Taking a long term view

I was at two very different talks last week. The first, Priorities for medical research in the United Kingdom, given at the University of Exeter by Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, the last in their Shaping the Future series. Much of it well over my head, but a fascinating hour and 20 minutes looking at key issues in medical research, now and in the future. One interesting point: Borysiewicz stressed the need for researchers and research institutes to build their relationships with the wealth creation sector.

I came away feeling that this was an area which had been well and truly gripped- and that in the long term, which is what medical research is inevitably about, we are going to be well served.

The second had a rather more immediate subject. This was a valedictory presentation by Peter Gripiaos to the Devon & Cornwall Business Council on The South West - The credit crunch and the real economy. It was a sobering 20 minutes: not very much good news, for any part of the Region, and an interesting counterpoint to the South West  RDA’s What Now, its updated plans for 2009 – 2011.

Gripiaos asked ‘So are we out of the woods?’. His view is no (”the signs of recovery are conflicting”) and his answer to ‘So what can be done?’ is just as stark:

• We are in the realm of psychology now and the recession needs to run its course.
• SWERDA and local authorities have little money and not much leverage.
• Many businesses need to fail.
• Businesses and consumers need to learn a harsh lesson.
• So do politicians.
• We should focus on long term strategic interventions rather than short term fire-fighting.

As for the last of those bullet points, that too was the thrust of Borysiewicz’s talk.

It makes for interesting scenario planning.

Are you fed up with the S word?

In the introduction to my last post I touched on the orgy of apology that we have had to endure from MPs, the Speaker, the leaders of the main political parties etc. etc. Yet whether the apology is profound or passing, the overwhelming response of the man and woman in the street (or Harriet Harman’s “court of public opinion”) seems to be anger and resignation. “Sorry” (however expressed) just doesn’t seem to work any more – and the endless repetition has devalued the word to such an extent that before using it in an email to a client this morning (Shock horror! Lawyer says sorry) I wondered if he thought I would be taking the piss.

I went back to a couple of posts by Matthew Taylor in February, where he anatomised apologies: Sorry bankers – a scorecard and Bankers apology – the verdict. Taylor was writing after the appearance of Sir Fred Goodwin and others before the Treasury Select Committee. Read the posts in full: they apply as much to the expenses fiasco as to the contrite (?) bankers. 

Perhaps it’s time to take a more systematic approach to apologies. After all, not all ‘sorries’ are worth much. When I worked in Number Ten, Tony Blair used occasionally to admit he’d made a mistake but only when he wished he had listened to himself earlier!

A distinction to start with when grading apologies is between apologising for the act and apologising for the consequences. Insincere apologies will tend to be weak on one or other side; either ‘I’m sorry for what happened but there was nothing I could have done about it’, or ‘I made a mistake but I’m not responsible for what happened as a result’.

I haven’t yet scored the recent apologies (and no doubt someone else will) but the visual representation of the apologies scorecard which Matt Cain produced for Matthew Taylor is very good.

Leadership is all

In a week when everything is overshadowed by the fate of Speaker Martin (at the time of posting we are still waiting to hear when it is he intends to go) and after what seems an eternity of disclosures about MPs’ expenses (accompanied by an orgy of hand-wringing insincerity), yet another excellent article by Stefan Stern in today’s FT – and for leaders in law firms another pointer,

Does “real leadership” simply mean telling people what to do? Or does leadership mean building consensus, so that when you attempt to make changes your organisation advances more or less as one.

Leadership is situational. In other words, context is everything. Few business leaders find themselves facing a weekly inquisition like PMQs. But in a time of economic difficulty, businesses and organisations do look to their leaders for clarity of thought and decisive action. So which organisations will come through this period in better shape: those where there is less talk and more action, or those where agreement is sought before action is taken?

Stern writes about the recent launch of the Centre for Professional Service Firms at the Cass Business School in London, and reports the comments of Laura Empson, director of the centre : “Professionals, by and large, do not want to be led, and professionals, by and large, do not want to be leaders.”

And this is the real problem.

A true thug

A very timely column by Stefan Stern in yesterday’s FT on the Bully-boy school of management. I am sure that he didn’t have Gordon Brown in mind when he wrote it (or did he?).

Organisations are made up mainly of ordinary people and most will contain their share of racists, sociopaths and bullies. That’s life. There may not be much we can do about that. But, if the CEO’s corner office is inhabited by a bully who cannot or will not be faced down, that business has a serious problem, culturally and operationally. And when it all ends in tears, it won’t just be those being shed by the bullied victims.

What is true of business is equally true of politics. And if Nick Clegg’s attack on Brown at PMQs today wasn’t bad enough, then how about Stephen Crabb’s. Lloyd Evans, posting in The Spectator’s Coffee House blog says it all (last sentence)

Only one MP, Stephen Crabb, prodded the PM out of his statesmanlike comfort-zone. Crabb had a carefully worded question about reports of ‘bullying in the senior ranks at Whitehall’, a witty reference to press gossip that the Brown volcano has blown its top several times lately and rained brimstone on junior functionaries. Brown was taken by surprise and pulled a strangely eloquent face – flushed, angry, embarrassed, cornered and cruel all at once. ‘Any complaints are dealt with in the usual manner,’ he said coldly, and thus convicted himself in the minds of the public. Only a true thug would pull such a twisted and heartless expression.

The problem is that Labour tribalism is stopping them facing him down. See Nick Cohen’s piece in this month’s Standpoint, Fear and Filth at Brown’s Number 10.

“My ambition is to remain his loyal and supportive deputy.”

Reflecting on Harriet Harman’s protestations yesterday that she wasn’t about to challenge Gordon Brown, and was certain that he was the right man to lead the Labour Party and the country (I have paraphrased what she said, but the gist is there: see the BBC’s video clip) two thoughts came to mind,

the first is that if she really thinks that, she has anyway ruled herself out of contention, were he to go, on the basis of poor judgement; and

the second is that the information that the Daily Telegraph received (and that allowed it to splash the story on its front page) could only have come from the ‘She must be stopped at all costs’ faction withing the PLP, knowing that the revelation would force her to declare her undying loyalty to Brown.