The confusion of living groups of human beings, creatively working together, with inert products up for a quick sale, was the fallacy which fuelled the 1980/90s ‘takeover’ epidemic. ‘Synergy’ became the semantic camouflage for many a Chairman’s sick delusions of grandeur…
As the arch-priests of the Business religion, Banks and Bankers were frequently featured in my FT and other verse commentaries. Indeed, several eminent chairmen of banks contributed, as poets, to my ‘Poetry of Business Life’ anthology (1994) without embarrassment. But I found plentiful signs in the 80s of the devastating 2007 implosion to come…
The Multinational Corporation ( 1982 )
Since its first appearance in the Financial Times 30 years ago, this piece has been frequently reproduced in newspapers and journals, and reached many a Business School reading list. Friends tell me that it requires little update beyond, perhaps, re-titling as ‘ The Global ‘ or ‘ Supra- National Corporation’; since latter-day James O’Rourkes have much more influential access to governments and politicians, and a more realistic hearing for their essential taxation, low cost labour and regulatory needs. Especially in the UK and USA….
“Bertie’s ‘Multinational Corporation’ is worth several books on the subject .. “
The Dean,
Susquehanna University Business School .
“Thank you so much for your excellent ballads. It quite takes me back! I once did one myself about conglomerates .. But yours are superb and too true”.
Sir Fred Catherwood,
Former Chairman, National Economic Development Office,
Member, European Parliament.
What becomes of Young Executives ? Where are the ‘Middle Aged’ or ‘Older’ Executives ? At what age do we escape from the ‘young’ qualification into the generic Executive state ? What, more precisely, do ‘executives’ actually do and – ultimate mystery – what constitutes being ‘ Non-Executive’, – a question many shareholders have had cause to ask ? ……
Luckily we are past the times when Executive Stress was the required badge of honour to avoid the suspicion that, without it, we were in some way deficient and not worrying enough. We also know that it is as much a function of personality as of the job itself. Still, as with many things in business, Executives have achieved the monopoly on the malaise – who ever heard of ‘ secretary ‘ or ‘ doorkeeper ‘ stress ?
Nothing is more stirring than the sound of lusty young voices raised in the Latin School Song. Only the Latin master has any idea of what the words mean, but the nostalgia persists through middle to old age, tugging not only the heart – but also the purse-strings to good effect. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Business Schools, in their incessant search for image and endowments, have embraced this unfailing formula. Memorandum est Scribendum (Take a Memo) is a moving example of this genre. Classical Scholars, like my friend Lorna Robinson or the Lord Mayor of London may need recourse to their Lewis and Shorts for some of the rarer usages. Vale.
In the absence of the material things – like a home, decent wage, job or status – which might help boost our feelings of happiness, there has always been something to be said for a more direct route to the emotional state without the irksome material provisions.
Hence the re-emergence, with strong Government approval, of the ” Let’s All Be Happy ” theme, marked by the recent ” Action For Happiness Day “. Our informal ‘Happiness Czar’, Professor Richard Layard, reminded us that we weren’t a really happy society, even when we were a lot richer, and thinks we should go straight for the Happiness regardless.
This positive view revives a long tradition, especially in the USA, starting after an earlier Great Depression in the Thirties with Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale and the cult of ‘ The Power of Positive Thinking ‘. Only recently a great disciple, Zig Ziglas, died aged 86. As the self-styled ‘Master of Motivation’ he gave us such classics as ” Staying Up, Up, Up in a Down, Down World “.
Where are they now … ?
Great business guru figures – Like Igor Ansoff, Peter Drucker, Michael Porter, and my good friend Charles Handy, have done their best to enlighten us on the impenetrable mysteries of Corporate Strategy, over many years. Sadly – beyond oiling the great Business School, Consultancy and Business Literature bonanzas – Boards of Directors have proved stubbornly resistant to the blandishments of the more analytical approach. Prayer seems often more congenial to the top-level business executive ………
‘The last time Bertie Ramsbottom appeared on ‘In Business’ we had quite a
response. So we thought we should bring him back again to comment on
the new technology. Here he is with ‘Chips with Everything’. ‘
Peter Hobday
‘In Business’ BBC Radio Four
‘ Please, where can I get a copy of ‘Chips With Everything’ read by Bertie
Ramsbottom on ‘In Business’? It was delicious!’
B N Gauntlett
‘Smaller Businessmen’ , of course, is one of those conventional generics which is assumed to include many women, too, and infuriates many by its failure to be explicit . Yet, at the smallest end of ‘small’ – as maybe in the ‘corner shop’ – the ‘one man and his wife’ duo may well be the norm. Be that as it may, ‘The Smaller Businessman’ ranks high in the politician’s vocabulary as the revered engine of growth in the market economy – an exalted position in society not always matched by the realities of being inconspicuous …….