The man on the Clapham omnibus

Welcome back.

Cicero must be doing something right for you that each week you give me a few more minutes of your time.

For past few weeks something has been missing from these words. Have you noticed? Yes you got it-we have had no more conversations about lifts and as a consequence you will have read more uplifting words, more elevated thoughts, more ascending wisdom. No longer have we plumbed the depths or descended to cheap shots or gone down to the basement to ponder.

You will be glad that we have moved on and that no longer must we spend time being updated on the crumbling infrastructure of a decaying TSSB. VTSSBs are far more enjoyable places from which to strive and toil to ensure your safety and security.

A few weeks back Cicero was asked by a Marketing Petit Fromage aspiring to be a Marketing Grand Fromage how he planned his career to reach the exalted status of a Marketing Grand Fromage working in a VTSSB. Flattered that his career was of such interest to these young whipper snappers, Cicero told the tale of the man on the Clapham omnibus.

Once upon a time there was a young blade who arrived in Londinium from the Northern provinces seeking to find his fame and fortune but on discovering that the pavements of Londinium were not paved with gold, decided to make his name by joining the ranks of the salatariat.

Londinium was a mystery to the young man. It was big and it was busy and getting around it looked confusing and difficult. But our young man about town was determined to master the intricacies of the transport system and get to know the routes around and across the capital. And so he quite literally became the man on the Clapham omnibus and the Camden omnibus and those going to West Ham, Kensington, Tulse Hill and all points north, south, east and west.

Weekend after weekend our hero of this tale would go everywhere by omnibus and as he determined whether or not the omnibus would take him forwards to his destination or sideways or even away from his destination, he would jump on and off the omnibus at will, this of course was the time when it was possible to do this before the buses decided that they needed to accommodate prams as big as boats so the morning child abusers could get their kids to kiddie farms before they start work. And all the time this Bright Young Thing was observing and taking note of how the road and street system joined up and how to get from A to B and C to D and even S to K.

Now it would have been possible for this Man of the People to traverse the city by underground train but much knowledge would have been lost if he had chosen this mode of transport.

In any event as a consequence of omnibus hopping our Poster Boy now has a knowledge of the street grid of Londinium to rival that of the A to Z. Yes, it is that good.

Now you might be asking why that is relevant to answering the question posed by the Marketing Petit Fromage which hopefully you can still recall.

Cicero did not reach the giddy heights of a Marketing Grand Fromage working in a VTSSB through planning his career to get there. He got there by seizing the opportunities as they come along and when he had worked out whether this was taking him forwards, sideways or backwards like being on an omnibus, he would either stay for the ride or look for new opportunities that would stretch, challenge and develop; that would provide new experiences; that would provide and test new capabilities and competencies.

And so should you be a keen, thrusting and ambitious Petit Fromage with dreams of becoming a Grand Fromage or even a Head Honcho, it is not about planning your career down to the last detail. This will only lead to disappointment. Instead have a rough destination in mind and seize whatever opportunities come along and determine how far these are going to take you towards to your destination before you need to jump off and find another opportunity that will grow, stretch and develop your talents.

In other words join the man (and woman, of course) on the Clapham omnibus. It worked for Cicero. He was, as you will have guessed, that Man on the Clapham omnibus.

Is it just me…………………..but since when has M&S gone eco-mentalist?

It has been a while since we berated the enviro- and eco-mentalists for their false assertions, aka lies, and ludicrous theories. If you are one of these, which is very doubtful, you might want to skip the next bit. Yes, we are about to have words again.

In this instance though the target for Cicero’s ire is Marks and Spencer who seems to have been seduced by the false blandishments of the eco-mentalists and has decided to foist the views of these peddlers of half truths and wacko scientific theories onto us. As usual, we the people, have no say in the matter.

For it transpires that M&S will no longer provide you with a free carrier bag to transport home not just any food but M&S food. It might only be a token amount but as always it’s the principle.

And it’s a ludicrous policy. It is possible to get a free carrier bag if you buy a pair of socks. And in an effort to single-handedly defeat this policy Cicero’s sock drawer is now bulging.

It is also possible to get as many of their wee carrier pokes as you like. But heaven forbid that you should be given a free decent sized carrier bag for your M&S food shopping. This is premium priced enough so why should we pay more just so we can get this home and closer to the Aga. And all on the spurious basis that using an M&S bag to get M&S food back home will stop wonky weather from ever happening again.

Is it just me who thinks that M&S, or any other shopping emporium, should stick to what it does best and stay well away from eco-mentalism and not try to foist such cultist philosophies on its customers?

If M&S really wanted to make a difference it could stop selling beef as it is the gas emitted when cows fart that is the biggest polluter of our atmosphere. Did you know that?

Alternatively if it really wants to cut costs by limiting the number of carrier bags it dishes out, follow Tesco’s lead and reward us for not taking a bag. Don’t penalise us for exercising our right to choose a carrier bag.

Hopefully St Michael is listening.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.

Nellie the elephant

Greetings.

As spring time fast approaches, Cicero would like to give you all fair warning, especially those of you who live and work in Londinium.

It is now only going to be a matter of days before Cicero will be travelling back and forth to his VTSSB with legs bare and on display looking as always like two sticks of celery poking through a paper bag. For as the crocuses start to appear so do my legs. You can decide which is the prettier sight.

Now do you work in BA? Hopefully not. Or in an organisation which is dealing with change? Of course you do. Are you required to help the business lead its people through the change curve? Of course you are. Do you need some thinking to help? Of course you will.

Well help is at hand but only if we can learn to think a wee bit differently.

As people we think about things both rationally and emotionally. Cicero knows that he should stop eating chocolate to stay slim but there’s an emotional side of the brain, and even Cicero has an emotional side to his brain, that says he just loves chocolate and must have some to gobble.

Now imagine a rider sitting atop an elephant who, for the purposes of this story, we shall call Nellie. The elephant rider represents our rational, analytical side. The rider will determine the direction he wants to go and will set off in that direction. But it’s Nellie, the emotional side, that will provide the power and in any battle of wills it is Nellie who will win. And this is why Cicero loves to eat chocolate. And why BA is in such a mess.

If we take this analogy to its natural conclusion and if we want to achieve change in either our personal or our corporate lives we need to align both sides of the brain-we must point out the direction for the rider and the path to follow but we also motivate Nellie to undertake the journey. It is not enough for our people to understand intellectually that our business must start to move in a different strategic direction. People need to be motivated to move in that direction.

Consider BA at the moment. Their people will understand rationally that their business needs to change if it’s to survive but they are not being motivated or engaged emotionally to support their Head Honchos. At BA Nellie is well in truly in charge. Of course this is very apt for a business whose business is jumbos!

It is now time to stop rolling out change initiatives via 100 slide PowerPoint deck analyzing reasons for change. It is time to help our people believe that they are the kind of people who can successfully make that change. This is what can help encourage Nellie to change direction.

So where should we look to help Nellie find the encouragement and inspiration she needs?

The usual approach, and this is approach favoured by BA, is to try to change by telling our people we should be like someone else and adopt their practices. We tell our people we should be more like Tesco or Apple or Nike. This is garbage. Cicero never liked it when his sainted mother told him to be more like his brother. So why should this approach work for our people? Why will this work for Nellie?

Instead we should be looking for bright spots within our own business. We shouldn’t be trying to encourage our people to be more like anyone else. This does not work. Instead we should try to be more like ourselves at our best. We should be focussing Nellie’s attentions not on anyone else but about what she has done in the past or doing great now that has worked tremendously well and use this to give Nellie the power we need to go in the direction we want her to go.

Maybe BA should be reading this to help get their Nellie going in right direction. And everyone else get away for Easter.

In any business the only constant is change. Any good leader requires the ability to handle and deliver change. To do this successfully we must pay attention to creating the emotional and rational case for change. We need to scale up bright spot successes. And we must use our power as a top leader to smooth the path to change and help our people step up to the plate. It is up to us to learn how to drive Nellie the elephant in the direction we want to go. Over to you.

Is it only me……but surely there are more important things going on in the world?

These are tough and challenging times both domestically and abroad.

At home we are in the grip of a pre-election febrility. As a nation we are living well beyond our means which means our economy is a mess. People continue to lose their jobs even though we are being assured that green shoots are appearing. And Cheryl and Ashley’s marriage is in trouble.

Abroad we are nowhere nearer getting Afghanistan and Iraq sorted and our brave fighting boys (and no this is not state sponsored violence!) continue to lose their lives and body parts to help build Mr Blair’s political legacy. Peoples' lives in Haiti and Chile remain as shattered as their country. And poverty remains rampant in Africa and the Indian sub-continent.

These are indeed difficult and dangerous times.

And yet what was the lead news item on our State broadcasting organisation earlier in the week…….wait for it……..are you ready for this?............the news that a certain Mr David Beckham,32, had ruptured his Achilles tendon. Come on, is this really the most important thing going on in the world? Why does this warrant leading the news? Cicero bruised his arm upper arm last week, why was this not covered?

Now it might only be me but does anyone really care? Clearly the rupture of an Achilles tendon is going to be painful for said Mr Beckham and his inability to drive the kids to school or to pop out to the local Aldi with Mrs Beckham for the weekly shop might cause some disruption to the smooth running of the Beckham household, but does it matter to anyone else?

So why did the BBC make this the lead news item across all its news channels with lots and lots of talking heads of doctors telling us all about the Achilles tendon. No doubt it is something to do with the cult of celebrity and the relentless dumping down of our state media.

The Reithian role of the BBC was to educate and inform. Please get back to it. Unless of course this is being used as an excuse to provide the masses with an anatomy lesson. Maybe that’s it. This time we know all the Achilles. The last two World Cups taught us that the Metarsals were not Greek islands. Maybe it is Cicero who is being thick here. Doubt it. But what do you think?

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.

TomTom Syndrome

Amici, we have had a complaint.

It seems that you think that these thoughts might be losing their bite. It is no longer rant and rage but sweetness and light. Hopefully you will be pleased with the thoughts below but if not you will no doubt make your feelings known.

In the Cicero’s defence, this is not meant to be a refuge for grumpy old men (and women) to share thoughts and experiences. Instead we will explore together our response to the absurdities and quirky paradoxes of life as well as imparting wisdom and insight. As you can tell this is no easy task but we are on a journey of exploration together and ranting and raging will apply when it is deserved. Hope this satisfies.

And in response to the question following last week’s thoughts if Cicero had ever served in the Armed Forces. The answer is a firm no.

Now this is not a ‘no’ due to medical reasons or philosophical objections. Cicero is in awe of those who sign up to stand guard on hostile frontiers for us. It is a ‘no’ because can you imagine any branch of our Armed Forces, indeed any Armed Forces, accommodating a free thinking-libertarian-forever challenging-restlessly curious-constantly interrogating-repeatedly asking why-never accepting no for an answer-intellectual bully-logically eloquent-verbose-anti authoritarian-unreasonably maverick-lateral thinking character such as moi. It is said by those who know Cicero best that he has a problem with authority. They may be right.

Instead the insight into Armed Forces life comes from impeccable sources which is why they seem so authentic. And should anyone know of any Army, Navy, Air Force or Special Forces which might be suitable for this free thinking maverick, please do share.

And so to this week’s maverick thoughts…..

Have you ever been in a car with a man? More especially have you ever been in a car with a man who is lost?

It must be in the DNA but when a man gets lost he will not ever ask for directions. He will instead put faith in a map or his devoted TomTom and blame any woman sharing the car with him. Pathetic.

This condition is known as TomTom Syndrome. And TomTom Syndrome is an affliction which is prevalent in your office and in your business. But you can get help for it. Read on.

We all get stuck from time to time. We all need our thoughts stimulated, our creativity inspired and our problem solving skills challenged. And if we look hard enough we can find inspiration in the most unlikely places as a Heart Surgeon, an Operations Director and a Marketing Grand Fromage working in a VTSSB have discovered for themselves in past few weeks.

Let’s start with the heart surgeon who was wrestling with the problem that heart patients were at most vulnerable when being transferred from operating theatre to ICU as the patient had to be transferred to a new team and all the plugs and monitoring equipment had to be quickly re-connected. Watching the Grand Prix one weekend and the Ferrari pit stop a light bulb went on his head. What could he learn from a Formula 1 team? A few calls later the Ferrari pit team agreed to share with said doctor their secrets for a quick and efficient pit stop. The learning was invaluable and now heart patients are re-fuelled and re-tyred within seconds of leaving the operating theatre.

Similarly an Operations Director enjoying a Big Mac one day was trying to understand how he could develop a thoroughly comprehensive set of commercial agreements for a series of distribution partnerships he had to set up to ensure his business was properly protected and able to service its customers in a new and different way, at lower cost and improved quality. He had never done this before and did not know where to start. The answer was before his eyes and in his mouth and down his tie-ask McDonalds. They have been doing this for years with their franchisees with agreements covering everything from how much they pay for their burgers to how often the toilets should be cleaned. And so before you could say ‘Chicken McNugget Happy Meal with large fries’ our Operations Director had a set of commercial agreements drafted pdq inspired by McDonalds.

And what of the Marketing Grand Fromage in his VTSSB? Recently his excellent marketing was threatening to overwhelm the business’s ability to cope. They did not have the people in the front line to cope with demand. The answer was borrowed or stolen from Tesco’s and other customer-centric businesses-get those working well away from the front line in the marketing, finance and HR teams trained and transferred to the front line pronto to help out to ensure customer service did not suffer nor business opportunity lost.

Imagine what would have happened if any of these three had suffered from TomTom Syndrome. Heart patients would have died. Another major business might have gone to the wall. Our Marketing Grand Fromage would not be hailed as a genius.

And so innoculate yourself today from the ravaging effects of TomTom Syndrome. Your business depends on it. Never be afraid to ask for or look for help, sometimes in the most unlikely of places. The answer is out there. And remember-innovation is merely undiscovered plagiarism.

Is it only me……but is this not a total cop out?

Did you see that the Met Office, having failed spectacularly to predict a wet summer and freezing cold winter, no doubt too busy doctoring climate change records for their eco-mentalist pals, have decided that it is all too difficult to forecast the seasons so have decided not to. What a cop out?

Imagine if Robert Bruce had adopted this approach and had given up after losing a few battles and had not seen his spider persevere. The Celtic clans would to this day be subjugated and ruled by a foreign power instead of the other way round.

Imagine what might have happened if Abe Lincoln had not persevered in his attempts to get elected for something, anything, after numerous rejections. There would still be slavery in America.

And what would have happened if Edison had not persevered in trying to invent the light bulb after suffering umpteen failures, each time resolving that he had just found another way not to invent a light bulb. If he had adopted the Met Office approach we would be still be living in darkness.

Given this is it just me who thinks that the Met Office response to failure is totally pathetic. No doubt it is in keeping with the spirit of the age but it is not the kind of attitude that brought us an Empire, that allows us to have the lifestyle we lead today, that gave Cicero guru-like status.

Still not making up wrong forecast will give them more time to synthesise, aka make up, more implausible data to convince us that we are getting warmer. Keep at it lads, you will be right some day soon. Each failure takes you one step closer to success.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.

Please be patient

If you have logged in to read eagerly Cicero's latest thoughts, Cicero apologises for letting you down. For reasons beyond Cicero's control this week's words of wit and wisdom will not be available until Monday.

Please check back in on Monday for enlightenment.

Cicero

Britannia rules the waves

Are you still there? Have you gone to sleep? Are you getting bored? Just wondering given paucity of comment and feedback last week.

In case you have been wondering, and no doubt you have, the move to the VTSSB went very well. And the lifts work. No doubt with all the interferences caused by the malfunctioning lifts now removed the performance of the state apparatchiks charged with guarding and preserving our security will be immediately and instantly enhanced.

This is a different world from the TSSB. There are eateries to spare. A gym to optimise and refresh our jaded bodies. There is even a beauty salon for those who need their mascara, lip gloss and Botox topped up during the course of the working day. But be assured none of this is in any way subsidised by your hard earned taxes. We pay our way.

And boy does this country need us to pay our way if reports coming from a well placed source in our Armed Forces is to be believed.

Now this might come up as a great surprise to you. But did you know that this proud island race now has more admirals in its navy than it has ships. It now appears we do not have enough bawbees to pay to give each admiral his own ship.

Amazing. Please don’t tell anyone though. Careless talks costs lives. And be like dad and keep mum. Now there’s a sexist remark if ever there’s a sexist remark. Should we tell Harriet Harperson?

And while we are on a naval theme………

Once upon a time four very young but very ambitious naval recruits as part of their training were learning how to make an amphibious landing. Never having done of these but having watched ‘Saving Private Ryan’ quite a few times, these are no easy things to do especially when under heavy fire.

One of the group was useless. We shall call him A to preserve his anonymity and to save him further embarrassment and ridicule. For the duration of the training and the exercise the other three teased and mocked his pathetic and puny efforts, leaving him to cope on his own which he singularly failed to do. His so called mates and team were more focused on impressing their tutors with their own great ability and on showing off. A duly floundered. And got into a right mess.

The last exercise A and the team had to do was to train to get off a nice sandy beach in a quiet secluded cove while all sorts of obstacles and challenges were fired at them, quite literally. All they had to was pretend to be Tom Hanks get off a boat, go for a wee paddle, hit the beach, storm through Normandy and win the war. Easy peasy.

A and his team failed and in the bar afterwards the recriminations began and A and his lack of ability were duly blamed.

End of story?

No, not by a long way.

The official report into the massacre on the beach of the four young naval recruits was scathing and is seared to this day into the marrow of these recruits. For it was made clear to the three supposed high fliers that they too had failed the exercise and that their culpability was greater than A’s.

Their ability and brilliance was known and recognised. Their tutors knew they were bright, were well qualified and would go far. But, and this is a great big but, it is a Methuselah of a but it is that big, their tutors wanted to know how good they were at bringing out the best in others who aren’t as good, who don’t feel they can win, who need to be inspired to get up and off the beach. And because this was not done the team had failed the objective. They had let A down as a member of the team.

There is a moral here for anyone charged with leading a team whether or not we are in the navy. For leaders are judged not just on their own ability but on how they get the best out of others. It is our job, and we are paid for this, to help those around us get off the beach. We are all leaders in some aspect of what we do. Now is the time to show it. Now is the time to stand up. To be counted.

If Tom Hanks can do it and get off his beach, so can we.

Is it only me………but we might be making progress?

Last weekend Cicero had the great fortune to spend some time with the clans folk across the wall which the Angles outsourced to Italian sub-contractors supervised by Hadrian. And it is reported from there that your Celtic cousins to the north are getting themselves fully prepared for the forthcoming football World Cup, even though, before you rush to point out, that this fine footballing nation will not be present in South Africa. One enterprising Celtic (hard C not soft C) entrepreneur has produced a supply of tops with the slogan ‘Anyone but England’.

Now it is not for Cicero to join in, condone or stoop to such pettiness. Heaven forbid. But as a Marketing Grand Fromage you have to admire the insight on which such entrepreneurialism is based and the market opportunity spotted and seized. Wouldn’t it be so ironic if the tops had been made in England?

But there is a wider point here which should give the few of us endowed with common sense, and that must include you or you would not be here week after week, some hope that world is coming our way.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission, Harriet Harperson’s government sponsored mullahs, were asked to opine on this. They duly did and produced a fatwa on the matter which decreed that this was not evidence of incitement to racial hatred but merely football banter. And more. The mullahs even decreed that they did not want to be seen as ‘po faced’. As if.

Stick together, lads and lassies, we are on our way. Common sense just a got a wee bit more common.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.