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

PARSONS GREEN — There’s a lady in a business suit sitting reading The Guardian.  The Media Guardian is tossed on the bench beside her.  Untouched.

It’s maybe symptomatic of a larger issue. And then again maybe I am just getting old. [Cue rant.] Why do the media need sections dedicated to… the media? 

I find myself hanging around late in cinemas just to stare in awe at the screen. Why do we need to have “credits” for the caterers assistant?

Why do the arts and the softer sciences need to be so self-congratulatory?

It does none of us any good.

Can you imagine a great big banner being pulled behind an aircraft: “And the guy who polished the wing was called Gus…”?

/df

LONDON — It’s an interesting question. Are we already? Could we be more so?

Clearly the UK is a desirable place to work, because people come here and stay. It is a sought-after spot for foreign postings. But in spite of much talk from various parties about the importance of highly skilled workers, I think that questions remain about how much we have created a country that is a great place to work.

What are the factors?

1. Tax
2. Administration
3. Public transport and other aspects of ‘quality of life’
4. Education and access to skills
5. Immigration and renewing our workforce
6. Workplace regulations and laws
7. Working hours
8. Culture of work
9. Ability to manage change
10. Business leadership and involvement

The first 5 of these are often in the political discourse. The other 5 are not.

They are all well within the control of governments. And all would contribute greatly to the success and prosperity of the country.

So why are we not talking about them all?

/df

THE BREAKFAST TABLE AT 6AM — My young son is reading his school book aloud. To practice. I am pretending to listen.

“What!?” he says suddenly. “Rescue a cat from a tree? Firemen don’t do that, do they?”

I sense disappointment.

“Yes,” I reply. “But only for old ladies in cartoons and movies.”

“OK,” he says, as if I had given him a good answer.

So, how many cats have you rescued today? How many things have you done that weren’t really what you were meant to be doing?

Here are a few things that communication people are asked to do that may not be the best use of their time…

• Dress up someone’s PowerPoint presentation
• Organise non-business focused events
• Go to meetings where you are not required
• Write other people’s emails
• Proof-read

What have I missed? From today, how about not answering the call to get the cat from the tree?

Communication is an essential service. Helping your organisation achieve its business goals is a full time job. Let’s focus on that.

/df

P.S. No animals were or will be hurt in implementing this plan.

LONDON — Would you do us a favour? Would you take the two minutes required to answer this survey?

Able and How’s 2009 Happiness Survey

How was that? Easy, no? We’ve had hundreds of results so far, and they are very interesting. We’ll publish them here when they’re ready.

Would you do us another favour? Could you ask your colleagues and/or friends to do it too?

Thanks.

We owe you one.

/df

FULHAM BROADWAY — The papers are glum again today. The response to a piece of bad economic news seems to always be, not to just report it, but to say “you think this is bad! Wait till you see where we’re really going.”

Bring me a scary movie any day.

So, instead let’s look at some of the good news.

1. Renewal
There were a “shocking” 9,000 jobs lost yesterday, but also there were 15,000 created. (I’m not strong in maths, but…) So maybe now is a time to think about that career change that you have been pondering. I don’t think anyone doubts that governments in the future will be more supportive, not less. So maybe you can afford a paycut.

My son’s teacher used to be a PR executive. I think she made the right choice.

2. You’ll be okay
It will be over soon. Some say 2010, some say sooner. But the biggest issue is that you’ll be okay. Do you remember Zidane’s header at the World Cup in Germany? When Richard Hammond had his accident in a dragster? Well that was only a few years ago. In a few years from now, the economy will have recovered.

3. It’s never as bad as you expect
Like many other things in life — your teenage years, your mother-in-law’s visit — you will get through it. Bookmakers will tell you that the odds that you end up living in a box under a bridge are very low.

4. You can learn things.
Like how to make gin in your bath tub. These are skills that you might not acquire otherwise. How to knit blankets out of lint you collect from your dryer.

I am sure you have got some ideas too? Please share.

/df

ST JAMES CAFE — I recognise that this probably changes everything. Well, not everything. But the shape of business at least.

The credit crunch… the recession of 2008… the banking crisis… we don’t know what to call it yet. It’s messy. It’s far ranging. It will be difficult.

I heard someone on TV last night comparing it to a virus. And that’s interesting, because it helps me realise that no one has died. No one is really, really ill. In fact, I read today that after the 1929 crash even suicide rates went down. (Maybe people feel more alive when they aren’t sure what tomorrow holds!)

What is clear to me anyway is that businesses and organisations will change as a result of this. There will be less tolerance for people doing things that don’t seem right. The mantra in the past has been: “if there’s no rule against it… it must be allowed.”

And that’s just not too clever.

There’s a smugness in Michael Lewis’ book Liar’s Poker that still sticks with me more than ten years after I read it. The story of how this all got started reads like a big kids saying “How come nobody is stopping me? Can’t you see this is wrong?”

As a result of this nightmare brought on by too much de-regulation, I hope we won’t necessarily be making millions of new rules. It would be great to just have return to common sense.

From my perspective common sense in business means:

• having a clear, published strategy
• making the future direction and ambition clear to all
• compensating people appropriately (at the bottom too)
• managing people well
• broadening the focus from simply TSR to include making work better so that individuals can succeed

And more.

As businesses are sold off (Lehman) and merged (HBoS) and people are kept in limbo (Iceland), there is sure to be more change rather than less.

With a new administration coming into the White House in the USA and property prices on the left side of the planet dropping still, there is still lots of opportunity. We can make the system work even better.

We’ve had a 15 year boom. Maybe the next one can be 30 years…

/df

P.S. Last week my colleague EJ’s field hockey coach asked 42 ladies in practice who had had a good day at work. Only EJ put up her hand. “So, everyone but EJ has a good reason to really hit the ball hard,” he said. Our belief is that we’ve all got a bigger problem if < 98% of us hate our jobs.

Have you seen our diversity policy?

HOME — This topic has always made me nervous. I remember reading a long article in a coffee-table magazine in the early 1990′s about a big corporation that was making sizable pay-outs to employees over ‘diversity training’ that had gone wrong.

I seem to remember that they had chosen someone in a workshop, who they thought might not understand what it was to be treated ‘differently’ and subjected him to abuse of all sorts. He’d not taken it well and never returned to work.

I know that’s no reason to shy away from these things. But I think the process has had to be rethought.

Over the past few weeks, my colleague EJ has been writing our new Diversity Policy. It’s been an interesting process. Not least because we keep breaking it. There are only a handful of us in the business so far, so there won’t be any court cases, but it has been sobering to see the extent to which our typical conversations do not fit within the rules.

Don’t get me wrong. We’re not a bunch of rude, xenophobic bullies. We are a group of adults with a wry sense of humour.

We’ll have to change.

Today my 9-year-old pulled me aside on the way to see Mama Mia! I didn’t know much about the story, but agreed to take children aged 5, 9 and 11. The older two had seen it before.

“There is a part of this movie that might not be right for the 5-year-old,” the older child said.

Having now seen it, I know there is a woman with three fathers, a lot of sexual innuendo, one-night stands, unsuccessful marriages, people gyrating in speedos, half-clad old people… all the kind of stuff that grown-ups love, but kids might scratch their heads at.

“At the end,” the child explained, “there’s a guy who is gay!”

Clearly, even for the new generation, we have a way to go before we have a solid grasp of diversity.

/df