The idea that our societies cannot afford to make available to all our young the very best of health-care, nourishment, educational opportunity and a job has always struck me as an absurd and indefensible proposition. To our shame, we have allowed many generations of our political leaders, as now, to act in denial of it. as if those years of personal growth were not the most precious asset we have, and promise of what is to come for all of us. It’s not enough simply to blame the idiot politicians – at the very least, anything less than we ourselves enjoyed should be our minimum moral demand for them ……
Continue reading Twenty-One Today »
These are not the happiest of times, even for those perennially cheerful hucksters, the Advertising Men. When one of their most highly visible leaders, Sir Martin Sorrell, is obliged to mount an advertising campaign about himself, merely to justify his £12.9m pittance of a salary to his own angry shareholders ( The Observer 10 June, 2012 ) you can be sure that not all is well in the World of Global Con.
Still, the heirs of Vance Packard’s ‘Hidden Persuaders’ will no doubt have plenty of new tricks up their well-taylored sleeves …
Continue reading The Advertising Agency »
It is a rash man who questions Shakespeare, but long observation of the business scene suggests the Bard maybe got his arithmetic wrong in ‘As You Like It ‘. He was certainly right that ” All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts …” Yes – but Will then claims …” His acts being Seven Ages “. I know productivity’s speeded up a bit since his day, but I can’t make the Ages of BusinessFolk more than Three …..
Continue reading The Ages of Man »
The allegation of ‘Voodoo Economics’, by one side or the other, is not uncommon in the hurley-burley of modern day politics, but is not usually taken in the literal sense. However, the strange phenomenon of the ‘Invisibles Committee’ in the City of London has remained shrouded in mystery, and there were some raised eye-brows when I defied convention, and drew attention to it.. However, its very tangible Chairman assured me that he and his colleagues were in good touch with their ectoplasms …..
Continue reading Invisible Earnings »
The weekly Inter-Departmental Meeting, behind the closed doors which exclude competitors and customers, is essentially a private affair, bringing together corporate, or institutional ‘families’ united in their common cause and joint, competitive, missions.
As with our more intimate ‘families’, however, it would be foolish to assume that all is always sweetness and light in their fraternal relations. Many a CEO has privately lamented to me the difficulty of focussing a bit more of his or her internal frictions on the supposed, external competition.
The problem swarms with Behavioural Scientists and other ‘experts’, but -as ever- more human chemistry and sagacity prevails ….
Continue reading Oh ! What A Lovely War ! »
The wisdom of the objective outsider can be of great value to the Corporate Board and the ever expanding hordes of Business Consultancies have rushed profitably to supply the need. And oddly, the Giving of Advice instead of the grimy business of Doing or Making has come to rank highly in the corporate pecking orders – especially for aspirants to the dizzy public heights of leadership of Confederations of Industry or Financial Services Authorities. Government itself is heavily addicted to the Consultant’s Report and a prime source of the profession’s escalating revenues. The often indifferent quality of a Consultant’s Report is secondary to the comfort value of having it on file when voters or shareholders demand the rolling of heads.
Continue reading The Business Consultant »
Back in the days of our Innocence when to question ‘the market’ as supreme arbiter of most that’s good was tantamount to treason, ‘Leadership’ was high – and very expensively – on every Business School and manager indoctrination agenda. The threat to old corporate elites from subversive pressures such as ideas of sexual equality, democratisation, worker-involvement in decision-making and so on, was vigorously resisted. And when it comes to questions, even by ‘sharehiolders’, about the divine origins of their bonuses, what would even current leadership elites think and say? Ask Sir Martin Sorrell , the illustrious Robert Diamond and many another devotee of the Cult … Plus ca change ? …
Continue reading The Cult of Leadership »
If Science stands on the shoulders of giants, it is more the case that Business, of the supercolossal, multinational kind, has tended to ride on the backs of the invisible pigmies, doing their best – at the base of the multi-hierarchical pyramids of power – to double-guess what the distant managerial gods on high are wanting them to do. Countless books and learned seminars on Communication have generally been of greater value to Business School cash flows than to the cause of
clarity for the workers, but thankfully the phlegmatic commonsense and experience of those below usually sees things through ….
Continue reading The Underside of Enterprise »
” Discontent over corporate salaries and bonuses has been growing for some time. Last week, at annual general meetings across the country, it escalated into a full-scale rebellion….” The Observer. 6 May 2012.
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‘ Thank you … for your extremely deft verses. I’m especially
interested in your refined descriptions of erosion of business
standards …’
Hugo Young (The Guardian) to Ralph Windle
Continue reading The Annual General Meeting »
What Some Economists Have Said …
‘Nothing else has pleased me more than your books. I keep them out in the living room and read some every night…‘
Professor J K Galbraith – Boston, USA
‘Bertie is an extraordinarily clever chap… and I’m a great believer In the power of wit!…
Robert Reich – Professor of Economics, Stanford, USA. Former US Secretary of State for Labor
‘…this humour, artistry and business sense, is a combination unequalled since Mark Spade.’
Sir Alec Cairncross, St Peter’s College, Oxford
Continue reading The Economists »