An administrative oversight

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.

On one occasion I was in a production control office talking to the admin guy who printed and distributed the works order sets (everything was on paper). Each set consisted of half a dozen or so different coloured foolscap pages: white, yellow, green, blue - each colour went to a different function - and two pink copies. "Why two pink?" I asked. "One is for stock control and I keep one for audit" came the reply, and was shown a cupboard the size of a large wardrobe full of pink sheets. "What happens to them?", I asked. Answer came there none.

I smelled a rat and began to ask around. It emerged that, 15 years before, the company had carried out a contract for, let us say, the New Zealand navy, who had picked up the sheets every few weeks. The contract had finished after a few months but nobody bothered to tell the admin guy, so he'd carried on printing them.

At the time, too many computer systems unquestioningly automated the existing manual systems enabling people, as it was said, "... to make the same mistakes but much more efficiently."

A trip to Milan: part 2

Some years ago I was working on an assignment where I had meetings with the European country CEOs of an American multi-national. On this occasion I was meeting the CEO of the Italian operating company. I arrived in Milan and got to the office a few hundred metres from the cathedral. I was confronted by a huge wooden door which opened as soon as I rang the bell. I entered a balconied courtyard with fountains and flowers - just stunning. I presented myself at reception. "Oh, the chairman is out today so we've put you in his office".

I was ushered into a large room full of antique furniture, at the far end of which was an ornate desk the size of a table tennis table. Happily there was a L-shaped arrangement of modern leather seating in the far corner so I seated myself there. No sooner had I done so than the coffee arrived and the PA told me that the CEO would be with me shortly.

He entered the room and walked towards the desk, realised I wasn't there, and turned to see me. He took me by the elbow, led me to the desk and seated me behind it. "Your place is here", he said, "we have to observe the formalities".

This was not a corporate viewpoint, so I can only imagine it was something to do with Italian culture. I don't have enough experience to know but it was an interesting episode.

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.

After what seemed like an age the plane levelled out and the captain came over the intercom, cool as a cucumber. "As you will have gathered, we had a cabin depressurisation. We are now flying safely at 10,000 feet and everything is under control. However, the Alps where we need to cross them are 13,000 feet high and this aircraft isn't going any higher than 10,000 feet, so we shall be landing at Geneva. The cabin staff will discuss with you your options for onward travel." There were two options: catch the train from Geneva to Milan which would arrive at 4pm or wait for the next flight from Geneva to Milan which would also arrive at 4pm. Since my meeting was scheduled for 2pm I decided to cut my losses and return to London.

When we landed in Geneva, I went to the transfer desk and explained my predicament. "There's a seat on a Swissair flight leaving shortly; if you run you'll be able to get on it. I'll get them to hold until you arrive." I trotted through the airport and was ushered onto the plane. The door closed behind me. "We've had to put you in first class; I hope that's OK", said the stewardess.

I turned left towards my seat; it was at the front on the right hand side of the gangway, facing the bulkhead. On the left hand side I saw the instantly recognisable head of a TV actress who, at the time, was an object of desire for many British heterosexual males. I sat across the gangway from her but was unable to muster the courage to speak. Duh!

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.

The process of setting and reviewing objectives took place during an annual objective setting round with quarterly reviews. At the time it was a common theme that I was seen as being not particularly creative. My boss asked me to look for an appropriate course and make a proposal for funding; I was aware of Edward de Bono's Lateral Thinking ideas, so I found a course he was running in London, made the necessary funding application and, to my surprise, it was agreed.

I turned up at the venue to discover there were about 24 of us attending a three-day (I think) event. It's a long time ago and I don't remember much of the detail except for the concept of "random juxtaposition"; if you were stuck with a problem you closed your eyes, opened a dictionary randomly, pointed a pencil onto the page and were then honour bound to make a connection between the problem and the word you'd selected. I don't remember the problem I'd been given to solve but I'll never forget the word; it was "custard". There were some other methods too but I don't remember them.

At lunchtimes; we sat on tables of 8, I think, and Edward sat on a different table on each day. The man was an ideas freak - everything that anyone said stimulated an idea and a forty-minute conversation generated a bewildering number of ideas.

I carried on using the random juxtaposition technique for a while, and then it stopped being necessary. After a while it was my creativity, not the lack of it, that was the problem, and it still is. Keeping focus on what I'm doing is a constant challenge but I have a much more interesting life than I would have otherwise.

I owe Edward de Bono a lot, and it was a real privilege to have had the opportunity of spending time with him.

https://www.debono.com/

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.

The practice was to meet in a different country every year and the first meeting I attended was in south west Sweden not far from Gothenburg. The hotel was on the coast near Fiskebäckskil and had its own moorings with a short landing stage projecting around 20 yards into the sea.

We talked business during the day and then, in early evening, we would socialise. On our final evening we were having pre-prandial drinks on the quay when a small boat pulled into view. As it got closer we realised that, standing on the deck, were a bride and groom, clearly on their way to the hotel for their reception.

We joined their guests in congratulating them and then went into the restaurant for our conference dinner; at more or less the same time the wedding party went into the adjoining room, separated from us by a white painted timber and glass partition. After a little while, they began to make speeches. There had already been several so we enquired of our Swedish colleagues what was going on. They explained that, at a Swedish wedding, all the male guests had the right to make a speech, and most of them exercised that right. They were evidently consuming a lot of alcohol, too, because proceedings were increasingly uproarious.

They were still at it when we went to bed at 11:30