Now I Am Grumpy!
Iain Maclean
Programme Director: Business Transformation, Digital, AI, System Migration. Published author
Amongst the many stories in the UK news this morning are three that share a common theme:
- The UK Rail Regulator reports that the timetable fiasco is down to a lack of ownership, they could not identify any one body responsible for ensuring that the timetable is viable.
- Brexit is going ahead because the majority of the electorate voted for it, even though the majority would not vote for it now.
- Scientists report that a successful treatment for Alzheimer's Disease exists but that it is only available in China and Japan due to contractual rights issues when drug companies merged. It was also not realised in the West that this treatment was available and had been tested on an Alzheimer's population because the research documents were written in Chinese.
What is the theme? It is stupidity!
Some of the cleverest, smartest people I know are British or at least live in the UK, so what on Earth is going on?
Over the last 10 years I have come to the conclusion that there are two systemic issues at the core:
- Very often the wrong people get promoted within companies because they know how to play 'the system', and so we end up with incompetent senior management.
- Our laws increasingly require us to be 'all things to all people', and so even competent leaders become hogtied by legislation and spend their tenure doing/achieving nothing.
I am not asking you to join a group, like Groucho Marx I would never belong to any club that would have me as a member, but if you are in a leadership position and you are competent, then please just pick a [logical] direction and go for it - you will upset some people but if enough of us do this then just maybe we will dig ourselves out of this wasteful morass. In other words 'get a pair'!
[I could not believe the Alzheimer's subject was being discussed so calmly on BBC Radio 4 this morning when so many listeners are dying of the disease - it's an utter disgrace!]
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Iain Maclean is a partner with M2P, and managing director of ICIFM.
Here are some other articles by Iain:
Freelance Copywriter and Fiction Editor at Call Of The Word
6 年This post is quite shocking. You hit upon the growing realisation that we are being led blindly and often willingly into the abyss by people who have no idea what they are doing. Increasingly, we are being sold on the idea that we all need to 'fake it til we make it', but really we need competent people to keep the faith and take the lead. Great article- very thought provoking.?