drink the rainwater.  There could be Japanese radiation in it.” Dun-dun, dun-dun…

Really?

/df

LONDON — The Olympics are coming to London for the third time.  But they won’t be the same Olympics.

In 1908 they were held all around my house… I mean in this part of South West London.  The events are most famous for causing the odd Marathon distance…

• The Windsor to West London distance was altered from 25 to 26 miles so that it could start at Windsor Castle.  And then altered again at the request of Princess Mary so that it could start under the royal nursery window. 26 miles, 385 yards it became then.

But they also included an odd list of sports.

• The events included “tug of war”, lacrosse and Jeu de paume.

The 1948 “austerity games” were also quite exceptional.

For one thing Germany and Japan weren’t invited.  Which seems churlish now…  The USSR was invited but chose not to attend.  And no new venues were created for any event or as accommodation.

(And — I hadn’t know — London won rights to the event ahead of a list of cities that included my home town of Montreal.)

And so the Olympics reinforce some things we heartily believe to be true:

• Change is good.
• It’s hard to foresee.
• What we did last time won’t always work this time.

/df

P.S. If you are interested in reading up on the Olympics, the one to look at is 1904 in St Louise.  Mud fighting.  I need say no more.