Thomas the Tank Engine

Cicero’s comments over the past few weeks have led many of you to wonder and some of you to believe that Cicero is a big fan of the policies of the Two Caesars. A few have even made noises that Cicero might be a big fan of the Blue Caesar in particular.

Let the record be set straight.

Those of you with a classical training will be aware that Cicero is acutely suspicious of factionalism and the dangers inherent in supporting one faction over another. And so Cicero is strictly apolitical neither favouring nor condemning one faction over another.

Cicero does however have thoughts, views and opinions on a range of topics and issues and it is these that he is expressing through these words. Should these views coincide with the thoughts of the Blue or Yellow Caesar or even of the Last Lot, that is purely coincidental and is not meant to imply support for any of these factions.

It could well be of course that someone close to a current or past Caesar has read these words and saw they were good. Did you think of that?

Now last week Cicero spent some time in the company of a wise man and we talked choo choo trains and such was the import of our discussion that it seemed appropriate to share the conversation with you. Hopefully you will be inspired.

In any organisation think of the leader as the train driver up front setting the speed and the direction. And behind him (and not forgetting her) he is pulling three coaches, each one filled with members of the business or business unit.

The first coach is the modernisers coach filled with people who want the train to go faster, who are hungry for change and modernisation and don’t think it’s happening fast enough. This coach will usually contain about 20% of your people.

The next coach, which is crowded with about 70% of your people crammed into it, is filled with those who are happy with the status quo and the speed the business is currently going at. These are not reckless types and they can provide useful stability to those in the moderniser coach and while they will go along with train increasing speed a bit, if you go too fast they will start to feel sick and nauseous. And given they comprise the bulk of your people you can’t afford to have too many of them off sick or getting off at the first available opportunity.

The last coach and bringing up the rear is the remaining 10% of your team who not only want to apply brakes but also to engage reverse. Life was so much better 10 years ago for these people who constantly hark back to a golden age that in truth probably never existed. These must be exited or shaken about so much they fall into the second coach.

In which coach are you? In which coach are the members of your team? And at what speed do you drive the train?

Now while the modernisers want to drive the train at 100mph all the time this is way far too scary for those in the status quo coach who are happy with the business and the train being driven at 50mph. You can forget those in the braking coach for the purposes of this discussion. You need your modernisers for no business should stand still but you also need the status quo brigade.

And so your job when driving the train is to go so fast that you shake off those constantly seeking to apply reverse but neither too fast that you lose those in the second coach or too slow that you lose the modernisers. A neat trick to pull off but can we do it, of course we can.

Speeding up to round about 70mph and slowing down when you come to the bends will give those wanting a gentler pace of life to catch up and stay on board.

It used to be every boy’s dream to be a choo choo train driver. Now it is to appear on ‘X Factor’. But if you are a leader of a team or business, you are now driving the train. Dream fulfilled.

Is it only me......but it’s time for a lot of people to wake up and smell the coffee.
I am fed up and I am going to grumble. I know, I know, it’s so unlike me.

Every morning I wake up to a shrill of moans and groans from lobbyists and single issue whiners and moaners, annoyed about what the government of the day is doing or not doing for their cause and what it should be doing. A good early morning game to play is to count in any given time period how many spending commitments someone wants the government to make. Clearly this whining and moaning and raging has reached a crescendo in recent days and weeks as the Two Caesars and their cohorts decide how to re-prioritise the amount of our money the government spends on us and on our behalf.

And in the event that someone out there thinks of me as an apologist for the Two Caesars, I should point out that the single issue whiners and moaners were whining and moaning about the absence of government action, which is code for not spending enough, when the Last Lot were deciding how to spend our money.

Now I think it’s important that we all realise something and it falls upon yours truly to point this out to said whiners and moaners who need, especially in these straightened times, to wake up and smell the coffee.....we are broke. We are heading fast down Queer St. And we don’t even have a pot in which to pass bodily fluids.

Get it.

And let me point out one more thing, even though I know I am preaching to the converted on this, but everything we do as a country, everything the Two Caesars spends on us and all those services run by the Apparatchiks, comes from the money earned by the businesses in this country.

When a business makes a profit, it pays taxes. A profitable business will pay money away in dividends to its shareholders. And these shareholders will pay tax. A business that is successful will employ staff and take on more staff and their wages and salaries are taxed. And so on and so on.

Now do you get it? If we don’t have successful and profitable businesses in this country we will not have the spondooliks or sesterces to allow us to have the services and benefits provided by the Apparatchiks nor the standard of living we all want nor will we ever have the remotest chance of stop the early morning whining and moaning. It really is that simple.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.