GO ON. BRING ME EXCITEMENT.

OK, I’ve changed my mind. Now the time’s right for some excitement. A surprise. A bit of spontaneity. Perhaps a bit of danger. In cricket that series in Australia sums up how most of us feel: lethargic, disengaged, disappointing. Depressingly the effect of nearly two years of Covid has been to make many of us rather dull. 

I had underestimated the importance and the effect of travel and adventure. I realised I was missing the frisson of excitement of being in an airport, the anticipation of airline food (isn’t that crazy when that food is generally dreadful?) and the thrill of taking off. I understood I had aged wearily and become a housebound Victor Meldrew (that geriatric misery of an antihero from a bygone BBC TV series.)

Yet the world is providing us with plenty of excitement and drama. At home we have the impending defenestration of a Prime Minister in the pantomime of British politics (“behind you Boris”.) The sort of thing you’d expect in Patagonia or Ecuador not the UK.  In France an election in April which Macron is determined to win. When he called our own Prime Minister “a clown” he showed the sort of restraint and insight a President needs. 

In America the mid-terms are impending and as far as the world is concerned the contest will be dramatic and potentially tragic. It’s something we can’t keep our eyes off. In Australia, or as someone described it “the biggest prison in the world,” the politicians are playing their own version of tennis with Novak Djokovic or Mr Forgetful as he’s also known. 

Sweep around and in China there’s incredulity at the news about a lady of theirs. MI5 sent out an alert and picture of the woman named Christine Lee on Thursday alleging she was "involved in political interference activities" in the United Kingdom on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. Barry Gardner, a Labour Shadow Minister, was allegedly paid £400,000 by Ms Lee over the past years. A spy in plain sight…bizarre. 

We are spectators of non-stop high drama and life changing events. But it’s making us even more stressed and depressed. 

Yet on Saturday I read about a 19-year-old who’s just broken the record for being the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe. Her name is Zara Rutherford, she took 5 months to do it and she accomplished it in a Microlight. What an adventure. What enterprise. How refreshing.

We have been fed a diet of rules, restrictions, health scares and statistics which has turned many of us into scaredy cats and bores. What a catastrophic cocktail. I met a bright young person who lives nearby waiting to cross the road on Saturday. We talked about how strange the world was. She told me she was supposed to be going to a local comedy club but that she’d probably give it a miss - “too many people crammed together laughing” she explained. I told her to go. I wouldn’t have done that two weeks ago.  

It's time to change the way we behave and look at things in a variety of ways. We need to:

• Get busy

• Get talking on the phone to several friends or better still face to face

• Go to one event next week – gallery, cinema, theatre

• Go for a long walk

• Go out to a restaurant

And then plan a series of “adventures” like going to places you’ve never been before.

Check your adrenalin levels, happiness index and sense of energy. Excitement and the thrill of the unknown are needed. Kerpow!!!

BEING CRAZY CAN HELP

Ricardo is a name I’m often called by friends and the name I use in Venice (Venetians find Richard Hall – ‘Risher Hore’ – an unpalatable  mouthful). 

Ricardo is a good name. I like it. So does Ricardo Semler – founder of Semco the Brazilian conglomerate – who was on TED Talks recently  and was once again a source of great inspiration. He’s 61 now and has been “running” the company since he was 21. He took over from his father when Semco was mainly a failing shipbuilding business. Ricardo who constantly rowed with his autocratic father prior to taking over was given the reins and his father retired to avoid having Ricardo storm out. His father’s move, as it transpires, was very shrewd.

Unlike his father Ricardo wanted to diversify and break the company into self- governing satellites. He also wanted to liberalise the management style. But first the executioner. In his first week he fired 60 % of the top management. This is what others have called the “permafrost” in an atrophied business. 

He then worked like crazy nearly killing himself. His moment of epiphany, his “why do we exist?” moment came as he lay on a hospital bed. This led him to create an organization culture which exhibits a unique form of participative management. There are no set timings of work, employees decide their productivity targets, they decide on who their boss will be, they decide on what they should be paid, holidays can be taken at will and so on. By any MBA standards utterly crazy. 

Today the company spans environmental consultancy, facilities management, real estate brokerage and inventory support. It’s products include rocket fuel, cooling towers and a world famous teak sealer. It’s very diverse. By any MBA standards utterly crazy.

Ricardo’s come-to-Jesus-moment was as he lay on that hospital bed 36 years ago but his feelings about taking a new look at life and work is intensifying. A small example was him saying: 

“Working through a weekend to get a task completed is one thing but the real sign of growing up is going to the cinema on Monday afternoon.”

The people you should want to hire and work with need all the classic characteristics – energy, enthusiasm and expertise – but they also need to be cool, thoughtful and balanced. But most of all they need to be a little crazy sometimes. If we believe creativity matters and makes a difference we shan’t find that in people who are bored and boring, people who relish crisis above taking a break to replenish the mind. 

Our biggest problem today is the pace at which everything happens, is reported and which, apparently, requires action to be taken. This leads to bad decisions being taken without enough data or thought. 

The most striking thing about Ricardo is his sheer joy in life and his relaxed  view of life. His management style and view of leadership as he himself concedes in his 1988 book “Maverick”  is out of the ordinary and somewhat eccentric. His 2003 book “The Seven Day Weekend” goes further. But his philosophy is intensely human and as such intensely appealing.

As I listened to him I recognised in his words a burning sense of a strategist. Whilst most people in business are focused on the next quarters earnings or today's crisis (and if there isn’t one looming creating one) he’s taking a long view of what will be a short career – most of us only have jobs for only 40 or so years.

So why do we exist? We exist to enjoy life, to help others enjoy it, to make the world a better place (often in just in a small way) and to celebrate the magic and majesty of existence.

Crazy stuff existence. Make the most of it.