RUNNING UP THAT HILL

If I was going to make a bonfire of anything, I would choose meetings. I am not good at them. I don’t really get them. And I’m definitely someone who thinks most of them ought to have been an email. But I have to confess I have always been rather in awe of the people who seem effortlessly to glide from one committee to another.

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I know it doesn't show me in the best of lights but I don’t get why people join groups. For the life of me I don’t know what they get out of it because I am one of those people for whom being abandoned alone for Desert Island Discs would be a joy. I think I was born in the wrong century as I would happily correspond on deckled notepaper, even foreswearing the new-fangled telephone for anything other than work.

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So, this week has not been much fun as I’ve been to too many meetings – and all with contrasting personalities.

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One was all about the detail. But for me there was so much forensic interest in the paperwork the meeting never actually took off or got close to any strategic-level input. Which is what I thought it had been for. But to be fair, the meeting was dominated by the kind of good people who have to keep others safe by seeking out the flaws in everything. I don’t set out to be annoying but I suspect I am quite irritating to them. I just feel such an ugly duckling amid the gliding swans - as I tend to sit there thinking the whole exercise is like being taught to drive by inventing a better quality sparkplug.

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The next was a very different sort of group. One where there is no detail at all and the papers habitually arrive at the last minute. Everything is taken offline before it gets to the attendees. It’s a meeting where much is left unsaid and lurks in corners. Where what is talked about in the open seems to be in code – and one for which I don’t have the key. It was like watching people play chess when at least half the pieces were on a different board. I don’t understand games at the best of times so I was equally out of my depth in a meeting where there were so many hidden under-currents to navigate. I felt out of my depth, just bobbing about on the surface of a sea of uncertainty.

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To give them the benefit of the doubt, I don’t get networking either and many of these industry meetings rely heavily on who you know. I have watched the best in the business work a room and make valuable contacts. They’ve tried to teach me but, left to my own devices, I am happier washing the glasses in the kitchen and handing round the sausage rolls.

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For someone who lives and breathes words on paper - and who loves performing - I am most assuredly not at ease when I have to deal with people in the flesh. Nor does it reflect well on me that I doubt the motives of people who are so assured and poised. Frankly, they scare me. They always seem so certain of, well, everything - and of themselves. I’ve never been so sure - not that I try to let it show. Maybe they are pretending too!

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When I am in the chair proceeding don’t tend to last very long. Once I’ve cantered through the actions and the agenda, I end up filling the remaining space with so much white noise. I always feel such an idiot as I don’t manage the small talk that oils the wheels and other people do so well.

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I used to like COBRA meetings when the military were in charge. They didn’t let you sit down and it was all about delivery: once round on where we were at on the actions from last time; and then round again on what to do next. No frills. No faff. Mercifully – for me - no chat.

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Recently, the committees I’ve observed seem to be just a bag of individuals with worryingly open mouths and closed ears. They don’t feel bound by a collective sense of common purpose or loyalty.

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The political churn around the Cabinet table is not helpful or conducive to national debate. And Prime Minister’s questions – to which I am shamelessly addicted – is a sound bite factory rather than a rational information exchange. When ambition – and, often, vanity – enters the mix good governance, informed debate and sound sense often depart the stage.

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But I am not advocating homogeneity. Famously everyone thinking alike in the City gave rise to very poor results. And the recent mini-budget [from which my pension pot is still to recover] was hardly a shining example of effective collective decision making either.

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I think most people believe variety is not just the spice of life but a necessary contributor to getting good outcomes. We all need a bit of challenge and input from people whose minds have taken the road less travelled. But, while we all tick the box and sign up to diversity, equality and inclusion, we are still kettling the different into a pen where they are labelled, ‘difficult’ or ‘disruptive’ or ‘hard to work with’. We keep on saying we want to hear what people have to say but end up shouting them down when they don’t conform to the prevailing mood in the room.

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It takes courage to stand out when the tide is running against you. We have to stop bullying people - and not just for the obvious stuff like the colour of our skin, our age, our gender, our physical difference or even our sexual orientation. We need to wake up and stop trying to cram everyone into the same box and recognise the value of the variety between our ears. We all have unique experiences and skills and, in the end, we all breathe the same air - and every last one of us will bleed when we’re stabbed in the back.