Insider View - Doing Nothing

Turning her attention to the wisdom of ‘letting the hare sit’, Lucy Madden contemplates (among other things) the benefits of masterful inactivity.

Our summer, henceforth to be known as the monsoon season, has caused me to remember the words spoken by John Cleese in the film ‘Clockwise’; “it’s not the despair I mind, it’s the hope.” This philosophical reflection (attributed originally to Michael Frayn) strikes a deep chord as we seem now to have abandoned hope and as a consequence experience the relief that comes with it.

As Madam Bovary suffered “stale gusts of dreariness” so a resigned acceptance that the coming months are unlikely to have us lighting our barbecues or slapping on the sun tan lotion. Perhaps instead, as someone suggested, we should be gathering up the animals in pairs.

Enough of this, you may cry. We have to be positive. Florid with rage, I went into my bank the other day to complain about some new and seemingly unnecessary innovation that had been thrust upon me. The face behind the counter went white and tears came into the good lady’s eyes as she said “Don’t blame me. This is my first day back. I’ve been on sick leave for 10 weeks with a breakdown. I hate the banks, too.”

Having then riposted that at least she had a job (and got that off my chest), we then bonded over the counter and consoled each other that the troubles of our country were not as bad as those of others. “And at least our economy does not depend on tourism.” She told me. That’s a relief then. A little bit of positivity there. No doubt we shall be told at the end of the year that the numbers of visitors 2012 was up, again, but the empirical evidence of my wanderings has revealed they are not to be seen.

For those, like this family, who will not be holidaying abroad this year, there has been a bewildering clash of opportunities to be festive and this has meant that round every corner a wet field, a tent and some loud music beckons you in. Festival overkill? I think so. And why, just when someone comes up with a really good idea for a festival, Turtle Bunbury’s History Festival at Lisnavagh in Co. Carlow, did it have to clash with the Hay Festival at Borris House in the same county? As one who would have like to attended both, torn by indecision, I visited neither.

Terry Leahy, for many years CEO of Tesco, has recently published ‘Management in 10 words’, a book that may have heart-sinking ramifications for those wearied by similar tomes but this is a book written by a man who knows what he is talking about and his precepts are set out simply. In 1979, when young Terry began working for Tesco, the company had one computer, known as ‘The Computer’ taking up one whole floor. Today Tesco is the world’s largest on-line food business.

Think what you like about Tesco and its detrimental effect on high streets and small producers, as I do, but Sir Terry is a man to whom it is worth listening. His book advocates a business model that is a formidable combination of embracing change in the form of technological and methodological advances but at the same time urges the value of staying with the core values of building up trust, of punctuality and politeness.

In our lemming-like rush over the last two decades for constant change and development which has largely been coupled with a rejection of the past, have we forgotten our core values? Have we become less pleasant? And what has happened to politeness? Sir Terry reserves contempt for politicians who argue that ‘doing nothing is not an option’ when in fact that may just be the best course.

The malarkey that is the Olympic Games is, to my reckoning, an example of what happens when a good idea can’t be left alone but has to be expanded and fiddled with until its core values are lost in the corporate behemoth that is currently upsetting many London residents.

Stay at home, take stock and do nothing. That’s my plan for the summer.