Twitteretter

Humans have shown, over millennia, a pervasive instinct to build deities. Initially, from natural phenomena. The Sun, the stars, wind, thunder. They were all deified. They were followed by others, more powerful and abstractly complex, as cultures evolved. Some, punishing and unforgiving, the God of the Old Testament or those idolised by Aztecs or Mayans. Others, caring and loving. All, omnipresent and omnipotent. At some point in the second half of the XX century, as we became more sophisticated, we seemed to, finally, abandon our reliance on a superior being and started to see ourselves as possessing the ultimate agency in our environment. But old habits die hard. I see, in my interactions with some corporations, a god like cult of their CEO, feared and revered in equal measure. His or her subjects, sorry, employees, thirsty for any measure of interaction, for that occasional revelation or instant of attention from their CEO, all powerful, master of all things. Will we ever grow up? L...

This is at first sight completely obvious, but I still feel worth writing about. Companies have started developing, through their presence in social media, a personality, and building a relationship with their stakeholders. At first, their posts were restricted to information, such as a new product launch, a promotion or an update on a known service issue. This seems a sensible use of the immediacy of social media for communication. However, some are personalising their social media presence, engaging in conversation, expressing opinions. Users are now interacting with them in the second person, tagging them in posts, expecting a response. This may be convenient, but it is important that we realise that we are not interacting with the company, but just with one of its employees, a real person, who, best case, will be trying to act as they think their company’s philosophy would merit. But wait, companies don’t have a philosophy, they don’t have a mind. I feel another Twitteretter coming...

I have lately, through the vagaries of life, become regularly embroiled with corporate life, after a few years in the wild lands of early start up. Strikingly, corporations have become ridden, in my absence, with an extreme risk aversion culture. Dangers everywhere, every single action or interaction a risk of alienating shareholders, stakeholders or, if you push me, even cupholders, inert but I am sure easily upset. Risk management has thus occupied the centre of corporate thinking. How do we act amorally and maximise profit beyond equanimity without upsetting anybody? This is a tough trick to play. Most corporations view the World through the eyes of Jack Nicholson’s Melvin Udall in ‘As good as it gets’. As much effort is devoted to preventing risk, however unlikely, as to whatever it is that the corporation’s business is. I would love it if the question was: ‘How do we do good?’. But, unfortunately, it is: ‘How do we prevent being seen to be up to no good?’ A much tougher assignment...

Since starting Twitteretter I’ve realised that my freedom of expression, a fundamental human right, is restricted. As, in my real job, I run businesses, before I publish every Twitteretter I have to consider whether its content may be detrimental to the prospects of my companies or my position in them, should it be disliked by my audience or, in fact, by anyone who happens to come across the content. Will my opinion upset my customers or shareholders? If so, better keep it to myself. I’ve published a number of Twitteretters which I knew would have just that effect, although moderated or toned down to minimise it. This is a sad reflection of a society in which many have difficulty accepting opinions and world views which don’t agree with their own and where condemnation of different ideas, well beyond moderate disagreement, is prevalent. As one of my companies approaches an IPO, I realise that I either lead it, post IPO, or continue Twitteretter, but probably cannot do both. Easy choice...

I think it is time for me to come out. I have decided to, or more accurately been cajoled into, have two fitted wardrobes made for my apartment. It was pointed out to me that there are only so many clothes you can have lying around and, after some resistance born of stubbornness, I agree. We’ve run through the process, had the designers, toed and froed on shelf and drawer placing and finally settled on a design and a supplier. Multiple times during the process we were reminded the amazing discounts offered were only available should we order before tomorrow. This is tiresome and stupid. It is about closing a sale by using one of the oldest techniques in the closer handbook, fear of loss. It is also going through the motions, we all know that artificial deadline will just continue to move, always to… tomorrow. This is why my Skype handle is a Douglas Adams quote: ‘I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by…’ Live your life without fear of artificial deadlines ...

I had a business meeting today which mainly revolved around Star Wars, featuring my not very good Darth Vader impression and some espresso machine jokes. This may seem unusual, or even incredible, to you, especially if you are not involved in business or if you are, but have not properly understood it. Business, you see, is part of life, for those involved in it. It does not exist to serve money, an inert object which needs no servicing, but rather to serve people, its participants. If you understand this, and many don’t, you then also understand it must be fun and not taken overly seriously. A willing, cooperating, organised group of highly prepared, motivated humans, can achieve a lot. The real trick is to achieve it whilst, at the same time, enjoying it, contributing to creating a virtuous circle around willingness, cooperation and motivation, a self-feeding success. This obvious fact is often missed by those in business who, lacking the perspective of distance, miss its real purpos...

It has lately come to my attention that some corporate organisations are training their employees to help them identify internet scams. Phishing and the like. This is sensible, and these skills are eminently necessary to safely navigate treacherous internet waters. However, some are complementing this training with paying organisations to send their employees phishing emails, to keep their skills sharp. A kind of perverse ‘practice makes perfect’. I probably draw the line at this point. Most working people are already busy enough, and have to contend with enough phishing, spam and everything else. Now, you can add the low level anxiety of what might happen if you mistakenly click on a phishing link from your employer to the low level anxiety caused by what may happen if you click on a phishing link from a bona fide hacker. And, by the way, bona fide and hacker are two expressions I did not expect to ever use in the same sentence so, for this rare paradox opportunity, I am grateful Leng...

The question is prompted by watching, in disbelief, the quick success of business ideas which, at least to my mind, contribute little to our society or way of life. It’s hard to find deep meaning in rising stars like Tik Tok or Facebook, to name a couple. Their success appears fast and huge. Of course, success is not only measured in economic terms, impact and significance carry the day long term, but I may be in a minority these days in professing this iconoclastic view. Even in financial terms, there are larger successes by more meaningful businesses, but they are less public. Meaningless enterprise relies on publicising its success to feed its progress, the proverbial emperor’s new clothes. Plus, our system is not perfect. Meaningless or even harmful businesses will always succeed, but not in numbers. Cocaine trade has succeeded for decades by feeding the need of some for mindless escapism, in the same way as Tik Tok succeeds today by feeding the need of some for mindless narcissism...

We know we have a problem with large multinational corporations not paying due taxes if they can by any means avoid it, which they indeed can. This seems immoral. When so many need solidarity, and when such huge profits are made, how can this tax avoidance be justified? But here there is a problem borne of our personalisation bias, the human tendency to personalise in order to relate and understand. Corporations don’t make a wilful or moral decision to put profit over taxes. The effort to minimise or avoid taxes is rather the result of internal incentives, for managers and financiers, which are not considered on morality but on efficacy. They are just the way things are done, the way business and management schools teach us to act. What is missing from corporations (nearly by definition or necessity) is dreamers, visionaries with the capacity to redesign received wisdom at all levels. All we need for corporates to contribute is for their leaders to focus on this, accept its importance...

One interesting and, from my perspective, welcome trend in business habits evolution is the gradual but undeniable superseding of the business uniform. During my business life I’ve seen first the tie, then the suit and ultimately the shirt and shoes give way to jeans, tshirts and trainers, adding welcome colour and variety to the working environment. However, whilst we are allowing aesthetic personality into the business environment, are we allowing real personality? We may dress differently, but I am still impacted by the uniformity of thinking, attitudes and methods. Business schools churn out uniformity of substance, if not of appearance. Managers, leaders and even employees share the same understanding of the purpose of business, the nature of workplace relationships and the suitability of methods, metrics and practices. The variety of appearance is interesting and fun for a fleeting moment only. I would happily don a suit and tie if we could wear uniqueness in substance in return...

No. Or not only. The title summarises a common view which informs most company management nowadays. The fundamental driver of a company is to maximise shareholder value, simplistically equated to profit or, rather, dividend or yield. This is a misconception. Companies are not only a vehicle to grow shareholder wealth. They are an environment where workers spend a significant part of their day. They are actors in a community, contributing to its dynamics and impacting its environment. They are entities integrated in society and their objective must be maximising the benefit to their stakeholders. These are, in my order of importance, employees (since they spend good part of their lives there and rely on them for their livelihood), customers, suppliers, shareholders, local community and wider community. Shareholders demand continuously growing returns, which drives managers to underpay employees and suppliers, shortchange customers and community. In the midterm, it is a recipe for failur...

Modern business thinking has no time for ethics. True, corporations refer to ethical business, but this is just another product. It is paid lip service, in most cases, as a marketing ploy to attract customers. Some corporations do seem to behave ethically, but not many consistently do. The maximisation of financial returns is the ultimate objective of most businesses and this is widely accepted in society as necessary. But this acceptance is a mistake, the result of an oversimplification early economists made to be able to model economic interactions and the system these build. No universal law dictates this must be the aim of businesses. We could choose to rate and value a business on ethics, or impact on the wellbeing and happiness of stakeholders it interacts with. This is more complex, but would have an incredible effect on our societies. Money has been around so long it is easy to forget it is just a convention to facilitate exchange and, thus, lacks intrinsic merit or substance...

Most people’s understanding of business is that it operates as a highly competitive environment, where you keep your cards close to your chest, do not share any secrets and negotiate as hard as you can to win. This may have been true in the last century, but in many cases it no longer holds, most likely because of the arrival of the internet. The technological innovation challenges which hold the keys to the next great sellers, the next blockbusters, are huge (think climate change solutions, atmosphere cleaning, recovery of lost species, curing cancer,…). The internet has made collaboration easy, and it is by far the most effective way to reach these goals as soon as possible. Making your competitors your collaborators reduces risk, as you will take a part of the prize, sharing with them, rather than risking the all or nothing of competition. Thus, traditional businesses with no potential for innovation may be highly competitive but, in technology, the name of the game is collaboration...

It has become fashionable, in the last few years, for business people to read ‘The Art of War’ by Sun Tzu, a war treatise by a 5 th Century BC Chinese general. I would not go as far as saying it is their favourite text, but many have told me over the last few years that they are reading it. The concept is striking for its significance. It indicates that many of these business people think they are at war and that, to do business successfully, they must understand the apparent wisdom of a warlord from 2,500 years ago. It is paradoxical that business, a discipline that is meant to move technology and human capability forward by bringing discovery and science into application, improving lives in the process, is looking so far back for inspiration. It is worrying that, at a time when we have the collaboration tools needed to foster unprecedented cooperation to faster achieve humanity’s objectives, and with them those of businesses, many engaged in this activity think they are fighting oth...