HANGOVER FROM HELL OR A BIT OF INSIGHT?

Yes. It’s Conference Time again…or Leadership Summit or Kick-Off. Our loved ones expect us to come back reeking of cigarettes, cheap perfume and a four-day-hangover…”but Richard you don’t even like whisky”.  

What I don’t like at these do’s are elephants in rooms (like a forthcoming redundancy programme no-one mentions), inspirational speakers (who having climbed Everest singlehanded talk about teamwork…as if they knew), mind games and sports exercises which bring the worst out of anyone halfway intelligent. I hate the phoney nature of skill-set transfer - cook tapas or play the drums and learn to lead. But it’s those £15,000 speakers who really drive me crazy. I heard one last year whom the CEO dryly observed seemed to be “something of an over achiever.” He’d saved countless companies, engineered innumerable start-ups, played international sport, walked to the North and South Poles several times and was utterly loathsome. (Not Ranulph below who’s lovely but barking.)

Asked for his comments about this meeting of a huge, mature, leading brand name company in a declining sector he responded:-

“I can’t understand the lack of ambition here - you’ve said 3% growth is ambitious. It’s not. It’s pathetic. You should be looking for 40% growth or 400% …settling for less is weak.”

I also cringe at the acronyms like TEAM (Together everyone achieves more).

But occasionally like a really good party these things just come off. The magic ingredients seem to be to treat everyone like grown-ups, create a pleasing ambiance, have good food and drink and conversation and be entertained by the professionalism of your own people.

I’ve just been at one like that.

It was inspiring, informative and full of debate; there was good bonding and it was highly enjoyable and never silly.

I thought the amassed salaries in the room of say £15 million might have been inspired to throw in 10% extra aligned effort as a result of their highly focused experience - worth at least £1.5 million - which made it a great investment.

Lucy Kellaway, lead writer on the Financial Times who is the chief naysayer of corporate jamborees and alpha males on the rampage would have approved.

She would have liked these nice people talking about their work and how to do it better. She’d have liked the absence of bullshit (and sport). She’d have approved that the central topic of conversation was selling more or coaching better not trying to discover the parallel between people’s day-job and potholing…
”the deeper you go the more you learn, but you need your team around you because it’s dark as hell down there and if you slip you die…. just as it is in this Toilet Tissue market we’re in right now.”

It’s all about being grown up, focused and talking about what really matters. Harry Potter is all very well but please keep him out of the boardroom.

Let’s talk about business instead. It’s more important. And it’s more fun.