After I'd been in the computer industry a few years I was charged with the task of finding out what my customers needed to support their production processes so I began to ask them.
Noel Austin coat of arms
Saturday, October 31, 2020
An administrative oversight
A trip to Milan: part 2
A trip to Milan: part 1
I caught my flight as planned and we took off on time. Some way into the flight, the plane began to lose height rapidly, the oxygen masks dropped from the overhead lockers and we were clearly undergoing some kind of emergency. A bunch of American women behind me began praying aloud and a lot of people were evidently frightened. The cabin staff kept an impressive cool.
My influences: Edward de Bono
It must have been around 1970 that Management by Objectives (MbO) became a fashionable management strategy. The idea was that the manager of a team would be set objectives for his team and then he would agree with his staff individual objectives which, if achieved, would lead to the team over-performing. The clever bit was that, in agreeing objectives with an individual the manager would ensure that the staff member's ambitions were reflected as much as those of the business. My employer took it seriously and it worked well.
Swedish wedding reception
Soon after I became a self-employed management consultant I purchased the UK licence to a consulting methodology developed in Sweden, and it provided the dominant source of my income for 23 years until I stopped in 2015. There were licensees in 8 European countries, the USA and Australia – about 20 consultants in total – and for several years we got together every year to share experiences and discuss new developments and applications.
Thursday, September 10, 2020
My Influences: Dr Douglas Gawn
I'm not sure whether I was a sickly child but I used to suffer from frequent bouts of bronchitis. In retrospect, this wasn't surprising; I grew up in Knowle Park, in Bristol, and we were only a couple of miles from the engine sheds at St Philip's Marsh. One of my early recollections is walking to school in the fog, which smelt acrid and often had a pronounced yellow tinge.
Our GP was Dr Douglas Gawn; his white hair and lined face led me to believe that he was old but my mother later told me he was only in his 30s. He had spent time in Japanese prisoner of war camps so perhaps this was the reason.On one occasion, when I was suffering from a particularly severe bout of bronchitis and was feeling pretty miserable, I remember Dr Gawn standing at the foot of my bed and saying, "Young man - if you smoke, it will kill you."
One can argue about the timing but the message was received and understood. I've never smoked, ever. Not even once. I owe you, Dr Gawn.