This time, we really are all in it together

I started a blog post a few weeks ago - the weekend that Amy Winehouse died and the tragic events in Norway unfolded. What had struck me was the polarisation of opinion - the comments that Amy's death was self inflicted, the utter lack of sympathy or understanding for those who suffer from the disease of addiction, the accusations that those who expressed sadness at it were somehow belittling the events in Utoya. As if we had limited supplies of empathy and had to carefully choose where we would dispense it.


I feel the same bewilderment today - four days after the Tottenham protests sparked riots and looting across London and other cites. Maybe its the immediacy, pace and lack of depth that comes with 24 hour news and social media but people seem to be polarised again. I've seen so many knee-jerk demands to 'gas/water canon/shoot' the rioters and so many people describing them as 'animals', 'thugs' or worse. If you don't join the condemnation, the shouting loudly for teenage rioter heads on sticks (or, at the very least, conscripted to 20 years' national service) then you must be condoning their behaviour. It reminds me of the US, post 9/11, with Bush splitting the world neatly into 'Good Guys' and 'Bad Guys', claiming bullishly 'If you aren't with us, you're against us'. 


So it is that London has split into the 'Good Guys' (police, small businesses, people who make the former cups of tea) and 'Bad Guys' (the rioting hordes). Shiny white stetsons vs big black stetsons. 'Us' and 'Them'. And 'They' are evil. A homogeneous, faceless gang of baddies. A collective noun. A riot of thugs, if you would. 

Then there are those who get very cross when you start to ask 'Why is it that we have generations of British people who are so disconnected from society that they will literally burn their own communities to the ground?'.  'These bleeding heart liberals shouldn't be looking for excuses,' they cry.  'Lets just run the animals over with tanks'.  'They're bad people; they've always been bad people'. 


Isn't it a coincidence then that all of these bad people live in such close proximity to one another? That they seem to be comprised of a similar demographic? Is there not a teensy clue there that maybe 'they' don't come onto this earth 'bad people', but that their 'badness' is a product of the lottery that is birth and social status? And if that is the case, then it is a good thing, no? Because we actually have some control over those things. We can decide whether to be an inclusive, supportive and benevolent society or whether to be a society of polarised margins throwing literal and figurative rocks at one another. 


I worry that the easier choice - the seductively obvious choice - is the rock throwing. The 'Us' and 'Them' mentality. Its hard to spend time, effort and resource working on being a better society. Its bloody difficult to try to envisage, and then realise, a society where there are no citizens who think that destroying their neighbourhoods 'for kicks' is their only valid option, or who are so divorced from society that a 'fun night out' means destroying their neighbour's livelihood.  Its difficult to think of ourselves as connected and sharing responsibility together for the world we all have to live in. But we are, and we do. And if we genuinely want to live in a fairer world, a more peaceful world, then we should.


Its easy to be angry. Its easy to be outraged. Its easy to retaliate and fight fire with fire. But sooner or later, we'll all burn because of it. 

An Employee Relations cautionary tale...

There's a rather telling sub-story running underneath the News International/News of The World scandal this week. And it says a lot about leadership, management and company culture. 


Listen to this recording of News International CEO, Rebekah Brooks, lamenting to her staff about how sorry she is about the paper closing, reminiscing about 'the good old days' and assuring them that she would employ any of them again in a heartbeat. Followed by one of her staff (quite rightly) tearing strips off her for sullying their professional name and arrogantly assuming any of them would want to work for her again after this.


Brooks denies the arrogance, but its plainly evident. If only in the fact that she thought her (ex) staff would be daft enough not to see through her blatant derriere-covering nonsense of a goodbye speech. 


Rule no.1 of leadership & management: People are never as stupid as you assume them to be. They are, in fact, very often smarter than you. So attempting to pass off your latest management debacle as anything other than it evidently is will not win you any ardent followers. Being honest and having humility about your mistakes will always earn you more respect than insulting people's intelligence by trying to cover it up.


Which leads rather nicely on to:


Rule no.2 of leadership & management: Your employees' bullsh*t filters are finely honed. Even when they aren't a team of investigative journalists well-versed in sniffing out stories from PRs, celebs and politicians, they have a highly acute sense of the what is actually going on here. I've held enough exit interviews and heard enough employee grievances to know this is true. So you may as well talk to them like adults - 'fess up, say it like it is. 


Rule no.3 of leadership & management: Treat them fairly. If you don't, it will come back to bite you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for as long as employees hold grudges or employment tribunals exist. Brooks fired all 200 News of the World staff without so much as a consultation or attempt to redeploy. And if you've been paying attention, you'll know that's illegal. Not that Brooks & legality are the closest of bedfellows...


Rule no. 4 is slightly more complex: YOU create the culture. YOU steer the ship. Your actions and behaviours beget their actions and behaviours. If you want your company to be seen as honourable, talented and pioneering then for God's sake you better be those things yourself. If you are a self-serving, dissembling, dishonest low-life then this is what they will believe they need to be in order to survive. Those of them who have a behavioural preference for dissembling low-lifery will flourish, those who don't but have a keen survival instinct will adapt and follow suit. Before you know it, you are a company accused of dissembling, self-serving, low-life tactics. And it will be true, so there's precious little point then declaring that you knew nothing of the low-lifery just because you happened to be playing golf at the time. Your company is a mirror of you. This is why Virgin is risk-taking, brash and glamourous and why Amstrad is stuck in the 1980's. 


So there you have it; a little vignette about how not to lead, manage or create an enviable company culture courtesy of Brooks, Murdoch and News International. CEOs take note - I fear hers is soon to be a cautionary tale.


Oh, and it seems my hunt for a female role model continues....

Oh Role Model Where Art Thou?

I've been thinking about the little girls in my life lately. My niece, my God-daughter, her big sister. All sharp as tacks, all fizzing with energy, tenacity and determination. I've been thinking about who they'll grow up to be and the lives they will lead. Even with a combined age of less than 15, each one of them already shows the personality, smarts and potential to be something really great. At my God-daughter's christening I gave a speech about how I aimed (like any good Fairy Godmother) to help her make her wishes come true. Now her personality is really taking shape I find myself pondering what those wishes might be...


At work, I'm about to launch a leadership programme and have been thinking about role models to start a debate about the types of leaders we want to be. Mid brainstorm, something really depressing struck me. My list of leaders to start a discussion includes Barack Obama, Clive Woodward, Alex Ferguson, Nelson Mandela, Tony Blair, Winston Churchill... 


Are you there yet?  Where are the women who have inspired and galvanised people to achieve amazing things, who have embodied the spirit of a time, or created and led a winning team? I'm sure some of you will refer me to Pankhurst or Thatcher, but a) they aren't role models for female leadership today and b) two? in a few hundred years? really? I'm struggling, I really am. 


Is it any wonder that so many young women lack a breadth of ambition? I despair when I hear of girls who aspire only to have a baby and their own flat, or (slightly more stretching) be a model/Big Brother contestant/WAG. On Jamie Oliver's Dream School there was a teenage girl called Danielle. She was sharp, considered, analytical and spoke out intelligently regularly in class - she had real potential. I noticed recently that she's stayed in contact with one of the celebrity teachers and thought 'great - she is making the most of her opportunity'. Then I saw her twitter page and my heart sank - another airbrushed glamour shot, another bottle-blonde teenage girl with aspirations to model and act in soap operas. Another opportunity to aim so much higher missed because of a genuine lack of women demonstrating the alternatives. 


On the Apprentice this week the choice of female role models was slim - nasty, self-centred and everso slightly delusional Melody, or boring, self-centred and everso slightly delusional Zoe. This morning the tabloids are full of news about how Cheryl Cole has given up work, gone back to her lyin' cheatin' husband and is 'happier than she's ever been' because of it. They seem to have missed the rather bigger news story that we have all travelled back in time to the 1950's. 


The other thing that grates me about the lack of female role models is how few women seem to want to take that mantle. I'm yet to meet a woman in the workplace in a position of authority who genuinely acts to help other women progress. I've met those who shoot other women down, who undermine them, or who become defensive and negative at the thought of another female in the business 'pride'. But I'm yet to meet a successful, powerful woman who demonstrates real leadership qualities and who wants to help other women get there too. And it seems to be echoed in popular culture - most of the Victoria Beckham bashers are women, magazines like Heat and Now regularly run features pointing out physical flaws in female celebs. Even the broadsheet journalists get in on the act every so often - India Knight regularly takes a pop at Gwyneth Paltrow on twitter. And this week the hideous dressing down meted out by a step-mother-in-law to her step-daughter-in-law to-be went viral. There are few things uglier than an older woman who should know better taking out her fear, jealousy and insecurity on a younger female, yet its a phenomena seemingly on the rise.


We have fewer women in the cabinet now than any other western democracy . Coventry University research last month found that budget cuts will affect women more than twice as much as men. Women make up less than 12% of Boards in the top 300 European businesses. With those kind of odds against us, surely those that are successful and have the benefit of experience have a responsibility not to be pulling the ladder up behind them but to reach back down and help others climb? 


Nadine Dorries caused a furore last month by pushing for abstinence to be taught to girls in Sex Ed. She misses the point. Girls who get pregnant in their teens don't need to be taught abstinence - they need to be taught to think bigger. They can say 'no' or they can say 'only with a condom thanks' and they should be saying it not because they've been morally browbeaten into being 'good girls' but because they have plans to study, to travel, to achieve great things. If we want to address teenage pregnancy maybe we need to look beyond Sex Ed. Maybe we should be looking at the quality of careers guidance we give teenagers? Maybe we should look at how we can build confidence and ambition in young people, particularly young women, who seem to do so much better than boys at school, but who don't seem to fulfil that potential later in life. Dream School's Danielle is a case in point - holding her own in conversations about politics with Alastair Campbell, but declaring on her twitter profile "I'm a model and actress". Another one bites the dust.


By painting a picture of a future that's possible if they just raise their eyes beyond the horizon they think they see, we could address more than just teenage pregnancy.  We might create fewer Big Brother contestants and more research scientists, fewer WAGs and more authors, fewer glamour models and more leaders of commerce, industry and woman-kind. We might even redress the balance of women in Boardrooms and the Houses of Parliament. I'm not sure if I'm old enough or experienced enough to count as a role model, but if I can paint that picture with enough clarity and colour for my niece, my god-daughter and her sister to make it a vision of their future, I reckon I'd count that as success.

Alan Sugar has a lot to answer for...

I have a sneaking suspicion that this may prove to be one of my more controversial posts (although I've learnt the hard way never to underestimate the ferocity of response that the simple act of stating your opinions in a public forum might have). 


This week Sharon Shoosmith has been in the news. Plenty of people whose opinions I ordinarily agree with have been very vocal in their disgust at Ms Shoosmith's 'victory' (the inverted commas reflect the fact that there really are no winners in this tragic affair). Ed Balls (who announced to a pack of journalists that he was firing her, without actually discussing it with her first) has been clear that, not only does he disagree with the outcome of her appeal, but he would fire her all over again if he had to.


Which is a shame because it goes to show that Mr Balls seems to think himself above the law. In his best impression of Lord Sugar pointing a finger and growling "You're Fired" at whoever he deems to be the weakest link in the organisational chain, Balls has forgotten that we have employment laws in this country for a reason and that the thing about having laws in place means that they need to be applied consistently otherwise we make a mockery of the whole bloody thing.


Plenty of commentators on the Shoosmith/Balls thing will be crying out at the idiocy of the law, claiming that it is an example of legality over common sense and decency. I don't really want to focus on the public's need to find a scapegoat when things go tragically wrong, or on the less black and white view that systems fail when there are cultural and organisational failings and that those are rarely caused by (or solved by) one individual. I'd like to focus on this growing assumption amongst politicians and the media that employment law is an obstructive, negative force that stands on the side of nasty unions and overpaid bureaucrats. 


Our own dear Chancellor recently launched an attack on employment law in an address to business leaders - claiming that it prevented business growth and agility. He painted a picture of entrepreneurial businesses hamstrung in saving the British economy by cumbersome regulations. Rather scarily, his views were echoed by a number of business leaders and the right-wing press. It's an odd contradiction that most people seem to think that companies can do what they like when it comes to employees whilst simultaneously harbouring this view of 'cumbersome' employment regulations.


If you turned the TV on this evening and saw your boss telling the press that he'd fired you, would you think that fair or reasonable? Probably not. Because it isn't fair or reasonable for your employer to fire you without giving you the opportunity to know that your job is at risk or give you the opportunity to answer the case against you. So we have laws against it. Employment Law, like most law, operates on the principles of natural justice and of what is deemed to be 'fair' and 'reasonable'. 


Take redundancy, for example. Pretty topical given our current economic environment. From experience I know that very few people really understand their rights when it comes to redundancy. Most people think, for example, that it is perfectly legal for their company to tell them they are being made redundant out of the blue. In actual fact, whenever an organisation is making a change that might result in jobs being made redundant, it has to consult with the people who hold those jobs. It has to do all it reasonably can to avoid redundancies (for example; asking employees for suggestions on other ways work can be organised or pro-actively helping them to find other jobs in the business). Only after it has properly consulted with employees and no alternatives can be found can a company then confirm that a role is to be made redundant. Even then, while the role may be redundant its perfectly fair to assume that the person could well perform another job in the business, so the business should keep looking for one for them. This is reasonable, no? It prevents businesses from taking rash decisions, wasting resources, losing knowledge and experience and subsequently incurring costs of recruiting and training replacements. Not to mention actually being a rather fair way to treat people. I also think it gives those who are left behind, and those who leave the business, a better all round impression of the organisation - "They seem fair, they seem reasonable. I trust them". Isn't that something every business should strive for? 


Treating employees fairly and reasonably and growing your business are not mutually exclusive. In fact, plenty of research shows that treating your employees fairly - giving them job security, a voice in how the business is run, the opportunity to grow and learn and leaders who inspire trust - is critical to business performance. Businesses who treat their employees like valuable capital to be protected and invested in outperform those who treat employees like disposable resources to be used up and spat out. 


Not that our government agrees with this evidence mind. They'd like your company to be able to fire you at will, Sugar-style. They'd like businesses to go through wasteful short-termist cycles of firing and hiring without considering whether they were wasting human capital in the process. They'd like it if companies could decide not to promote women because it costs too much to let them go on maternity leave, without thinking through the benefits of having a leadership team that more accurately reflects their customer base. They have already set the wheels in motion to make you wait two years before your company has to legally treat you fairly or reasonably. 


So, before we demonise Shoosmith or heap condemnation on the High Court for upholding her appeal, perhaps we should be grateful that we live in a country where we can't just be fired according to the will or ego of the person who manages us. That we are afforded the right to be treated in accordance with natural justice and what is fair. That the law encourages organisations to treat employees reasonably because its in everyone's interests to do so. I'd do it quick though because if Osborne gets his way you won't live in that type of country for long. 

They work for us, you know

A business I once worked for (a global premium brand) wanted to know how their employees were feeling about working there. So they conducted a comprehensive survey. And the results were enlightening. What did the people want? More money? More holidays? Better food in the canteen? No: they wanted the Sales Director and the Marketing Director to stop squabbling with each other. They were mightily cheesed off that while they were working flat-out for the business during a recession those who were leading them seemed to be channelling Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. They were bored of the politics and wanted to be led by grown-ups please. At this moment I see just where they were coming from - because I feel exactly the same way about our country. 


You really only have to watch a debate in the House of Commons to see what I mean: sniping, jeering, "calm down dear"-ing.  Wobbling of jowls, jabbing of fingers and reddening of faces - on all sides. It has nothing to do with the actual business of running the country and everything to do with point-scoring and one-up-man-ship. The AV referendum is another good example of an important debate that's degenerated into a rather ridiculous bitch-fight. (I'm not saying that our PM makes a fitting Bette Davis but the simultaneous crippling of his deputy whilst keeping up the 'sisters' charade is strangely reminiscent... )Just like those directors who were too busy bickering to lead, and who were making a mockery of their employees' hard work by conducting themselves like five-year olds, our politicians seem to be too busy trying to trip the other side up to get on with the rather important job of taking the decisions that affect our lives. 


Some commentators have, mainly in response to the Winner-gate gaffe, been spouting off this week about how 'that's just the bear pit of politics". Politicians have always been petulant and childish in debate - why criticise it now? 


Perhaps because its clear from observing the Obama-Trump situation (that's Obama vs Donald, I'm not suggesting the Leader of the Free World has a flatulence problem) that there is actually another way. You can rise above the pettiness and the sniping, you can be the better person. You can refuse to get drawn into the bitch-fight and let your actions do the talking for you. (It helps if those actions are to find the world's most wanted terrorist and then reveal it in a measured, reasoned and thoroughly mature kind of a way.) That's how to be a leader. 


I recently met with one of Cranfield Business School's visiting fellows. She's ex-armed forces and was recounting a story of one of her old colleagues - a man with a battalion under his command. On his first day, his commanding officer called him onto the office and drew his organisation chart; him at the top, and the rank and file spreading out below. Then he said; "That's the last time I want you to look at it from this perspective" and promptly turned it upside down. "You work for them" he was told - and he never forgot it. Its a lesson every leader should learn. 


Yet its a lesson that so many just don't want to hear. No wonder 35% of people didn't even see the point in voting in the last election. Most of us - just like those cheesed-off employees - aren't interested in playground politics, in the type of politics that is about telling us how sh*t the other guys are in order to make yourself look better. We'd like someone who has a good clue about what they're doing to focus on what we're paying them to do. We'd like them to be in the job for the right reasons and to lead us with our welfare in the forefront of their mind. 


This is one of the reasons that I'll be voting 'yes' for AV this week. Not only because I think they've conducted their campaign with a teensy bit more decorum than the 'no' campaign but mainly because I think AV is a step towards a system that reminds our politicians who they actually work for. At the moment we have a system where 68% of voters did not vote for the party that ends up controlling government. Where we often feel we shouldn't vote for the person who we think will work hardest for us, but for the person most likely to keep the people we really don't want out. Where the pantomime that is politics means that a third of our country don't even bother voting. Our current system doesn't encourage politicians to listen to their constituents. It encourages the tribalism that we've seen too much of recently. It encourages the negative campaigning, the polarisation, the mud-slinging. If they can win with less than 50% of people voting for them, why should your MP be concerned about what you actually want? 


AV isn't perfect - I'm not sure any system is. But it doesn't kill babies, it won't bankrupt the country and it won't send you spiralling into existential angst - contrary to what the 'no' lobby would have you believe. If you feel that politics isn't relevant for you. Or if you're tired of the petty squabbling and would like to be able to remind politicians that they do, in fact, work for you then you should probably be voting 'yes' for AV tomorrow.

Oh, and if you live in Earlsdon ward in Coventry and would like a real-life grown-up politician who knows who they work for and is in it for all the right reasons then you should probably be voting for John Fletcher. Not a jowl-wobble or duck-house in sight.

Something Borrowed, Something Blue, Someone Bossy...

Anyone who knows me well will tell you I love a good wedding. I love the ceremony (sweepstakes have been taken on how long before I blub). I love the food, the outfits, the kids skidding across the dance-floor in their socks, the mums and dads jiving, the nonagenarians shaking maracas to Barry Manilow (no? just my wedding? oh well). I've been a bridesmaid so many times (purple, lycra, ruched number you say? count me in!) I had to turn down the latest request for fear of it turning into an actual compulsion.

And I love, love, loved every minute of my wedding day.

But I was a gibbering, highly-strung, highly-irrational loon beforehand.

I like to think more Bridezuki than Bridezilla but, still, the smallest detail created the biggest headache (bows on 100 favours not tied quite right? Pass the valium!), I had precious little sleep due to the nightmares about my dress being too big/venue being closed/guests not showing up. I must have left friends and family wondering where the rational, reasonably intelligent woman they knew had gone and who had dropped Mariah Carey into their midst.

And this is normal. The anxiety dreams, the fixating on insignificant details, the spreadsheets, lists, stand-by lists - all of it perfectly normal. There are whole industries created just to heighten the anxiety. Magazines that require you to re-mortgage your house just to purchase them will tell you what you MUST wear, who you MUST invite, what you MUST eat. And it takes a strong willed woman not to fall for it.

So what must it be like for Kate (Catherine?) Middleton? Everyone has an opinion on her wedding, even if that opinion is just that the whole thing's a bit of a giggle. Republicans getting cross about the fact that we have a Royal Family, Royalists getting cross at Republicans, fashion magazines speculating on her dress, weight, hair, honeymoon wardrobe. I can't imagine the anxiety dreams that poor woman must be having.

I think if I had the Daily Mail commentating on my wedding preparations I would quite cheerfully have entered a nunnery. I'd certainly have had more than the mild pacing-round-the-walk-in-wardrobe-in-just-your-tulle-underskirt-hyperventilating type pre-wedding jitters (you know who you are).

And then there's Carole. My mum tied herself in knots over her MoB outfit; hair, accessories, whether she'd clash with the Mother of the Groom, whether what she was wearing was age-appropriate. Carole's opposite number is only the bloomin' People's Princess for pity's sake. Immortalised in beaded Valentino and tiara! Not going to be able to top that with a Jacques Vert two-piece and matching fascinator is she?

Speaking (typing?) of the People's Princess; I watched footage of Princess Di walking down the aisle yesterday and thought the poor love looked absolutely terrified. She was having visible palpitations. There was a woman who had been having major-league anxiety dreams. No amount of spreadsheets and rescue remedy were going to save her poor frazzled nerves. Contrast with footage of Fergie - resplendent in '80's perm and shoulderpads - looking like she was having a blast, grinning and waving as she skipped down the carpet.

I wish I could say that kind of carefree joie-de-vivre was just down to being the second sibling but I know my husband's baby sister (who walks down the aisle 8 days after Kate) is having all the same nightmares that I did. So just for her (and Kate, if she's reading) here are my top-tip handy-hints for Bridezukis to be:

1. Get the best wing-man you can possibly have. Doesn't have to be your sister or Maid of Honour, but they do need to be someone you'd trust with your life. Mine was (is) a rock. Calm under fire, bossy when necessary and totally selfless in making sure I had the best day possible. 
2. Don't expect to get a drink... or to need one. I was so intoxicated by the day itself I didn't need any of the bubbly or cocktails we'd laid on. Which is just as well because getting to the bar if you're a bride is like a rather more fancily dressed version of British Bulldog.
3. Shit will happen. People will let you down (fail to turn up, turn up late, jump off the balcony and break their legs), Liz Hurley will attempt to upstage you in split-to-crotch Versace, random family members will join the receiving line, not everything will go to military-precision plan.
4. It won't matter. One. Little. Bit. 
5. Focus on the part that's really important - the part when its just you, him and the Vicar/Archbishop of Canterbury. That's what you're there for. Relish every word, savour every moment. Everything else is just noise.

And that's the trick: as long as you've got that one big decision right, the one about the chap you're walking back down the aisle with, everything else is details. 

So Liz (Elizabeth), Kate (Catherine): knock 'em dead girls. A bit more Fergie, a little less Di. Make the most of every little moment. 

Best of British. 

L xxx

Why I hated PE, but love School Sport

Hands up who hated PE at school? I did. Navy synthetic knickers, sadistic PE teachers, being picked last for just about everything. Hideous. Any bullying that occurred in the science lab, or English lesson, seemed to be amplified on the sports field. I developed avoidance tactics for cross-country replicated only in those my cat displays for her basket and the prospect of a trip to the vets. It would probably have been no surprise whatsoever had I left school overweight, under-confident and with a fear of physical exercise to carry with me for the rest of my life.


Why didn't I? Because my run-of-the-mill comprehensive employed a dance teacher alongside the typical hockey, netball & football fanatic PE teachers. I was good at dance and finding that talent did more for my confidence, social skills and self-belief than a string of UCAS points ever would. As anyone who is good at anything (baking, programming, fly-fishing) will tell you; finding your talent gives you an outlet, a way of both losing yourself in and expressing yourself to the world. As Paula Abdul would say: it gives you a niche. 


Finding that niche for me was total fluke. Imagine if my talent had been archery, or rowing, or cycling or some other less common form of physical exercise. Imagine if my headteacher saw no value in encouraging kids to exercise (perhaps a PE-hater themselves). Or if they were a rugger-playing traditionalist who thought that only competitive sport mattered. My life would have been different without a shadow of a doubt.


Now imagine that, on a national basis, someone somewhere had the foresight to recognise that what happened with me didn't need to be a fluke. That giving kids the opportunity to engage in a form of physical exercise that they were passionate about could have really fantastic consequences. That it mattered immensely. That kids who had the opportunity to fall in love with physical exercise acted up less, concentrated better, performed better. That it was the kind of thing that changed lives and so was worth investing in. Not a huge sum of money. Say 2% of the education budget overall. 


Utopia? Nope. That's exactly what the School Sports Partnerships existed for. 450 people dedicated nationally to giving children access to the widest variety of sport and physical exercise the UK education system has ever provided. Between 2000 and 2010 the number of kids participating in two hours or more of sport and physical exercise through school increased from 23% to 94%. For £17 per child per year.


They weren't perfect. Some head teachers still don't think sport is important enough to spend money on. Some teachers still don't want to be trained to deliver sport. Some of the people working in the SSP weren't very good (show me a workplace where that ain't the case). Every so often the Daily Mail would run a horror-story piece about how much public money was being wasted teaching kids Dodge-ball. But they were working. They were working because we put a value and a focus on engaging kids in all forms of physical exercise, not just the sort they play at Eton. They were working because the majority of people running them were experts in both spotting talent and igniting a passion for sport in the previously disengaged. Experts in managing regional and national competitions and festivals, providing training and equipment to schools, linking schools with sports clubs, managing teams of qualified coaches, juggling budgets and evaluating success and adapting accordingly. For £17 per child per year.


A folly? A luxury we can ill afford in these austere times? Personally I reserve those labels for things like M.P.'s duck houses, Trident and Prince Andrew. I happen to think that School Sport is an essential. My 8-year-old self would laugh in my face at that statement, as would our current Education Secretary. And I'd credit them both with roughly the same level of understanding about these things.


Those who know me know that I have a personal interest in SSPs because my husband manages one and will, in all likelihood, lose his job as a result of aforementioned Education Secretary's slash-and-burn approach to School Sport. And I am pretty angry about that - particularly as his school seem to be managing the redundancy process as if UK Employment Law has the same relevance to them that nuclear physics does to Jedward. But I have faith in Mr. L. I see his brilliance and know he will find his niche (Paula, or no Paula). 


But I'm actually really bloody angry that no-one seems to think giving all kids the opportunity to discover a physical activity that they love is important enough to save properly, and for the long term. I'm hopping mad that politicians and celebrities seem to pick up a cause-du-jour, make a fuss until the government pretends to make a U-turn, and then promptly forget it. But mainly I'm door-slammingly furious at the way the whole thing has been handled.


Initially, Mr Gove attempted to paint the SSPs as another failed Labour initiative that had wasted taxpayers' money on needless bureaucracy. Then, when hundreds of thousands of children, teachers, parents and Olympians pointed out that this was boohickey, he claimed that he wasn't actually going to abandon them. No; he had a better plan. As far as I can see this is another one of those 'better plans' cobbled together on the back of a Houses of Parliament napkin after it becomes glaringly obvious that something really PR-damaging might be about to happen (see NHS & EMA 'u-turns' for similar examples). This 'better plan' involves spending just 84p per child per year holding a few sports days in the run up to the Olympics. After which... well... it seems no-one's actually found that bit of the napkin yet. 


I don't think this is good enough. I'm not daft, I know we need to make cuts. I know we need to be more efficient. I know some things aren't working. I'd just like to have faith that those people who end up making the decisions on what we do and how we do it might give it more than just a cursory thought. Y'know; do what we pay them to do. Think it through, have an actual strategy, plan for the long term. Be honest about their intentions and ideologies. Stop effing around with stuff that actually works just because it was initiated by the previous administration. Stop trying to razzle-dazzle us with pretend U-turns and pretend 'consultations'. Stop throwing the baby out with the bath water. Or maybe that's Utopia.

My glass house is bigger than yours.

Generalisations are a dangerous thing: muslims are terrorists, priests are paedophiles, soldiers are heroes, teenagers are lazy, people on benefits spend it on fags & booze, Tories are scum, politicians are liars, blondes are bimbos... I could go on

And yet, we all indulge in them. We make value judgements about people based on one facet of what makes them them, or worse; based on our opinion of the societal or demographical pigeonhole we put them in.  I noticed this particularly in responses to the recent TUC march in London. From the ill-informed “These people should get a job”, to the hateful “Work-shy scroungers”, to the scornful “These liberal idealists don’t understand the real world”.  

It’s a nice comfortable way to think about those who hold a different opinion: "I disagree with you on this subject; ergo you are not like me in any way".  If we can dismiss all Tories as pampered aristocrats, or all protesters as violent anarchists we can make ourselves feel better about our own world-view and in this heated political and economic climate it is happening more and more.

But people don’t operate on two opposing poles. We’re a spectrum. We all view the world through a unique lens and just because you think mine is rather too rose-tinted and I think yours has given you myopia doesn’t mean either of us has 20/20 vision all the time.

And you know what else? It doesn’t mean that we can’t have a healthy debate about it – we each may learn something along the way.  It also doesn’t mean that we couldn't share a restaurant table, or bottle of wine and find numerous common interests and viewpoints that exist alongside our differences.  

In my first post, I wrote about the need to make a debate personal. I meant that we need to appeal to (and remember) each others’ humanity.  We probably shouldn’t assume that because we don’t see eye to eye on every subject, that we don’t have anything in common.

There are some that doubtless think because I have left-leaning politics and I get angry about injustice that I’m naive or ill-informed, and that therefore makes all my opinions on pretty much everything woolly, lefty, unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky. It may surprise them to learn that in the past week I’ve read the Telegraph, Harvard Business Review and the Economist as well as the Guardian and found things to agree and disagree with in all of them. I believe our public sector is inefficient and weighed down in places by poor management but I’ve seen the exact same faults in private corporations that I’ve worked for.  I think 400,000 people marching peacefully for something they believe in is a beautiful thing but that mindless violence is abhorrent. I can believe that some kids spend their EMA on drugs but I went to school with intelligent people who left at 16 because they couldn't afford not to work. I have more faith in the Keynesian economic model that rebuilt Britain after WW2 than the Classical economic model that contributed to the banking crisis. I hate tall poppy syndrome but don't think success can be measured by one's alma mater or bank balance. I admire Katie Price’s chutzpah but not how she uses it.  I think cheap shoes are a false economy but wear £1 socks from Sainsburys.

I bet you didn't agree with everything I wrote there. But I’d also bet that you didn’t universally disagree either.  And I also bet that if you’re reading this it’s because on some level we are friends – facebook, twitter, work, university. We have some things in common, others that we disagree on.  Putting people in a box labelled "Always wrong and to be ridiculed" because they aren’t 100% like you is as dangerous as believing absolutely everything they say because you happen to like the cut of their jib. 

What's wrong with being 'right on paper'?

My husband would make an incredible teacher. He didn't enjoy school much himself - having been written off and told to go and work in a bank by his own teachers. So he passionately believes that the impact you have on a child at school stays with them forever. He's worked with children for almost 20 years - they love him, and they listen to him. Recently a teacher approached him and convinced him of what I've always known: he'd make a great teacher. He met with the head of our local (Ofsted rated 'excellent') primary school who said that he would employ him in a heart-beat. 


So he got in touch with the local teacher-training university. And they rejected him point blank. For two reasons: 


1) They already had an overwhelming 10 applications per placement 
2) He doesn't have a C at GCSE science.


Let's set aside the distressing vision of aforementioned teacher-training-selection-officer drowning under the unmanageable weight of applications and focus on the second point: qualifications. Because, you see, my husband already works daily with two of that same university's current trainee teachers. 


One turned up for work recently looking like he'd rolled out of bed and announced to the Head of Department "I'm knackered mate". The other burst into tears after receiving feedback on her first lesson and hasn't been seen since. Presumably both have a C in GCSE Science and so are prime examples of world-class teaching talent. 


And this makes my blood boil.


Teachers have an unbelievable responsibility. So doesn't it follow that those who select the next generation of teachers have an even greater responsibility? To rule out an additional candidate because you already have 10 applications per place is lazy. To rule someone out because they have a Bachelor of Science degree but not GSCE Science is lunacy. To select instead people without the basic social skills and professionalism to gain respect from either adults or kids is, in my opinion, tantamount to dereliction of your professional responsibility. 


My brother's fiancee has been in and out of hospital roughly 8 or 9 times this year. She's had a nurse refuse to bring her anything she can eat, a nurse refuse her pain relief (on the grounds that its too expensive) and overheard a group of nurses gossiping about her. All have roughly the same qualifications and experience as the nurses who took excellent care of my best friend's mum when she had her hernia op. The difference? Attitude. One group of nurses think like nurses and treat their patients as human beings. The other think of patients as inconvenient generic bundles of symptoms. One group were destined to enter a caring profession. The other would probably be better off working in the warehouse at Argos. 


Last time you received bad service in a shop was it because the shop assistant didn't know how to use the till? Or was it because they would rather chat to their mate about their night out than tell you where the duvet section was? 


All of these people - the terrible trainee teachers, the uncaring nurses, the dismissive shop assistants - passed a selection process to get their job. They all ticked the right boxes for qualifications and experience. They are right on paper. And they are all the wrong people for the job they do. 


I'm not saying that we should start employing Nurses who don't know how to administer an i.v., or Teachers who don't know how to add up. I'm saying that there are some things you can train people to do: insert a catheter, long division, use a till. And there are some things that are inherent, that better be there from the beginning because they can't be taught: empathy, patience, thoughtfulness, resilience, professionalism. 


Wouldn't we be better off selecting people with the inherent qualities needed to do a job the right way, and then teaching them the technical stuff? After all, medical science moves on. Shops bring in new product, subjects evolve. No amount of customer-awareness training will make those nurses treat patients like human beings. I'm not even sure a training course exists that will teach a wet-behind-the-ears student teacher not to call his boss 'mate'. 


I think its a crying shame that the powers that be haven't cottoned on to this fact: Nurses and Teachers have to be people who are inherently right for the job. They must have the right attitude. Its one thing when Next employ a 'customer service advisor' with no concept of either customers or service. Its quite another when a Nurse or Teacher just aren't the right fit. The consequences can actually ruin lives. 


Of course it takes skill to select for attitude, and it takes time and effort to then train for the right skills. Which is why so many organisations rely on box-ticking instead. But we deserve better from those who select our public service employees. We deserve people who recognise the qualities that are actually important in a job and do everything in their power to seek out those that have that quality in abundance, and root out the imposters who may be right on paper but are oh-so-wrong in practice.

What Would Hertzberg Do?

So, this is my first ever blog post. Some ninety-million years since the first blogger put finger to qwertyuiop here I am. Never let it be said that I'm an early adopter. (Apparently this is because I don't live in London; according to the tube posters 67% of thought leaders live in London. I always found my brain addled by the unnerving proximity of other people, the black snot and the endless commutes when I lived there. I guess that makes me a thought-follower and probably means if you're looking for a blog that will keep your finger on the zeitgeist this ain't it)


I am supposed to be revising Employee Reward. However, I have other things on my mind. Last night I was lucky enough to attend the flagship Theatre Uncut event at Southwark Playhouse - an international performance of short plays commentating on the Comprehensive Spending Review by some brilliant playwrights, performed rights-free by some brilliant actors and the brain child of the brilliant Hannah Price. 


Hannah explains the birth of Theatre Uncut far better in her own blog for the Guardian so I won't go into detail here. Suffice to say that Hannah and her team of actors, producers, writers and stage managers looked exhausted yet energised last night.  Which got me thinking about the concept of reward and motivation.


Hannah, like many of us, was outraged by the extent, severity and speed of the budget cuts. As she herself describes it, she set about a frenzy of emails, IMs and facebook posts venting her fury and rallying others. The result, less than six months later, is over 800 people from London to New York, Edinburgh to Berlin performing over a number of weeks in theatres, student unions, cafes, living rooms and public spaces. Pretty awe-inspiring stuff. Thousands of hours spent writing, rehearsing, promoting, editing, stage managing, debating and creating. Hundreds of people doing some work of incredible quality and commitment, in their spare time and without being paid a penny.


A concept that would make those that design the reward packages for most financial workers in the square mile spit out their starbucks in disbelief. Funny that. We're very often told by those who know far more about these things that we have to pay Bankers and Hedge Fund Managers all that money, or they won't work as hard or will go to Hong Kong instead, and the economy will grind to a halt without them. The same thing applies to footballers apparently. 


Yes. Cash, in large enough sums, drives behaviour. Pat Zingheim, Jay Schuster and Roman Abramovich will tell you its the only way to drive performance. 


So how does that explain Hannah and her army of volunteer actor-vists? 


Well, according to a chap called Frederick Hertzberg, Hannah and co are the rule, not the exception. He would tell you that we aren't motivated by cash. We're motivated by achievement, by feeling we are doing something worthwhile, by working with like-minded people, by doing great things, by pushing boundaries. He's echoed by Prof. John Purcell who demonstrated this through research at Bath Business School, and by Dan Pink who has written numerous books and columns about the subject, and whose lecture on motivation has been turned into a brilliant piece of animation that sums this viewpoint up for me quite well. 


Imagine we could bottle the creativity, productivity, collaboration, commitment and drive that the Theatre Uncut people have demonstrated. Its the holy grail for most big corporations. Its exactly what Messrs Cameron & Osborne are attempting to create in plebs like us so that they can get out of the pesky business of paying for geriatric wards, day care centres and swimming lessons and get back to flogging arms to Middle Eastern dictators.


Of course, Mr Hertzberg would also tell you that you need enough cash to fulfill your basic needs - that its a hygiene factor. That without it, you don't have the launch pad to drive the brilliant, awe-inspiring stuff for very long. Its the reason that Hannah will produce corporate films in her 9-5 rather than do Theatre Uncut full time, and why my husband won't be doing the job he loves for free after Mr Osborne and Mr Gove make him redundant later this year. Its the reason Caroline, in David Grieg's amazing "Fragile" had no answers for Jack when he asked why she wouldn't be his mental health worker in the future. Its the reason Big Society won't work.


And what about those Bankers I hear you ask... Cash motivates them doesn't it? It sure does. In a very crude and simple way: you get exactly what you pay for. No more, no less. The bonuses the banks paid their people encouraged them to do whatever it took to make more money.  They weren't incentivising foresight, ethical investing, or long-term decisions. Just big bucks ASAP. So that's what we got.  A chap I went to uni with, recently posted angrily on his facebook page that we should really be very grateful to those who work in the city - the taxes on their whopping big bonuses are keeping us in daycare centres, geriatric wards and playing fields apparently. Not entirely untrue. But what's also true is that the size of the financial rewards dangled in front of these financial workers also encouraged the risk taking and recklessness that has created this world-wide shit-fest. So I'll not be writing any Thank You cards any time soon.


Well, here's a mighty-fine mess: Footballers who'd rather play for their club than their country (and don't seem to do a particularly beautiful job of either) because the pay is better. Bankers who will gamble our future to rake in short-term, large-scale dividends. Thousands of passionate, dedicated, talented care-workers, sports development specialists, librarians, teachers and artists hamstrung and unable to do what they are passionate about, dedicated to and talented in, because "we can't afford it".


What's the answer? Its no coincidence for me that the play that least engaged my best friend's city-worker, right-leaning husband (he's a brave man and a good friend) last night was Anders Lustgarten's one-man rant against capitalism, "Fat Man". He found it combative and simplistic. I don't necessarily disagree. However, I know he was more moved by seeing his wife in floods of tears at the personal resonance of Clara Brennan's "Hi Vis", and by my emotional response to the brilliantly-captured dismissive arrogance of the Accountant in "Housekeeping" by Lucy Kirkwood. These plays highlighted the personal impact of political decisions. They amplified the absurdity of the sound-bite rationalisations spewed out by Coalition and media alike. They made people think and feel in equal measure. 


In the loo after the performance I overheard a girl say to her friend "That's all very well, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do now". To her and to anyone else wondering the same thing I'd first say, "Oh don't be such a bloody bimbo". Then, I'd say, "Enter the debate. But do it with the aim of engaging and provoking thought. Do it in the way that Hannah and co did it last night - with passion, energy and positivity. Write to your MP, tweet about it, blog about it, facebook about it. March, if that's your thing. Or just discuss it down the pub". I'd also say, "What Would Hertzberg Do?". He'd say, "Make it interesting. Make it inspiring. Make it personal. Talk to people in their language, find a common passion." 


We will win this debate by using the same weapons that have been used against us: emotion and personalisation. In the same way that Cameron & co worked so hard to demonise Gordon Brown, or to perpetuate the myth of "national economy = maxed out credit card", those who oppose their actions need to channel a little Clara Brennan or Lucy Kirkwood. Make it personal, make it emotive. Make it resonate with people and they will listen. Its the reason I fell in love with theatre and the reason I'm one week away from an exam on Employee Reward and am blogging about spending cuts instead.