Take a Good Look at Yourself

I awoke this Saturday morning to news that police had been called to the home of Boris Johnson (the candidate currently in pole position to become the new Prime Minister of the UK) and his girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, due to their neighbours having concerns over Miss. Symonds’ and Mr Johnson’s safety.  I’m not sure that a private tiff should be headline news or that neighbours should be recording each other and sharing their recordings with the press. However, there is no doubt that the altercation has the potential to damage Boris Johnson’s reputation during his bid to lead the Conservative party. Certainly, the conduct and character of the person holding the highest political role in a country is important. Indeed the character of any leader, either in or outside of politics is significant. I work for a financial services business and we expect honesty and integrity from all our staff, indeed we would not hesitate to dismiss someone whom we discovered was not acting in the best interests of clients, had lied for their own gain and/or whom we found not to be treating colleagues and third parties with appropriate respect and consideration. What we do and how we come across is important and, I for one don’t spend sufficient time considering how I seem to those around me.

My boss gave me some constructive but challenging feedback last week – he told me that some people in the business suspect that I have favourites. That for me, as an HR Director, is a significant cause for concern. It is crucial that I am seen as impartial, fair and interested in everyone. I have given his comments a lot of thought (hence this blog) - it is true that one former colleague of mine from a decade ago, a supplier who agreed to jump ship and come in-house and one person I met via a charity we both support, have joined our team – they were recruited without my involvement, but I can see how people, without my being aware of it, might have felt unintentionally pressurised into offering a job to a person who had my initial recommendation. I am confident that each new member of my team has been able to demonstrate well above average skills, but I can see how their hiring could be misperceived.  I’d like to state that I am hugely proud of the people who were in HR when I arrived. The HR offering has changed significantly for the better and it is entirely down to the team. When I arrived I made a deliberate decision not simply to “replace the bulbs” (despite encouragement to do so from some quarters) – I knew that every person had skills and capabilities that would prove invaluable as we turned the business around. Much better to turn bulbs on and demonstrate that positive change can happen – HR has been at the forefront of much of our business transformation and we take pride in leading by example. I have an amazing team.

I genuinely try to treat everyone with equal consideration, but that does not mean that I shy away from difficult conversations when performance dips or when people do or say things that unsettle others. I appreciate that people don’t like it when I call things out, but it is the right thing to do. I know that there are some who are going through tough times, physically, financially, emotionally and mentally - I am grateful that they have let me know - and I have tried to be supportive and understanding. It did not occur to me that those with whom I was spending less time might feel that they were less valued as a result. In my mind, they were fortunate, in that their lives currently seemed less complicated than their colleagues’ and hence they did not need or want as much attention or reassurance. Each of us is different. Some people like to keep work and home very separate. However, perhaps the problem is me and that I haven’t listened well enough or they have not felt comfortable sharing aspects of their lives or problems with me.

Whilst on the subject of impact and impressions (and this post being somewhat confessional) - at the end of a meeting in my office yesterday a colleague made a joke about the messy state of my desk. I am comfortable working with a collection of papers and objects piled around me (it is a family trait I seem to have inherited from my academic grandfather, who co-invented the iron lung, and my lawyer father who was a recognised leader in his field), but perhaps I should be more mindful of the impression it creates on others. There has been lots of research into working space and tidiness. A survey conducted in 2018 on 2,000 UK based employees showed that 41% of workers believe that an organised space is key to doing a good job, but on the flip side, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Mark Twain and Steve Jobs all had messy desks and they seem to have been quite productive. Indeed there is academic research that shows that people are more creative and better at problem solving when they operate within a more cluttered environment.

Mark Twain at his desk

Tidy desks only became expected when the industrial age really started taking hold and Dickensian clerks were being closely watched over. That doesn’t alter the fact that I should be more mindful. Various people at work’s words to me have been a wake up call to contemplate how I am seen by the people I live and work with.

I thoroughly enjoyed a recent trip with a much-loved and perspicacious friend to the National Portrait Gallery. One of the things that we discussed as we wandered through the 19^th, 20^th and 21^st century galleries, all full of famous people, was the impression that each individual had wished to create through their portrait. Did the sitter choose the setting and expression, or did the artist decide that? I suspected that it depended on the sitter – if they were a grand patron or member of royalty they would have more control. What was the choice of lighting (candle or daylight) and why? Why did a number of portraits all share a similar trait (for example a physical one such as ruddy cheeks, perhaps to look like the monarch of the time, or all looking sideways towards the horizon rather than directly confronting the viewer – although many actresses of the same period  seemed to prefer to look you in the eye).

I enjoyed spotting small details that people used to convey messages – the bust of Sir Walter Scott was carefully carved to indicate that he was dressed in plaid and proud of being Scottish.  

James “Jem” Wharton, painted by the Liverpudlian artist William Davies, shows the highly successful boxer at the height of his career – he commenced fighting in 1833 and retired undefeated in 1840. He then ran a tavern in Liverpool as well as being a boxing trainer and promoter. The picture is a very early depiction of boxing gloves and they seem to indicate that Jem had been training before the painting was done, as gloves did not become mandatory in fights until after the adoption of the Queensbury Rules later in the century. 

What looks like a dashing Spanish shawl tied around his waist are in fact the “colours” from his latest victory (we still talk of sportspeople winning their colours – but they no longer wear them tied round their midriffs.) In Jem’s days wearing the colours were an important message, advertising his skill and success. Not all the portraits at the Gallery were intended to convey a meaning, the charming sketch of Jane Austen, done by her sister Cassandra, is just that, a frank family sketch painted simply to depict her likeness. Many have commented on the fact that, with the advent of photography, painted and drawn portraits of everyday people are becoming less common. Most of the 21^st century pictures had clearly been commissioned. The picture of the chef, restaurateur and writer Fergus Henderson cradling a suckling pig in his arms was a particular favourite of my companion – it is witty and says so much in such a simple way.  

Fergus Henderson beside his portrait
now hanging in the National Portrait Gallery

Some leaders in business and politics are effective at using items to make a simple statement. I was particularly struck earlier this year by the dignity and compassion displayed by the New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, following the terrible killings in the mosques in Christchurch. Her wearing a headscarf said so much and was noticed around the world (and indeed her action was followed by many women in New Zealand to demonstrate their solidarity with the Moslem community).

Corporates can make decisions relating to the appearance of their staff that make a statement to the wider community – the mandatory wearing of high heels has been much debated, in contrast, this week Virgin Atlantic announced that it is no longer compulsory for female cabin crew to wear make-up.  Have you considered the subliminal messages provided by what you wear or don’t wear? One area for consideration is colour. There is a considerable amount of research into the psychology of colours and how they affect emotions, perceptions and reactions. Roman Emperors wore Tyrian purple because it made a statement (it was so expensive and difficult to make, relying on the death of at least ten thousands snails per toga).

Influential Puritans in Britain in the 17^th Century reportedly wore black – it not only demonstrated that they were pious because they used no colour to adorn themselves, but also told people that they were successful and wealthy,

because a good quality black was hard to produce and hence expensive (the majority of puritans wore brown and indigo). Another aspect of appearance is hair (be it facial or the stuff on top of your head). I remember a bearded colleague once being introduced on his first day as the “soon to be no longer hirsute Mr X” - a clear message from our boss that he was expected to shave. More recently, I notice that Boris Johnston has trimmed his conventionally unruly mop of hair, presumably in a bid to widen his appeal amongst the Conservative electorate. I know that I look a bit wild at the moment, perhaps, now that I am trying to be more self aware, I’d better get my ends trimmed or even a professional bob instead of my flowing mane. What do you think?

When did you last take a good look at yourself?

"Man in the Mirror" - Michael Jackson

Of Nice and Men

Day 34 (Sunday 3rd January 2015)

34 is the age at which men are "at their most attractive"
(according to research conducted by Allure Magazine,
using a sample of 2000 respondents);
for women perceived peak appeal is at the age of 30.
Personally I don't think that age is important.

How are you enjoying the first weekend of the New Year? I am off to West Sussex to visit friends. I will be taking traditional New Year gifts of food, drink, light and heat to wish them well for the months ahead. I am looking forward to spending some time with them relaxing and catching up on news.

After the rush of the past few weeks, it is good to sit quiet and contemplate. This reflective post by Tim Scott hits the spot. Tim is Head of People and OD at the charity Brook, based in Liverpool and winner of the HR Management category of the 2015 Charity Times Awards. Tim is a social media adept - active on Twitter (his handle is@TimScottHR), he blogs (his site is  , but he also writes guest posts for the CIPD and for HRD (HR Director) magazine, and he has even co-authored a book on "Putting Social Media to Work" and future-casting the world of work in a decade's time. Tim has an active life IRL - he is a devoted father, husband and a music-nut. He often brightens people's timelines through his quick wit, repartee, sound advice and music recommendations.

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It feels to me like 2015 was a year of austerity and blame, celebrity and social antisocial-ness. All too often, what marked us apart was given more attention than the things we have in common. We saw it demonstrated time and time again that people are complex, messy and unpredictable. 

As we go about doing our daily stuff, we all leave trails in our wake through our actions, interactions and lack of action - like a comet's sparkly tail streams after it and coal leaves behind a dirty, powdery dust. The theme of this year's Advent blogs made me wonder whether, in this time of supposed mindfulness, we are really mindful of the trail we are leaving - and particularly the impact it has on others?

What I see on a daily basis suggests that not all of us are. For example, just a few minute ago I was walking to the station to catch the train I'm currently travelling on. Two men passed each other on the pavement in front of me, walking in opposite directions. Neither moved completely out of the others' way and they ended up catching each other's shoulders awkwardly. What surprised me most was that neither even broke their stride: without a backward glance, they carried on walking. 

Days of Judgement Cats in the City, sculpture by Laura Ford, 2015

This was hardly a life-changing incident - I imagine similar things happen thousands of times a day - but it was quite a forceful impact and for neither party to apologise or even acknowledge what happened didn't feel right somehow. Maybe I'm old-fashioned on this kind of thing but it all felt a bit, well, "not nice" as my kids would say. 

"Nice", is a seriously underrated attribute in my view. We see "nice" as being almost an insult sometimes, suggesting something insipid or just OK - particularly in business and management where we still regard Sir Alan Sugar's pantomime baddie act as something to aspire to. 

Personally, I regard being called nice as a compliment. I remember being involved with a disciplinary dismissal years ago and as I was escorting the unfortunate ex-employee from the premises, she thanked me. I said, somewhat incredulously, "why are you thanking me? We've just dismissed you!" She said "Yeah, but you did it nicely". 

Not every dismissal I have been involved with has gone quite so smoothly but that's an occupational hazard for a whole other blog...

My ultimate point I guess is that sometimes HOW we do stuff is as important as WHAT we do in terms of the impact on other people. In our day-to-day interactions, we can choose the how, even if we can't choose the what. Would it have hurt those two guys to have apologised to each other? Certainly not as much as the initial impact must have - and it might have eased the glowering look on the face of the chap coming towards me. So my challenge is, as we enter the start of the New Year and look back on the old: what is the impact you are having on the people around you? What trail do you leave in your wake? As someone said at a conference I was at recently, "Do you light up a room when you enter it - or when you leave it?" Are you sprinkling magical comet trails or depositing sooty coal dust?

P.S. Apologies for the appalling title. Sometimes once I think of these things I can't get them out of my head. Just like you are probably now singing Kylie to yourself. Sorry again.

Of Nice and Men

Day 34 (Sunday 3rd January 2015)

34 is the age at which men are "at their most attractive"
(according to research conducted by Allure Magazine,
using a sample of 2000 respondents);
for women perceived peak appeal is at the age of 30.
Personally I don't think that age is important.

How are you enjoying the first weekend of the New Year? I am off to West Sussex to visit friends.

After the rush of the past few weeks, it is good to sit quiet and contemplate. This reflective post by Tim Scott hits the spot. Tim is Head of People and OD at the charity Brook, based in Liverpool and winner of the HR Management category of the 2015 Charity Times Awards. Tim is a social media adept - active on Twitter (his handle is @TimScottHR), he blogs (his site is  , but he also writes guest posts for the CIPD and for HRD (HR Director) magazine, and he has even co-authored a book on "Putting Social Media to Work" and future-casting the world of work in a decade's time. Tim has an active life IRL - he is a devoted father, husband and a music-nut. He often brightens people's timelines through his quick wit, repartee, sound advice and music recommendations.

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It feels to me like 2015 was a year of austerity and blame, celebrity and social antisocial-ness. All too often, what marked us apart was given more attention than the things we have in common. We saw it demonstrated time and time again that people are complex, messy and unpredictable. 

As we go about doing our daily stuff, we all leave trails in our wake through our actions, interactions and lack of action - like a comet's sparkly tail streams after it and coal leaves behind a dirty, powdery dust. The theme of this year's Advent blogs made me wonder whether, in this time of supposed mindfulness, we are really mindful of the trail we are leaving - and particularly the impact it has on others?

What I see on a daily basis suggests that not all of us are. For example, just a few minute ago I was walking to the station to catch the train I'm currently travelling on. Two men passed each other on the pavement in front of me, walking in opposite directions. Neither moved completely out of the others' way and they ended up catching each other's shoulders awkwardly. What surprised me most was that neither even broke their stride: without a backward glance, they carried on walking. 

Days of Judgement Cats in the City, sculpture by Laura Ford, 2015

This was hardly a life-changing incident - I imagine similar things happen thousands of times a day - but it was quite a forceful impact and for neither party to apologise or even acknowledge what happened didn't feel right somehow. Maybe I'm old-fashioned on this kind of thing but it all felt a bit, well, "not nice" as my kids would say. 

"Nice", is a seriously underrated attribute in my view. We see "nice" as being almost an insult sometimes, suggesting something insipid or just OK - particularly in business and management where we still regard Sir Alan Sugar's pantomime baddie act as something to aspire to. 

Personally, I regard being called nice as a compliment. I remember being involved with a disciplinary dismissal years ago and as I was escorting the unfortunate ex-employee from the premises, she thanked me. I said, somewhat incredulously, "why are you thanking me? We've just dismissed you!" She said "Yeah, but you did it nicely". 

Not every dismissal I have been involved with has gone quite so smoothly but that's an occupational hazard for a whole other blog...

My ultimate point I guess is that sometimes HOW we do stuff is as important as WHAT we do in terms of the impact on other people. In our day-to-day interactions, we can choose the how, even if we can't choose the what. Would it have hurt those two guys to have apologised to each other? Certainly not as much as the initial impact must have - and it might have eased the glowering look on the face of the chap coming towards me. So my challenge is, as we enter the start of the New Year and look back on the old: what is the impact you are having on the people around you? What trail do you leave in your wake? As someone said at a conference I was at recently, "Do you light up a room when you enter it - or when you leave it?" Are you sprinkling magical comet trails or depositing sooty coal dust?

P.S. Apologies for the appalling title. Sometimes once I think of these things I can't get them out of my head. Just like you are probably now singing Kylie to yourself. Sorry again.

Walking in our Parents' Shadow

I am writing this on Father’s Day. I confess that I have been thinking a lot about parental impact and the outcomes of childhood events over the past few weeks – mainly due to some excellent plays and live performances that I have seen over the last month. I’m off to see Alice’s Adventures Underground this afternoon – the story of a little girl on an adventure without parental supervision (a bit like adulthood for me – my world is full of wonder and unexpected encounters). 

A joy of living in London is the easy access to the Arts. Last Saturday I saw one of the world’s best troupes of Tango dancers – offering slick flicking, sensuous holds and slides that seduced the audience into roaring and stamping their approval. The Belgian choreographer, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, had managed to instil different forms of human relationships into the dance, ranging from mourners offering condolence at a funeral to the joys and intimacy of first love. There was one disturbing sequence that clearly demonstrated emotional and physical abuse – the impact of one person on another was obvious and thought provoking. 

In addition to the tango, I have enjoyed two excellent plays (more about them below); the farewell performance of one of the world’s prima ballerinas, Sylvie Guillem; and a live concert by a man commonly hailed as the world’s best guitar player. The latter was Eric Clapton playing at the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate his 70th birthday (it was 50 years since his first performance at the iconic London venue) – he is a brilliant guitarist – he clearly loves what he does and does it often; despite the size of the venue, it felt like sitting with friends jamming in their front room (perhaps that was enhanced for my eldest son and me as we were actually sitting on the stage and were able to exchange grins with Nathan East) – the home-like impact was reinforced by the fact that Clapton had his own small carpet, brought onto the stage before the start, and he sat on it, on a stool, while he strummed. 

Clapton's carpet:

His voice is still strong and compelling. It was a brilliant and memorable evening.

The following Saturday I saw the RSC’s production of Oppenheimerstarring John Heffernan in the title role (I am also enjoying watching him as Lascelles in the BBC’s stunning serialisation of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norris, which is screening on Sunday evenings and is worth catching on iPlayer, even if only for the impressive CGI. Three of us went to see Oppenheimer – my youngest son, and also my friend Michael and me. Michael’s being with us was a real treat and a privilege as, despite being in his early 40’s, it was the first time he had been to the theatre. Theatre has been part of my life since childhood – family trips to the pantomime, acting in local dramatic productions, flipping a coin between a career on the stage or studying Law. The impact of seeing a play for the very first time when you already have a wealth of knowledge, an adult perspective and other events against which to gauge the occurrence, must be extraordinary. Michael is very well read and a film and music aficionado. I was actually quite jealous of his ability to have the experience, as well as nervous at the responsibility of being his introducer.

Thank goodness the play was good – superbly acted and full of depth. I hope that one day he will blog about his impressions, as he had an artistic encounter that most of us reading this will never be able to undergo. 

A connecting thread for all the productions I have seen was the impact of childhood incidents on the future lives of individuals. The RSC  production of Death of a Salesman was stunning and a core theme is the impact of parents on their children. However I will cover it in my next post. Eric Clapton was born to a single mother – his father was a soldier stationed in England during World War II, who returned to his wife in Canada, leaving a pregnant sixteen-year-old girl to cope alone. Her parents stepped in as surrogate parents to the infant Eric and raised him – indeed he believed for many years that his mother was his sister. The discovery of the truth, when he was aged nine, had a profound impact on Eric, plunging him into a period of self-distancing and rebellion, this resulted in his failing at school. He fell in love with the guitar, spending all his time listening to the blues in his early teenage years, this lead to his being expelled from Kingston College of Art, as he had done no work. He had always felt “different” from others and dropped out to become a musician, commencing as a busker in Richmond and Kingston (to the west of London,) whilst supporting himself by working as a labourer on building sites alongside his grandfather. He played pubs in the evenings and soon became the most talked about R&B player on the circuit. His local notoriety lead to him being offered a place with a band, the Yardbirds – where he gained his nickname, “Slowhand”, and this saw the start of his musical fame. 

Guillem and Nureyev - Giselle, 1988

Sylvie Guillem is another artist who has always felt herself to be different and, despite her talent and immense global success, she has remained removed from mainstream classical ballet. She was Rudolf Nureyev’s protégé at the Paris Opéra Ballet, which she joined aged 16, becoming the youngest person to become an “etoile” at the age of 19. Like Nureyev, she was happy to stand apart from the crowd, gaining the nickname “Mademoiselle Non” and she left the Royal Ballet in London when she feared that a change of management would compromise its approach towards productions. Guillem, like Clapton, was impacted by her childhood and to this day remains shy, rebellious and socially awkward, until the moment she steps on the stage. She has humble roots - she grew up in the suburbs of Paris, her father a car mechanic and her mother a gym teacher. There was no music in her home and she was devoted to her family. Her aspirations as a child were to become an Olympic gymnast. She loved the free-expression available to her in gymnastics and found the authoritarian approach and discipline of ballet training tortuous – mainly due to the teachers’ lack of open-mindedness and vision.

She trained with ballerinas because her gymnastic coach felt it might enhance her performance, but it soon became clear that she possessed exceptional talent as a dancer. She hated having to board a ballet school and, deeply homesick, nearly threw her future away, until her mother challenged her to stop crying and apply herself or leave. With steely determination, for which she is famed, Guillem made a conscious decision to change and progress – from then onwards she started drifting away from her roots, but became a star. 

Sylvie Guillem by Erick Labbé, 2011

Sometimes a hard start in life makes you more determined and resilient.Oppenheimer, (the central character of the play that Michael came to see with my son and me), also made a conscious decision to change and become removed and resilient, following a disturbing incident when he was 14. Robert Oppenheimer was the American theoretical physicist selected to head the US’s Army’s secret weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, during World War II, which developed the atomic bomb. He is claimed to have quoted from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita (XI, 32): 

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

when he watched the first nuclear explosion test in the US dessert, although his brother Frank (also a physicist) claims that what he actually said at the time was “it worked”. Oppenheimer was apparently deeply disturbed by an event that occurred in his early teens that, like Guillem, encouraged him to become detached and personally driven.  

He was an academic child, encouraged to be so by his father and grandfather. Being a bit of a know-all, he was not a popular child at school. One summer, during his early adolescence, his parents sent him away to summer camp – to boat, do sport and play in the countryside with other boys. It appears that Oppenheimer commenced making friends and enjoyed the camaraderie and smutty discussions in the dorm at night. However, he wrote and told his father, who was shocked, drove to the camp and demanded that such behaviour had to stop. The boys were summoned, publicly dressed-down and ordered to desist. It comes as no surprise that this made Oppenheimer very unpopular. Shortly after the boys turned on him, stripped him naked, trussed him up, painted his genitals and buttocks green and left him locked overnight in an icehouse until found by an attendant. Instead of demanding to be allowed to go him, Oppenheimer stuck it out until the end of the camp, enduring daily taunts. This experience had a profound impact and from then onwards Oppenheimer deliberately detached himself from those around him, at times being deliberately obnoxious and at times offensive in his intellectually arrogant (such as the time when a university student that he finished reading a paper by his professor and handed it back to him saying “I couldn’t find any mistake – did you really do this all alone?”). We are moulded by the way our parents impact our lives.  

On Wednesday it was announced that Philip Larkin, who died in 1985, is to be commemorated with a memorial stone set in the floor at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey. To my mind there is no doubt that he is one of the exceptional English language poets of the 20th Century, although I suspect many only know one of his poems (or can at least quote its first line). I wonder if Larkin was aware of the influence his own mum and dad had had on him when he wrote this: 

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don’t have any kids yourself.

  This Be The Verse, by Philip Larkin, 1971

The first four lines were recited by a British Court of Appeal judge as part of his judgement of a particularly acrimonious divorce case involving the future custody arrangements of a nine-year-old child. Lord Justice Wall referred to the emotional damage caused to the child, saying: "These four lines seem to me to give a clear warning to parents who, post-separation, continue to fight the battles of the past, and show each other no respect.”

“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged pieces beyond repair.” - Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven.

I do fret about how I have impacted and continue to influence my sons – I can see and feel the marks and smudges of my parents’ impact on myself and my siblings. So many of my friends have suffered as a result of their parents: interpersonally crippled by unduly authoritarian and aggressive fathers; emotionally damaged by hypercritical, obsessive and destructive mothers; beaten and assaulted by adults to the extent that they had to run away or take legal action to rescue younger siblings. What is interesting is that many of those who had the toughest times are now the ones that stand out as successful, but they are frequently also the ones most aloof from the crowd. More of that to follow…

(This is the first of two posts that look at the influence parents have on their offspring. I trust you enjoyed it.)