Archive
on post nominals
At one time in my career I was entitled to use a run of three post nominals, but, most of the time, I didn’t use them. I would have two sets of business cards, one with, one without, and normally only used the latter. The former only came out for people that I knew would be looking for them. They were one of many things related to status that I coveted until I had earned them, at which point I didn’t really want them anymore.
I have noticed that someone who was recently awarded an MBE has added that post nominal to their social media name, and my instant reaction was, how naff. No doubt they are very proud of the award. They are, like me, from humble origins and perhaps the award means so much more to them, their friends and family So be it.
Where I encountered post nominals most often was in the public sector, and I would wait until those that I was meeting had offered their business cards. If these were PN encrusted, then I would drop my similarly endorsed cards in response. To show that we were in the same club, and that I was in a couple of extra ones too. It was a silly game, but making people feel comfortable with me was an important part of what I was doing.
For the rest I did not give a hoot. If someone asked if I was a member I would tell them, but otherwise I kept quiet about it. I have a lot of sympathy for the Groucho Marx approach and do not want to be a member of the sort of club that would have me as a member.
As it happens I have resigned from all three professional bodies and, I think, have managed to expunge any reference to any of them in my social media presence. I bear them no ill will, I just have no desire to be a part of what they do anymore. I have moved on.
on women bosses
One of the photos of me in my younger days as a manager sees me in the company of my then boss, Diane Santos. This was back in 1982, so 41 years ago now, and a friend, seeing it amongst my work photo album brought the question, “How did you get on with working for a woman back then?”, the assumption being that it was unusual.
It wasn’t. Diane was one of a long line of women that I had worked for, and she was not the last. Yes, there had been jobs that I had done where management was very much male dominated, but Diane was the third woman boss that I had had from the last four. Despite what people might want you to believe, there were plenty of women in management, or at least there were in my working life. For me a boss was a boss. They were either good or bad, and I learned from them all, but it has never made any difference to me what sex they were.
Back then I didn’t give it a thought. I suppose that I was used to women in authority; most of my schoolteachers were women, and I grew up around powerful women so perhaps I had just got used to taking orders from them. Whatever, I have never had a problem working for women, and still don’t. I do have a problem about working for ignorant or incompetent people but they can come in either sex.
I am an elitist, I believe in a meritocracy, so any move towards quotas I regard as discriminatory. I find such practices abhorrent, and do not believe that they advance the cause that they propose to promote. I have worked with, and for. enough talented women to know that they don’t need preferential treatment (I am married to one too).
Just to make it clear, I am a man. I was born male and have not, so far, had any doubts about my sex or heterosexuality. I may not that macho, although I have had my moments, and still do, but working for a woman has never left me feeling threatened, or in any way diminished my masculinity. I do not understand why there should be an issue.
The sad thing, for me, is that the friend who started this musing off is a lady who is a couple of generations younger than me. What she has been told, or taught, about the world that I lived in before she was born bears little resemblance to my experience of it. I have never had a problem with working for a woman in all of the fifty plus years that I have been at work. And yes, there have been women in charge throughout my working life, so don’t try am tell me that they weren’t.
on benchmarking
I have written before on my variation to the Mark Twain proposal that there are Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics, mine going on to suggest procurement savings as the next step in that progression. But I am in danger of digressing here, so will drop back to statistics.
This musing on benchmarking is prompted by a Q&A session at the end of a presentation to a business forum the other week. The speaker was asked about the process that they had gone through before awarding the contract that they had presented on, and they spoke at some length about having benchmarked similar organisations before making their choice. That would have been acceptable, but for two things. Firstly, their presentation had majored on their organisation having unique needs, and secondly the benchmarking had been on cost.
Taking the second point first, there is little point in making cost comparisons unless you have a good understanding of what you are comparing. For example, comparing cleaning costs per square metre might be acceptable, but only if the same cleaning specification is being used. If the needs of the organisation were so unique, finding common ground was surely difficult? The speaker was somewhat vague in their answer to that question.
Benchmarking comes from the crafts: marking your bench so that you could replicate a cut, but in modern business parlance it is just another statistic and therefore can be extremely dubious as a result. I love numbers almost as much as I love words, and, just as words can be used to deflect, deceive and convince, so can numbers. You don’t lie as such, just use a version of the truth that supports the case that you are trying to make.
Benchmarking done well is very effective, but, like many things, it isn’t always easy. For a start it often requires commercially sensitive information to be shared, so if you want to benchmark against like organisations in your sector you are asking competitors to tell you their secrets. Professional bodies and trade organisations often try to put these things together with varying degrees of success, perhaps the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) is the best example.
Statistics, including benchmarking, are something that, in my experience, need to be handled with care as part of the decision making process. If you have an understanding of where the numbers you are being presented with have come from and can use your own judgement as to what weight to give them, then you will have a better chance of getting to the right decision.
Beware of the numbers: That’ snot a bad maxim for any manager.
on regrets
I am more in the Edith Piaf camp here, rather than that of Paul Anka’s words as made famous my Frank Sinatra, amongst others. I really don’t have regrets.
Taken in isolation there are things that I have done that I would have preferred to have done differently. I know, for example, that I have hurt people and am not proud of that. Overall though, the steps that I took back in the first half of my life so far brought me into the life of the Berkshire Belle, and I have been with her ever since. So no regrets.
I think that there are two factors in the way that I approach life. The first is the way that I was brought up by my parents, my teachers and the other adults from my early days. They taught me that decisions had consequences, and that I had to live with the results of my own decisions. “You’ve made your bed, so you have to lie in it” was a saying I heard many times, and it is true.
The other factor is that, from early on in my working life, I got trained in a variety of management skills. This reinforced the understanding that things were going to happen regardless of anything that I did, and so ou had to decide, not just what to do, but when, and, sometimes, whether, to do it. As a manager you needed to assess the consequences of every option: You needed judgement.
You get better at this stuff as you gain experience and, of course, you learn from your mistakes. One, very common, mistake is to overlook learning from your successes too, bit, if you are any good, you’ll work that one out.
As a manager almost everything that you do will please some and upset others. You lay on overtime, so some will see that as great because of the extra pay, but others will be unhappy because they miss out on something by being at work. If you place a contract the successful company will be glad of the order, but others will have lost out and, if you are big enough, that might be the final straw that means one of them will have to lay off people. There are always winners and losers: This is real life.
As an individual I have been shaped by my experience and my professional life flows over into my private one. I am very good at compartmentalising for one thing, but I also apply the logic of trying to understand what the consequences will be for anything I decide to do. I am well aware that there can be casualties.
I learned very early on that I had married the wrong woman (my first marriage), and I struggled with the decision of what to do about it, working from leaving her and our two children through suicide (I had a very good compensation package). There was no easy answer, but in the end I left, and, there under my nose, was the woman of my dreams. We are together still.
I have done a lot in my seventy years so far. Some of it has been stupid, especially in the early years, but I have done some good stuff too and have experienced far more than I could have dreamt of as a boy. I am content with my life, I understand and accept who I am, and I live with the woman that I love and who loves me.
I can’t go back and change anything and so, for me, regrets are a pointless emotion. I’ve done what I’ve done, and none of it was with malice. I take responsibility for what I have done. Regrets? No, I regret nothing.
on confidence in the system
I grew up in a country where freedom of speech was enshrined as a right, where a democracy existed and where there was an expectation that justice could be obtained. I don’t seem to live there anymore.
No longer am I allowed to speak my mind, I have to speak within the parameters that have been set by, what seems to me, to be a minority. 1984 got here a bit late, but get here it did. Democracy has its faults, but rule as set by the majority is not a bad idea. Where did it go? Minority interests now prevail.
As for justice, it has become a joke. There was a time when I would have been more that happy to have been tried by a jury of my peers, but not now. Values have changed too much and I am very glad that my years in this society are limited.
The trigger for this posting is the recent report into the Metropolitan Police. There are things that seem clearly wrong within that force, but that is not what shakes my confidence in the system. My confidence is in the way the report has been presented.
I long ago began to get concerned when I read statements of “Institutionalised Racism/Sexism/Homophobia” (delete as applicable, or substitute your own alternative). It stemmed from a pilot questionnaire to be issued to employees of the organisation that I worked for. In describing myself I had answered three of the questions as; White, Male, Heterosexual.
What else can I say, I am a white man and have not had any doubts about my sexuality, so my answers are the truth. But the response, OK part in jest, from the person designing the questionnaire was that I had marked myself down as a racist, sexist homophobe. I wonder how much of that type of thinking has permeated into the Met report? That grain of doubt undermines the whole thing for me. I can’t trust its overall conclusions because I have no confidence in the system that has produced it.
As I have often remarked here when talking about leadership, trust is fundamental. I understand that there are those who feel unable to trust the Met, and there is a significant problem for them and for the force. We, as a country, need to find a way to rebuild trust in our Police. Whether this report is going to help bring about that change or not remains to be seen, but I fear that it will not.
Until we rid ourselves of the Woke brigade as any form of influence on public life I will not be able to trust the system.
on luck
Good luck, bad luck, no luck, take your pick. Luck plays a big part in life whether we like it or not. I feel that, over the years, I have benefitted more from good luck than anything, but why should that be?
There are those who say things like “The harder I practice, the luckier I get”, but that’s not really luck, it’s about judgement. Some of my ex-military pals use the 6Ps: Perfect Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance, and it can, but there is another military saying that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. I became a great fan of practice and learning from experience through my time in management and business, but I would not credit luck, good or bad, with the majority of my successes or failures.
Luck is a random element. You can, sometimes, predict outcomes, such as weather, traffic issues, mistakes, sickness or injury, but you don’t know for sure whether any or all of them will come into play. You can hedge your bets with some contingency planning, but if you try to allow for every possible scenario you will never get started.
Whilst you are at the mercy of things going wrong, or right, you should always try to have a plan for minimising the impact. I mention right here, because sometimes something will drop into your lap and you need to be able to capitalise on it. Sometimes you have to say yes, and then work out how the hell you are going to do it. Good or bad fortune, experience, practice and training can play their part in getting you out of the hole.
I have had some remarkable luck over my time. I have had the Grim Reaper’s fingers around my throat more than once, but I’m still here. The Berkshire Belle and I came together at a time in our lives when we were right for each other. I have been able to do all sorts of things that I would never have dreamt possible as a boy, or as a younger man.
Sure, there has been some misfortune, but when I look back even the bad luck seemed to put me into a place where I got lucky next time around. If anyone bothers with an epitaph, perhaps “Here lies a jammy bastard” would be appropriate.
on vanishing pleasures
In a recent life log post I mentioned reading and music as two pleasures, but it got me thinking about many of the pleasures that have gone. Quite a few relate to sport.
Change is constant and there is nothing that we can do about it. The generation gap is, in itself, a crucial driver of change as each generation seeks to distance itself from their parents. Technology brings opportunities that we seize on to make our lives easier, better or whatever and so we move one.
Mother Nature also makes her presence felt. Things grow, things die, storms blow and quakes rattle. We grow old and die, assuming that we survive into old age, fr there are a lot of things out there that can kill you along the way.
I have been very lucky in my seventy years so far. Whilst I have experienced some dark times they help to highlight the good times and make me appreciate them more. I have seen and done a lot, possibly far more than my fair share of experiences and have a lot of memories of good times and bad.
There are a lot of things that I used to enjoy, but no longer do. Sports is one area that used to give me a lot of pleasure. I played cricket and football at a local, amateur, level, albeit I was not that good at either, and enjoyed watching both at a professional level. I am too old to play now and would not pay to watch either at the highest levels anymore: The modern games have left me behind.
Motor sport has gone the same way. Whilst I never competed, I did officiate and spectate a lot. I’ve watched here and in the US at the highest levels and enjoyed it, but globally motor sport leaves me cold now. Every year it moves further and further away from my area of interest. The same applies to historic racing. Nostalgia ain’t what hit sued to be as some wag put it and historic motor sport might use the cars from eras that I enjoyed, but in the modern context there is no pleasure for me. I’ve tried it and found it sadly lacking.
Golf I enjoyed laying (OK, there were moments), but I never could understand the attraction of it as a spectator sport and, as with so many other sports, spectator behaviour has become appalling. Sadly I lost a few years of golfing due to back and neck issues and, by the time that they had cleared up, life had moved on along with most of my golfing cronies. I would have been happy to have played on my own, but that is something that most courses frown on and being paired with people that I did not know, nor in most cases would have wanted to know, put me off.
I mentioned ‘pubs in a recent post, and will not go into all that again, but simply record that going to a ‘pub is no longer a pleasure. The same applies to going to the pictures. I used to really enjoy going to see a film at the cinema, but haven’t been to one in more that 30 years. In fact the Berkshire Belle and I have never been to the pictures together. W’ve been to rock concerts and the theatre together, but even those seem to have lost their appeal.
Another set of vanishing pleasures are people. There are a number of people who have given me a great deal of pleasure in knowing them and enjoying their company. Along the way we have lost touch for a variety of reasons and I hope that their lives have been as they would have wanted them. Friends can mean a lot in one’s life.
A bit of a miserable catalogue so far, but I still have the Hastings Hottie, my cats, books and music. I enjoy making noises on my collection of guitars and ukuleles, my gardening and am rediscovering model making. I may not always be happy, but I am content.
Vanishing pleasures are just a part of life and I have no regrets about losing them. They gave me experiences and memories and are part of who I am. I have moved one way and they have gone another. That’s life, and I have no regrets.
On grains of truth
Once upon a time I was stood in front of one of my teachers having explained myself for some indiscretion. Considering my defence for a moment she opined that there may have been a grain of truth in my excuses, but punished me anyway. Some years later as a suited and booted manager, far further up the ladder than perhaps my teacher had expected, that expression of a grain of truth came up twice in quick succession.
Both were in a marketing context, the first time when we were putting together some promotional material and all of our efforts had failed to impress the marketing director. We needed a hook he told us, something that those reading it could latch onto. It needs that grain of truth that the customer can identify with and see an answer to a problem that they need solving. We got there in the end; we must have because that brochure generated a decent return in new business.
The other time was when I was running a professional event and we had hired a comedian to do the after dinner slot. Chatting about what we did he asked questions to give him, as he put it, a few nuggets, grains of truth that the audience would instantly identify with. Things that he could weave stories around and get a laugh from. Irt was an intriguing insight into how a funny person plied their craft and, despite him having had no real knowledge of what we did before the event, he delivered a blistering 45 minutes that made him seem one of us. Those grains of truth brought it all into our perspective.
This all came back to me recently when I was video chatting with an American contact. In the course of discussing the current political situation there told me that he understands the conspiracy theorists even if he does not agree with them. There will be an event, a fact that cannot be denied, at the centre, but the how, why and aftermath are open to interpretation and speculation. With the echo chambers that exist on social media people who want to believe in a particular slant on that initial grain of truth will come to an unshakeable belief in that story.
There is a lot of fake news out there, even amongst the genuine media outlets where their bias, either political or to make a good story, rarely offers the full truth, but there is a grain of truth here and there just to hang the overall tale on. If only critical thinking was more prevalent it wouldn’t matter, but too many people take anything at face value, especially if it suits the echo chamber that they like to live in.
I mentioned jokes above and any good joke has that grain of truth, the element of reality that people can relate to at its heart. The same applies to a good cartoon. You have to be able to recognise the characters or the situation in order to see the funny side.
Over my years in a suit there were countless occasions when I presented a report, or proposal, that was slanted in the way that I, or my boss, wanted. There was always a backbone of truth even if we left out aspects that may have detracted from our aims. As I worked my way up the greasy pole of corporate management my own experiences of presenting these sort of things stood me in good stead when challenging those who were presenting to me.
Always be prepared to challenge what you are being told. Form your own opinions based, not on what you are told, but what you can find out, and never be afraid about changing your mind later if you find out something new that changes things. There is no shame in learning.
on social media
I have given up completely on Twitter. Nothing to do with the new owner, more because it seemed to have become a cesspit of abuse, and it was also getting flooded with things that it seemed to think that I would like. I must, at some point, remove the Twitter element on this page, but do not seem to be able to find time at present. Maybe it’s a job that I can fit in on holiday later in the year.
I do have a couple of Instagram accounts linked to aspects of my life, but don’t use either of them now and I really ought to get rid of both. TikTok I have n to tried and see no reason to bother with and whilst I still look in on LinkedIn and have been accepting requests to join my network, I don’t bother to look much at what is going on. I really only keep it so that I can nose around and see what people I know are up to.
Facebook, which at one time I derided, I do look in on daily, but I really ought to get rid of some of my Pages there as I just don’t use them that often. Once again, they were set up for use in a business sense, to establish a social media presence, but that need is now past. Just as I cleaned up other aspects of my web profile, there is more to do. One of the problems is that the platforms often make it hard to shut things down. I get to the stage where I can’t be bothered.
On Facebook there are a number of groups that I follow where things that interest me are shown, but even there there can be some nasty stuff published.there are times when I think that anti-social media is a better description. I don’t care if people abuse me on any of my posts. They are entitled to their opinions, and if they think that I am wrong they can say so. If they do so in an abusive manner then that is their problem and it shows them up for what they are. I am not shrinking violet and have been called all sorts of things to my face – I was a soccer referee at one time. But, on the whole, I prefer to keep such unpleasantry out of my life and so tend to leave groups where that sort of behaviour is unmoderated.
One of the other things that I do not like is the level of plagiarism. The same photo, often with the same text will get re-posted in other groups and, when challenged, will get the response “Well, I thought people here would like it”. Maybe, but it would have been nice to have asked first. There is also the promulgation of wrong information, not necessarily through malice, but ignorance.
Social media may be a benefit to some. It certainly is a profitable business, but it is something that I have moved away from and that is why you’ll find I am not out there as much as I once was.
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