It was Christmas Jumpers Day today at Able and How.  Few looked like they were new.  Clearly the back of the closet is not as far away as it would appear.

Earlier this week, festive elves hung socks around our staircase with every employees’ names on them.  So far no surprises.

Happy holiday season.

/df

SOUTH KENSINGTON — There was a piece in the Independent yesterday about Sir Richard Branson’s “three point plan” to get the UK economy going.

Unfortunately the plan is completely pants.

I wish it weren’t, but it is.

Years ago, when I worked in politics a very worthy husband and wife team approached my cabinet ministers with suggested legislation: A Good Samaritan bill.  The bill was to recognise that restaurants, food stores and food services companies throw out masses of food everyday.  And yet many, many people didn’t have enough food to eat.  The only reason this happened — they said — was because you could be held liable if you gave people food that made them ill.

The Good Samaritan Bill would solve that “by absolving people of all legal responsibility for the food they made available…”

What?!

I was so surprised by how wrong that was that I couldn’t even talk to the proposers.

Today Sir Richard proposes a plan that would:
- make it much easier for businesses to hire and fire young people
- offer small entrepreneurs easier access to small amounts of money and
- reducing time spent at university

And I feel the same kind of confusion.  Why would it be better for businesses to be able to take on more people for shorter periods of time?

Do we believe in the fairness of our laws, or not?  Do we want to protect people from the pure business drivers of companies?  Or are we happy to have them bought and sold, hired and fired, compensated appropriately, or not?

The appeal for business is obvious.  Any business manager could see that.

But for young people?  It’s much harder to rationalise.  I have no doubt one can rationalise it… But should you?

The same unfortunately goes for micro-finance for entrepreneurs.

Yes, small businesses account for much of the job growth in the UK.  Yes, entrepreneurs (like Sir Richard… like me) help bring better competition and innovation to our economy.

But that does not mean that if we could convince more people to to try it we’d get even more jobs and more innovation.

Creating and sustaining a business is the single hardest thing I have ever done in my life.  Without exception.  I am still not sure that God really meant for me to be an entrepreneur.  But we did really do all our due diligence, never borrowed, worked like crazy, fought off dragons, made millions of mistakes and only just scarped through.

Often I think it’s something that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.  Why would we decide that more and more and more people should do it?  How many more open and closed restaurants do we need on our High Streets.

And less time in university.  Really?

There are answers to this economic crisis.  Or certainly things we can do to help fix it.  But I am far from convinced that these are they.

Give me better managers and better trained and supported entrepreneurs… better skills… any day.

But not this.

/df

PICCADILLY — I’ve been scanning the ‘famous birthdays today’ section of the paper for a few weeks.  Looking at the ages of those who make the list.  And — maybe it’s just me — but one decade seems to be noticeably absent.

Mine.

I didn’t want to turn 40.  But that was 5 years ago, so you think I’d be used to it by now.

Maybe I can’t handle change.

Why are so few people my age recognisable?  Those who do make the paper seem to have ‘former’ in front of their profession (footballer, tennis player) or should have ‘former’ in front (pop star, child actor).  While those who have achieved anything through a more traditional path (study, start work, get promoted) are significantly older.

What has happened to those of us who:

• are old enough to think Serena Williams is disgraceful, but McEnroe is cool
• used to be lazy boys but now act more like picky old men
• have enough pride to tell the gym instructor “I used to be in good shape” and expect to be taken seriously
• find Nirvana’s music derivative
• consider “a good year” one in which everyone got a Christmas present AND the tax bill got paid

Ah.  Maybe that’s it. This is the pause between ambition and arrogance.  The grind.

Five more years.

/df

SW LONDON — “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

That used to be my stock answer to things I didn’t understand. I thought of it as a knowing wink to the way that old people talk. But as my own age has been rising faster recently than East Coast temperatures, it has become less funny and more fact.

And there’s an issue with people in business staying relevant.  I take that bit seriously.  And there’s almost nothing that isn’t relevant.

So this week I set out to work my way entirely through my children’s Harry Potter film collection.  There are 7… plus one in the theatre.  If I can get through them all then I’ll go see number 7.5 in the cinema.

Why?

I’ve never been good at science fiction.  I couldn’t read JRR Tolkien or even CS Lewis.  I wish I could have, but no.

However, in Britain, H. Potter is not only a major export, it has employed all our great actors, boosted boarding school enrolments and driven tourists to run into walls at train stations.

That’s something that cannot be ignored.

Problem is I am three nights in and not yet finished Harry Potter 1.

It could be a long week.

/df

FITZROVIA – Batman Syndrome* is when you have achieved all sorts of fame and fortune, and regular life holds no challenges, so you start to do anti-social, dangerous things.

In the case of Bruce Wayne it’s putting you knickers outside you tights and fighting crime.

In the cases of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominique Strauss-Kahn it’s something else.

I don’t know if this is a real syndrome. I haven’t done the socio-psycho research to prove it. But it certainly helps explain a lot.

Both the head of the IMF and the former Governor of California had form.  They were known to have gotten into trouble before.  But they escaped censure. So it escalated.

And the point of interest for us mortals is to look out for when it might start to exhibit itself in the work place.

I can see, for example, shades of it what I call “first time as a Prefect” management style. This is when people get drunk on their new found responsibilities and start using their power in weird and unhelpful ways.

In the case of these two major political figures that’s quite an understatement.

Calling people on their bad behaviour has been a feature of politics forever.

It is starting to happen with journalists and CEOs too.

But it’s not yet common in most offices and workplaces.

Don’t think it’s not coming though.

The cape and tights didn’t help DSK and Arnie.  They shouldn’t help people in business either.

/df

* Not to be confused with this Batman Syndrome which is described as the inability to move one’s head without moving your whole torso.  Although…

CROMWELL ROAD — There was a little girl with her dad on the bus today.  She cried the whole trip.

“I don’t like the teachers…!  I don’t want to go…!  I want my MOMMY…!!” 

That kind of crying that is so deep and, after a while, so filled with mucus that breathing is affected.

The adults shifted uncomfortably.  Because half of you wanted to shout out:

“For the love of everything, pick her up and take her home! Let her play at home all day!”

And the other half of you thought: Man there are days when I want to cry like that too.

“I don’t want to go to work.  And you can’t make me…”

This morning the Gallup Management Journal published this gem as a way of trying to get you to read more:

“As Egypt and Tunisia have shown, persistent joblessness can contribute to momentous social upheaval. What’s more, Gallup’s global surveys confirm that people who have jobs rate their lives more highly than those who are unemployed.”

For which, I am sure, someone is due a Pulitzer or at least have a spot on Biography.

However, there is an interesting ying and yang in there. (Listen to me go all eastern.)

Even the lucky amongst us who genuinely love our jobs have days where we really don’t want to do it.  And we dream of the day when we can do nothing (which is harder to do than one imagines.)

And those who hate their jobs.  What do they do?  Sobbing on the bus isn’t really socially acceptable.

At the same time, a job is really what we are here for.

(You might argue that you don’t want to work: you want to be a philanthropist, or a famous intellectual, or an underwear model… But all of those are work.)

We do get pleasure and self-expression out of work.  And that’s what part of work has to be about.

So what can we do to make it better?  How can we improve it?

That’s probably what the rest of this blog is about.

/df

LONDON — It’s fair to say that people who are deeply suspicious of… everything… have had a banner week.

• The President of the United States of America released his birth certificate.  Why?
• Friday’s Royal Wedding was staged to get a FIFA vote for a UK World Cup. Obviously.
• OBL wasn’t really killed. Not this week, anyway.

And you can have fun with other stats too:

• Only 40% of Americans believe in evolution.
• 88% accept alternative medicine.
• Over 40 million people bought Rick Astley records.

Who ARE these people?! you might ask. 

The world’s gone mad.  And I wouldn’t argue with you.

But at work it seems that all bets are off.

• The top executives lie awake at night thinking about how to make your life hell.
• Someone is making a killing in this business (and it’s not me.)
• My boss is an egoist, got promoted for being flexible, likes to hurt people, steals all my good ideas.
• If the world were just, I would be the CEO.
• They’re reading my email.
• They’re counting the biscuits.
• They won’t offer us fruit because they want us to get scurvy.
• ‘They’ are people I don’t know… but boy are they powerful.

Time and experience tends to suggest that there is no ‘they’. 

Sometimes you find that out by being invited to the secret management meetings.  Sometimes it’s when the boss confesses about what really keeps her up at night… and it’s a fear of seagulls.

Occasionally it’s that crushing realisation that maybe the other guy actually got there by working harder than you.

That’s the worst.

But look at it this way: At least you never bought a Rick Astley single.

/df

P.S. You what?

ST ANDREW’S — The temperature drops about 3 degrees in 500 yards from the town down to the Old Course. And it’s not 26C like London.  It’s 9C.

The town is a buzz 10 days before the wedding of William and Kate, who met here.

Further to the south in town the old St Andrew’s Cathedral is filled with ancient tombstones.  Plaques built into the ground show you where the different parts of the giant church once stood.  Before an awe-inspiring storm blew it down.

It’s hard to see how many of the big companies we work for — Amex, GE, RBS – have a big role to play in daily life here.  I know they do.  But it’s a long way from the City of London or Wall Street.

As the magazines, newspapers and TV sofas prepare to talk about love, tradition and ceremony… it’s too easy to wonder why we toil in our cubes, behind flickering screen each day.

And maybe St Andrews is as good a place to ask that as any. It is well hidden here, but its roots and remains are far more entrenched than they are in Dearborn, Michigan, or Guangdong, China.

From the cathedral to the Old Course — one of seven courses run by the R&A — industry has driven and continues to drive this town too.  The pavements are lined with pear shaped retirees from around the world (but mostly America) who have come to blend-in to the history of golf and live the dream on the Road Hole in the freezing cold.  That experience may start at the Fairmont 5* resort and golf course on the road out of town.

In the middle the oldest university in Scotland is filled with students from around the world.  They drive another service industry in town.  And although, like everything else, the royal connections of St Andrews are dialed down, they are here to be seen… and sold and bought.

The wedding will undoubtedly be lovely.  We will watch.  Maybe from St James’ Park.  And no one will be less than enchanted.

And…

At the same time it is estimated that it will be a bigger boost to the UK economy than next year’s 17 day 2012 Olympics!

Tour companies, (real) estate agents, potters, broadcasters, churches, tea sellers, banks, hotels, petrol stations… etc all will have a good run.

The number of Hamley’s bags alone alighting at Parsons Green tube stop yesterday suggested that the selling season has already begun.

It’s not that far from what you do.

How do you connect up to it and make sense of it at your work?

/df

(P.S. Bunting and look-a-likey competitions are not the answer.)

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

TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD — Or so says Andy Gill in today’s Independent review of new records.

And what a week it is.  A new Elbow album.  A new REM one too.  And a third from Noah and The Whale.

All well reviewed.

Any one of those would be good enough to make a week for me… But three!

Change and retrospection are good themes this week as well.  Not only professionally, but at this time of year and at this point in our economic history.

They sound like they should be melancholy. But neither change nor retrospection need to be sad affairs.  I find the ideas (and the music) to be life affirming.

Change brings renewal.  And without change we all end up getting a bit stale, and life goes stale with it. 

And retrospection (which I don’t think is a word) is a sign of wisdom.  To my eyes anyway.  We often find that self-awareness is a difficult thing.  Looking back makes you more assured in moving forward.

Maybe that’s a sign of age.

/df