MONET. MONET. MONET.

This week I went to the incredibly popular Royal Academy show “Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse”. It had been described by the Guardian as

“a ravishing joy from start to finish”.

Yet - oh dear. Am I a philistine? I was a bit bored. Monet is in the money as an artist - one of his many lilies “The Water Lily Pond” sold for $54 million at New York in May last year but there was a dreary sameness of colourful blobs throughout the exhibition. I found myself growling that flowers are precise and mathematical in design not random slobs. My mind was annoyed and my heart unmoved.

Until I came to the less well known Alfred Parsons (no me neither). Born in 1847 he died in 1920. He lived in Broadway where artists of the late 19th century congregated.   He was an artist, illustrator and a garden designer. As it happens I know one of the gardens he designed. It’s wonderful.

Here is the picture that really caught my wife’s eye and mine. It has movement and invites you in. It is one of the pictures in the RA that actually smelt of flowers. These rude orange lilies reek of summer and there’s a back story behind that gate…a couple embracing or a cat sunning itself. The painting is alive. It’s also valuable but more like $20,000 than $20 million.

I’ve decided to listen to my heart more and less to what I’m told to think. And let that terrible expression of the second rate businessman “the devil lies in the detail” be forever sent into exile. That’ll be good news for Boris Johnson whom, as far as I know is not keen on gardening, painting or detail.  If he had a song here’s how it would go:-

“You put your right arm in
your right arm out
In, out, in, out,
You shake it all about.
You do the Hokey Cokey and you turn around
That's what it's all about...”

But I digress….

After recent weeks of working on presentations and reading business books I’d had enough. They maybe full of quotable stuff from chaps like Peter Drucker positioning culture as the key to success:

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” he said; right on Peter.

Because yes, it’s good (but like Monet is it worth the money?) So I decided to refresh my mind with some John Le Carré.

My wife had bought me “The Night Manager” which is also currently on TV - it’s BBC drama at its swaggering best. The book’s astonishing, dense and beautifully written; it speaks to my mind and to my heart.

He’s such a fine craftsman and his definition of what a story is, is  unsurpassable:
“‘The cat sat on the mat’ is not a story.
‘The cat sat on another cat’s mat’ is a story.”

He also wrote a book called “The Constant Gardener” which brings me back to Monet……
Painting the Mo Garden: Monet to Matisse

DREAM-TAKERS, SHERPAS AND TWO FIRST HALVES

I was at a conference about “sporting excellence” last week run by Noggin the people-performance people. You never know about these events do you? Lots of sports people comparing discus throwing with strategic planning - Olympic medals being shown around and stories of daring-do.

Yet there was some really great stuff here.
I became convinced “thriving” was the greatest state of economic grace we individually, corporately and nationally should aspire to….doing well, “doing just what we should do”. Gardens thrive; they don’t win; they don’t go for super-growth (and when they do they fall over.)
I listened in amazement to the juggernaut flattened Gold medallist James Cracknell  (cycling across America for fun he was very nearly killed by a truck) who described the winning strategy of the rowing four – “make sure your worst is better than their best”. He also talked about the recovery from his near death experience and the negativism of some doctors. “Don’t let the dream-takers get in the way” he said. Dream-takers are the enemy of our ambition and excitement.
Many of those talking were very good mentors and coaches with some telling insights. I loved the idea that we spend too much time on autopsies…it’s true that in business much too much time is spent on the past. But it was listening to Billie Bragg on the radio that I heard a blinding definition of mentors as “sherpas”-   helping the people they mentor get to the top of their particular mountain.
And talking of climbing – the extraordinary rock climber Mike Weekes gave advice for life that we should all take. In climbing he said (and most people get this wrong) do the easy stuff fast, only take time over the really hard stuff. And don’t hang on for grim death – this is a fingertip, light touch business. Like life.
Finally the hugely impressive Jeff Grout,  formerly Sir Clive Woodward’s business manager, who described the Lion’s discovery when winning the World Cup,  that they always started the first half better than the second half in matches. So they changed into completely clean kit for the second half thereby playing two first halves. Here’s an obsession with detail and changing the weather in their minds.
Grout said, have ambitions, set performance goals and then step by step set up processes to deliver the goal. If the process is right the outcome will follow.
But I’m still thinking about the weather in my mind…what a great concept.