Author: admin

We are people of hats. Many hats. Many splendid hats. Indeed, this is a hat wearing time of year, where we might sport a nifty bobble, a colourful ski, or a furry trapper. I can vividly remember the last time I wore my (fake) furry hat; it was very snug on the windy outward leg of my beach coach walk and then, as is the way with variable Spring weather, way too hot on the return leg. By this time people were paddling and I was the only person on the beach to be wearing a fur hat. Not cool, in both senses of the word.

However, we can’t be over-dressed with our business; we can be the Master of Hats and the Director of Headgear. If we are running our own organisation then we need to flick adroitly between a wide variety of business hats. Director, accountant, marketer, therapist, consultant, manager, cleaner, trainer, stationery organiser – we all have many hats and if we don’t wear any one them our business could suffer.

So, this week take a fresh look at your collection of business hats and ask yourself if you tend to wear one more than the others, and if there is one languishing at the back of a business cupboard? Dig it out and pop it on! It might be the best business move you’ve made this year!

Next week: It’s C-Time!

I’ve been enjoying David Attenborough’s autobiography on Audible, called Life on Air. Quite a treat to be driving along with Sir David chatting to me about his life. He is very modest and tells his stories with much wit and charm.

One story really caught my attention.

He recalled how one Christmas he had decided, as the new Controller, to make the festive schedule broader in its output, to reach a wider audience. Previously it been heavy on classical programmes and opera and he felt just having that content on its own disenfranchised a large part of the audience. So he changed it. Sitting reading the Times on his train home he read a fierce review of his schedule, which concluded by the reviewer urging him to quit his job of Controller and head back into the jungle.

Attenborough says he was upset by this and worried if he had gone too far with his changes. He turned to Lord Reith’s biography and on the first page read this quotation:

‘It is Royal to do the right thing and to suffer abuse for it.’

Lord Reith was the architect of the BBC and his founding purpose for the BBC to ‘inform, educate and entertain’ survives to this day. 

Attenborough says how the quotation lifted his spirits. He had taken the right decision. His schedule was a great success and laid down the blueprint for many years afterwards.

The quotation speaks to me too. If we are in business we have to make difficult decisions sometimes and suffer abuse for it. That doesn’t make our decisions wrong though. We can be Royal too. It’s part of business life and a good sentiment to buoy us along if we have any doubts.

It is Royal to do the right thing and to suffer abuse for it. Very true.

Next week: Happy Hat Wearing