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?

SW6 — It’s been a really great World Cup.  I am watching it with some South Africans.  They were the ones saying it might be a train-crash of a tournament.  And now they’re proud.

And they’re suddenly feeling quite Dutch too.

Here are 5 things I have learned that also translate into the workplace:

1. The noisiest manager aren’t necessarily the best. (Stand up England, Argentina, France…)

2. Pretending to be sick, creating dramatics and appealing to higher authorities regularly doesn’t advance you career.

3. Sometimes things are unfair.  Suck it up and carry on.

4. Sometimes you can prepare for years, practice like crazy, travel a great distance… and get stretchered off after 5 minutes.

5. Even when you get a result, you will be penalised if you take off your shirt and run around screaming.

/df

SOUTHWEST LONDON — We have been entering the lottery for Wimbledon for 10 years. And we got our first tickets this year. I just opened to see we are about 7 rows back, near the net. So it should be even better than I had hoped.

I’ll take my phone along and update Twitter on odd observations as we go. See you there.

/df

HOME — I do like to watch shows that I shouldn’t like. Or shows that seem like they’ll be good for you. And Ian Hislop’s Changing of the Bard about the ‘great’ British tradition of Poet Laureate is one of those.

I didn’t know much about the role. Not as much as I thought I did anyway. But now I do. And I think I am uniquely qualified.

I am British. (Just.)

I am definitely a more personable character than Ted Hughes. I have better facial hair than Tennyson – by far. But that may not be enough.

I also love poetry. And in a different time, when one could make a living writing verse, I would have jumped in with both feet. The fact that I can’t spell shouldn’t hold me back. (Try reading Shakespeare in the original.) And nor should the fact that my earliest poetic musing were in French. (One of our first Poet Laureate’s patrons couldn’t even speak English.)

But what a job! I’d love it.

So, without wanting to launch a reality-TV style competition for the next naming… a little less than 10 years from when the role will come up again… here’s my submission for your consideration.

Take your time. We’ve got a few years yet.

On Royal soil

What the hell happened to our life in the noughties?
Politicians have once again lost their senses
And we can’t stop the Tele from talking expenses
Let’s flush them out like pheasant for Royal retirees

Chung, clack, BOOOM!
Chung-a, chung-a, clack… BOOOM!
Squaak, flutter / flutter… plunk.

What does the new world order hold for Britain?
Noble bankers we were, but now it seems we’re not
What do we do with the suits we have bought?
The right to dress up’s in the Constitution we haven’t written

‘Point of order!’ BOOOM!
‘Mister Speaker, sir…?’ BOOOM!
‘Where’d they all go?’ Go… go…

I know. It’s amazing. What am I doing sitting behind this desk?

/df

SOUTH WEST LONDON — It’s a beautiful day. I have already cleaned the fridge and had two cups of half tea, half-sugar. It’s a wonder I can sit still at all.

I turn forty-three a little later today. And the long expected mid-life crisis has still not shown itself. I look at guys like me in sports cars and only see the bald-spot.

Something I am mercilessly still without. My hair’s so think I could sell it for wigs. But I did wake up this morning to find that one whole side of my head — the east side — has gone almost completely white. I am sure it is the shock of the last year.

In 2008-2009 I set up a new business.

That will be the punchline for a joke in the future.

There’s a great deal to be learned in any country that I have lived when you set up a new business. The key thing is that the odds are stacked against you. They say that if you want to own a yacht it would be cheaper and more fun to stand in a cold shower and tear up £100 notes. In my experience if you want to start a new business it would be easier and safer to stand in the middle of a packed Wembley stadium and scream “Let’s go Germany! Let’s go!”

Nonetheless, Able and How is a brilliant proposition. No one else offers the same services. Our clients are fabulous and the future can still be bright. Our consulting is so fundamental to the success of big businesses that all we need to do is get to talk to more of them.

So amidst the vague chatter of an improving economy, with the world’s biggest car manufacturer declaring bankruptcy, and still seemingly everything stacked against a start-up business, we will persist.

I just received a text message from my barber shop, wishing me a happy birthday. With that kind of support, who wouldn’t want to succeed?

It’s my birthday and I’ll keep trying if I want to!

/df

LUFTHANSA — I see in the papers this morning that research by Comedy Central says that we are laughing 50% less in the office than we used to.

Why is it always 50%, I wonder? But the issue is still a good one and clear enough: We have lost the ability to make life easier on this ridiculous planet but finding the silliness amusing. I have often thought that if only Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir had a better sense of the ridiculous, the thought of a coffee with them at a smoky Left Bank cafe would seem more immediately appealing.

So let’s spend a day looking at the silly side of life. I’m on a plane full of English city boys, heading to Munich, so there should be enough in the day to qualify.

1. I don’t read the Telegraph much. But today’s “THE EXPENSES FILES – DAY 8″ captures my attention. On page 10 there is an aerial photograph of the moat that the young Tory MP charged the taxpayers for cleaning. Fair enough, although page 10 seems pretty deep in the paper.

But the best is yet to come. On page 27 there is a full page feature article on… how to clean your moat!

Maybe that’s why I don’t read the Telegraph so much. I’m clearly not the target audience.

2. When I was a child we always blamed “the Russians” for everything, from bad weather to the fact that no one could win a medal at the Olympics. Who are we blaming now?

One guess: I have just read that one of the hurdles to getting more Tamiflu to fight swine flu is the fact that it requires a species of the star aniseed herb which is only available in some parts of China.

Maybe the row between Mexico and China had more underlying issues?

Whatever the case, the answer is clear: we must blame the Chinese.

3. I moved my taxi up tonight to get to the airport. When I go out to get in there’s a bloke in the back. Seems we share taxis here. So much for the black stretch Mercedes that brought me out here. Now I’m in tiny, canary yellow A-class with a guy I’ve never seen before.

It feels like showing up in your hotel room to find someone in the shower.

What the heck.

4. Can we talk about the autobahn? My colleague Chris told me last night he’d never been to Germany. We’ll have to fix that. But how do you adapt to the autobahn? I have spent two 45 minute journeys today staring at my feet. Really focused on my feet.

I grew up on the roads of East Africa, where you can get a drivers licence through the post. And so that can be a bit unnerving. They use the roads there as a form of population control. Every morning the Nation or the Standard would show you a picture of a spectacular Matatu (private taxi) crash. And you’d marvel at how they got 32 people into a Peugeot station wagon.

In the Middle East driving is an art. A deadly one too. Often drivers that you are assigned would have such and amazing religious faith, and belief in the afterlife, that you knew it was really up to Allah whether or not you survived.

Allah, I can tell you now, is great.

But in Germany it’s still different. The centrifugal force. The sheer g-force that is applied as you take off through the tarmac ribbons. My stomach is well behind the vehicle and my hair is now parted differently.

5. I was talking today about how to name programmes and projects in companies. I expressed my misgivings about acronyms and my client tells me that she once worked on the Programme for Operational Oversight. And that there was a Manager, POO.

I explained that no one would like that story as much as my 6 year-old son. And my client told me the following joke:

Q; Why did the lobster blush?

A: Because the seaweed.

/df

TCR — What a grim morning.

I have taken to looking at both the global markets (FTSE, DJI and NIKKEI) and the Cambridge light meter. Recently both have been equally bad. Diving and falling short from day to day.

Admittedly the over-night stock market news has been pretty awful, while the light meter seems to be climbing today.

So, let’s just look away for a few moments.

Here are a few distractions to make you smile.

John Sargent
The top story in the UK right now. A large, awkward, but friendly man, is bullied into quitting a TV dancing show because he’s not very good.

There’s nothing not to like about this. And you know it’s going to run and run… into bitchy recriminations, with all sorts of spandex and sequins getting twisted.

God’s Facebook page
This is silly, I know. But it’s full of in-jokes for that large area of intersect between Bible readers and Facebook aficionados.

I wonder if the Dalai Lama has a page? I bet he does.

Star Trek
There’s a new Star Trek movie coming out. Wait! It’s not like that. This is by the guy who has done the TV show Lost. And it’s got real Star Trek fans furious. He says he’s not really a fan… And he’s got the real fans very worried… “What if I learned Klingon for no reason?”

You know the new director J J Abrams is just winding them up when he says “I have only recently become a Trekker.” When everyone knows that the polyester cover fans are called ‘Trekkies’!

Jeez.

/df

You can order it now. See link below.

LONDON — Later in the month we will be launching A duty of care, my new book on leadership, management and organisational communications. It’s a slimmer volume than the last. Only about 150 pages. And considerably cheaper at on £6.99. But you’ll like it. You can order it here.

The premise is that we can all be better leaders, but few businesses offer us any training at all for the job. There’s lots of content with a heavy academic background. The latest thinking and detailed psychological studies… But you might not notice.

It’s intentionally written to be easy to read, interesting, and… even funny.

I get nervous about saying things are funny. Particularly when they are written by me. I remember a client telling me years ago: “At ABC Co. we don’t do funny.” And I am loathe to argue with that.

But I do suspect that individuals at ABC Co quite like funny and occasionally even laugh. So they can maybe read my book under the covers at night with a flashlight (aka a torch).

There’s a serious message behind the book though. And you won’t have to struggle to find it.

Our organisations are under-performing because they are not taking full advantage of their people. Not knowing how to manage people undermines their ability and your results. Not knowing how to communicate with them — even how to give people basic business information — is a threat to your success.

The good news is that leadership is not the hardest job in the world. It’s just the most frequently screwed up.

But I would say that. I have a book I want you to read.

We are launching the book in London on 27 November and ‘virtually’ on 4th of December. We’ll need your name on the launch party list… and you’ll need the details… so if you would like to come, please get in touch.

Bonne lecture.

/df

P.S. If anyone has any really string views about what a ‘virtual book launch’ is, please get in touch. Thanks!