WHAT THE KINGFISHER DOES FOR CHRISTMAS

Nobody knows

What the kingfisher does for Christmas

Whether, perhaps, holed up in Klosters

With champagne and smoked salmon

Or if, unknown to the tax man,

He has a hideaway in Mustique.

Hibernation seems unlikely.

The bulldog, on the other hand

Ought to be predictable:

A pie and a pint in the local,

The Queen on the telly,

Turkey. Sprouts. Gravy.

But, no.

He’s skiing in Val d’Isere.

Which makes you wonder

If the kingfisher

Is in Barnsley, or Basingstoke.

ZEN TODAY

We'll see.

ENCOURAGEMENT

"With a mind like yours, you should write," she said,
"You know, books."

"No," I said.
"No. I don't think so."

Excellence enacts devotion.
Devotion enacts excellence.

FLAMINGOS

We go to Maguelon,

The sky dark with salt,

Black in the south,

And the Middle Sea tearing at the shore.

The pink question marks

That are flamingos

Unfold into exclamatory flight -

Prehistoric dashes in the grey air,

Red certainties punctuating turmoil.

By the canal, boat debris,

And a café for travellers,

Shut for the winter.

We are here when my questions

Do not find answers.

None found in the cold cathedral.

And, in the etang,

The flamingos land,

Becoming question marks again.

BONSAI

Once, I sent a bonsai,

And the man who got it

Brought me to his home

Where the bonsai was on show,

With all its leaves, midwinter.

When I saw it he coughed

And his wife said they all fell off

But knowing you were coming

I made paper ones

And stuck them on.

That, to me, was love.

And I’ve had loves where the leaves fall off,

But no one makes new ones.

Some trees lose leaves.

A PAUSE..... FOR IDEAS

Enough ink has been spilled on the election of the Donald for me to hesitate to put more onto a page.

But the experience of seeing all the coverage, along with the reporting and commentary on Brexit, has been very convincing of the arrogance of the political elite on both sides of the Atlantic and the press corps that follow them. Two results have been howls of the masses, rather than  the nuanced argument of the ruling or media classes. They don't like it.

I didn't like Brexit. I'm not sure I like Trump. Though I am equally unsure, especially in foreign policy matters, that I don't dislike disastrous recent American foreign policy (of which Hilary Clinton was a tired continuation advocate) more than some of the possibilities opened by Mr Trump's tenure.

In both cases - Trump and Brexit - what I am sure is that they are circumstances we have to deal with and make the best of them.

Confidence in our government to do this is shaken by two recent incidents, both of which point to a worrying lack of forethought in our Government's actions.

The first was the handling of Mr Nigel Farage's ludicrously opportunistic claim that he could be a special go between for the UK in the USA, what with him being best mates with Mr Trump 'n all. Our government quickly came out with a statement which quashed his ambition. Now, though, Mr Farage has got his new best mate to tweet in his support. Oops. An only slightly more far sighted government would have thought about this differently at the outset. This was an opportunity to rid the UK of a loose cannon in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations and rob him of a voice in the matter. Park him over in America, as far west as practical, and give him some nonsense title and put him under UK Government discipline because he becomes a civil servant with no domestic voice. Ideal, I'd have thought. But no. Blurting was better!

Blurting has also got the government into hot water this week with the CBI. Putting workers on Boards is the issue. I'm all for workers participation, as my career has demonstrated. But workers on Boards is entirely impractical. Apart from anything else, Board Directors have a primacy in their legal duty to shareholders, not to workers. Change that, and what's the point of them? Anyone with a reasonable brain could see that this will lead the government to conflict with the CBI, the Institute of Directors, and, ironically, the TUC, who now have a reason to claim the government is backsliding on its promise.

What the blurting of this policy really shows is, apart from the obvious lack of forethought, the more subtle absence of ideas. Find an idea, launch it. That's a short route to disaster. Have many ideas, select the best. Much wiser.

To be fair, the government isn't alone in this. Most Companies that I have worked with either as a consultant or an employee simply spend far too little time originating ideas to give them a fund from which to select. Indeed, the norm is often that if you have any new idea at all, no matter how daft, there's a serious danger it becomes the new front runner, not because of its merit, but because no other ideas have been originated instead.

Both Brexit and the Trump phenomenon seem to me a mass Crie de Coeur for new thinking in old fields. Industry, and the government would be wise indeed, in the face of such change, to build the habits of ideation. It may well be that these two newest and biggest political ideas have sprung forth precisely because of its paucity in the first place.

ZEN TODAY

Try?

SPURNED

It’s a wise man who knows what is enough.

That wise man will know

On tumultuous days,

On days when the world goes wrong

When questionable virtue ascends

And good men wring their hands,

Fortunes fail,

Scum comes to the top

Visible , filthy, corrupt,

That, on a beach, empty of anyone,

Not where watchers go,

But wild and dangerous,

Where the tide rips kill you

And ebbs slide faster than snakes,

And waders ply cautiously the surf,

There is enough,

And will build there a fire

To warm against winter whipping the dunes,

Will start by looking long at the desolate beach

Seeing nothing but hopelessness

Then with a rummaging eye

Spot this small twig, this dry marram, this weathered shard

Till spark and fire are made, fanned, and warm the cold soul.

He will find enough to do this

Knowing what is enough.

INSPIRATION

https://www.42.us.org/

This is by far the most inspiring thing I have seen recently.

DAVOS

Whenever there is a World Economic Forum at Davos, I look closely at the attendance list. It's a fascinating read. You can see who is great and good. I play a little game. Do I know anyone? Personally, I mean. There are normally between a couple and a dozen. So I have good Davos years, and bad!

But here's the thought which I have every year. Here assembled are the forces of the world economy. There are Heads of State, chiefs of media organizations, top bankers and investors and, of course, Chief Executives, and other C-suite dwellers. But in all my list browsing I have never found anyone with a job title like production worker, machine operative, shift worker, indeed I have never found anyone with the word worker in their title at all!

What does this tell us?

It shows where power is. And it shows where power isn't.

For all our talk of valuing democracy, it's striking how it isn't applied in the workplace - the environment where most people spend most of their working lives.

For all of our talk about staff engagement, it's striking how real power is still held in the hands of a tiny minority, completely ignoring the majority.

My eye is not a socialist one. My eye looks for the mutuality of interest between an organization and its staff. This is not difficult to see if you look for it. It resides in innovation, and a respect for the individual human being, the individual human brain deployed in the community of an organization.

Odd, that the World Economic Forum does not see, or celebrate this.

PUZZLED

We want to see gender balance in Boardrooms. yes?
We stand against sexism, yes?
And we acknowledge the argument (so respected it does not need to be repeated) that gender balanced Boards are in fact good for business, add value. Yes?

So here's a little puzzle with which I've been struggling.

Let's assume there are, say, seven Board members of an organization. And they're all men. Between them they add their value to the organization - a combined total represented as £7 - one pound coin each.

Now, there's a woman can add value too. £1. She's as able as any man.

By rebalancing the gender mix of the Board, greater value can be added. How?