DON'T PANIC MR MANNERING

It’s the silliness but accuracy of human observation that still makes ‘Dad’s Army’ appealing. It has this ironic sense of human incompetence, despite itself, prevailing over catastrophe.

Today economic forecasts are worsening with growth figures stagnating to just + 0.1% in the first quarter, the worst figures for six years. Worse still the EU did rather well in the same quarter. Words like “collapse, slide and crisis” fill the papers. As Harold MacMillan once said when asked what Prime Minsters most feared: “Events, dear boy, events”

UK growth slows to brink of stagnation 

And this is an event. So is it time to panic? No. Is it time to tear up our aggressive growth plan? Maybe. Is it time to recalibrate our expectations? Absolutely. Panic is tremendously popular. It involves lots of action, noise and apparent leadership. Panic is essential in creating a crisis where seemingly strong people pretend they’re in charge. Steven Leacock the Canadian writer got this spot on when he wrote this:

“Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions”.

Steve Peters the famous Australian sports psychologist has a simple philosophy:

Life is unfair.

And they keep moving the goalposts.

But you can only try your best.

Yet we demand that leaders are proactive and that they get a grip. Matthew Parrish in Saturday’s Times describes the dilemma of a Secretary of State who inherits pockets of unpleasant history and is expected to have read, considered and interrogated every memo, e-mail or conversation relating to these specific issues. In particular our current Home Secretary seems not to have assimilated a six page memo on Windrush. Not surprising really. I hate six page memos and I’m in in good company. Winston Churchill in his famously short memo entitled “Brevity” says this at the start:

"To do our work, we all have to read a mass of papers. Nearly all of them are far too long. This wastes time, while energy has to be spent in looking for the essential points,"

What we need is patience not panic.

The urgency of social media has created panic via a tyranny which demands spontaneous as opposed to considered decisiveness. We are living in a crisis ridden present. We are having existential crises - moments at which individuals questions if their life has meaning, purpose, or value. Yes that’s May, Corbyn, Rudd and the rest in the weekend just past.

We all live in a world of optimistic targets, the missing of which is a criminal sin. But you can only do your best and only by recalibrating your growth trajectory can you return to a world of sanity, common sense free of that bastard panic.

Consider Monty Don, who presents ”Gardener’s World.” Impressively laid back like most gardeners he watches nature unfold every year and works with it. He doesn’t drive change management programmes. And he doesn’t panic  - he just seems rather sensible.

ARE YOU REALLY WORKING HARD ENOUGH?

“The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.”

Those were the words of President Trump at his inauguration.  Yes those were the words of President Trump at his inauguration. Have you noticed, whether for emphasis or whatever, he repeats himself….constantly saying the same thing twice.

“The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.”

There you go again.

So is the USA embarked on four years of blood, sweat and toil? Will Trump be dragging people back to sweaty manual labour like coal mining whilst the rest of us are in driverless cars moving towards the inevitable digital economy?

In Japan this week there was something of a panic surrounding people working too hard. 50 hour weeks, they say, are killing people. They’re considering stopping work at 3pm every Friday so people can go shopping and stimulate the economy. Yet 50 hours is only a five days from 8am to 6pm. Every executive I know does at least that.

The myth that any work in excess of 40 hours a week is counter-productive is as arbitrary as the weekly alcohol limit of 14 units for men and women unless you’re Spanish and male when it’s 35 units. “Aclamaciones!!”

Hunter/Gatherers in the distant past only worked a 22 hour week. And now some of us are envisaging a virtually work free life waited upon by good looking robots. But I actually don’t get what all the fuss is about. If you get it even vaguely right there is hardly any distinction between work and play.

But there are times when being a workaholic just seems misplaced. I recently heard about a friend who had undergone heroic surgery on his heart. I asked how he was doing to be told he was not doing all that well especially as his recent promotion meant he had to work even harder.

Like that lady in a senior post in Intel saying: “I have this work/life balance thing nailed.
It’s work, work, work.” But acting busy rather than enjoying being busy is tiresome.  Alpha Go is an Artificial Intelligence system owned by Google. Against expectation it beat the “Go” World Champion Lee Sedol recently. Philosopher Mark Rowlands got it perfectly when he described the game at its most intense:
“There is the joy of focus, the experience of being completely immersed in what one is doing.”

And that’s what real work is like.

Leisure on the other hand can be rather boring. Read a Jane Austen novel and reflect on how tedious having nothing much to do in 1800 was for many of what are the now-busy middle class. Certainly small town social politics in places like Chawton where she spent the last twelve years of her life seems rather depressing.
The real trick is in wanting to do what you have to do. Because involvement is always better than being disengaged.

Just as Barack Obama will already be discovering.