Category: Uncategorized

I own a boat. I’m not afraid to admit that. In fact, I don’t just own it, I love it, well love her to be precise. Boats are always her.

She’s old and fun, guzzles petrol and makes a great noise when the V8 kicks into life.

Oh and I need to explain that despite living in Norfolk, with our proud Nelson heritage, I bought her knowing nothing about boats. I like a challenge. If you’d like a challenge and a quick way to empty your wallet then buy a boat too. Shopping with your partner, on a lazy Saturday afternoon, has got nothing on the cash burning potential of a boat.

And before you think that, after more than 10 years of blogging, I’ve gone mad and am going to share a, shall we say, romantic story, then I’m going to have to disappoint you.

Although it’s well known that sex sells, this really isn’t that kind of blog post. The ‘topless’ in the title isn’t a reference to me removing my string vest. No no. It’s about an area of boating hitherto unexplored by me.

You see, my boat has a clever canvass hood. You can unzip the sides, roll up the rear and treat the hood-spiders to a grand day out on the river.

However, I’ve owned the boat for three years and up until last month have never gone the Full Monty with her.

My confidence bolstered by having my boating buddy on hand, I unzipped the roof panels, pulled out the split pins on the struts and we lifted the roof-cage clear of the boat.

The sun shone brightly and she looked amazing, fully open the big blue sky at last. She was topless, but of course, nautical decorum means that my string vest stays on at all times.

The big advantage of taking down the canopy is that we can get her under more bridges, which tend to be on the low side on the Norfolk Broads.

So we did. Under Ludham bridge and a pleasant meander up the river Ant to Barton Broad. Lovely.

What’s the business moral of the story? Well, I was nervous about pulling out the pins and unsure if the hood would collapse in a heap, or be old and stiff and impossible to re-erect. As it turned out, it was fine.

We can now cruise under low bridges whenever we please.

If we never change anything, or take a risk, we never get to experience new things. Within our business environment we all have things that are worth exploring.

So the moral is this; pull out the pins and see what happens next. It may open up new opportunities and we can all go topless in our own way!

Next week: The Leadership Skills Quiz

Did you have the same instructions as me at school, during English lessons?

Never use nice, or got, or just. They are evil, lazy words and should never be used, when are 1,000s of better words to choose from.

That’s not my view, I’m just paraphrasing the words I got from my English teacher. He wasn’t very nice, in my opinion.

Actually, he was about 8-feet tall and terrifying, when you’re a tiny 12 year old in a blazer that you will doubtless grow in to.

Teachers need to be careful with the word ‘should.’ It’s very parental in tone and can be very judgemental. We can choose to use, or replace, certain words, but who are they to say what we should do?

There’s a whole manufacturing ethos called Just In Time (we used to wittily relabel it as ‘Just Too Late’) and the words make complete sense to me. According to my teacher we should replace ‘just’ with something else, or remove it entirely. Just call it In Time maybe? Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

I’ve got to go!

Well I don’t, as it happens, but that’s a phrase we use. Naughty us! We should swap it for, hmm… ‘I’ve decided that I really must depart at this precise time!’ Does that sound any better?

As for nice. Well it’s an interesting word. Said with scorn it can denote something that’s a wafer below adequacy. Said with a beaming smile it can bring joy to other people. It’s a word capable of carrying nuance and as such, is jolly helpful. Nice is a nice word. It can feel warm and friendly.

Let’s hear it for nice!

Business works better when we are nice to people. As they say in entertainment circles: Be nice to people on the way up, as you’ll meet them again on the way down!

Would your colleagues say you were nice? Are you fair minded? Even handed? Consistent?

I hope so. If not, see me after class for some business coaching.

I’ve met some awful mangers on my professional journey. My first book is called My Boss is a B@$T@*D …check it out on Amazon… and is full of acid comments about inadequate leaders I’ve had the misfortune to work with. The book is there to champion the under-dog and enable us to plot a course to a happier life.

Stress affects everyone and a boss with a bad temper, who may be stressed out, simply adds to the woes of those around him. Or her.

I often say to clients; if this organisation was a school, would you want to send your children here?

That’s a good litmus test of whether people play nice.

So then, nice is a nice word and we are free to use it! And if we always play nice then the business world be a better place.

Playing nice doesn’t mean we have to give in to unreasonable demands, or sell our services below a rate acceptable to us. It just means we’ve got to be open to the fact that our behaviour has an impact on others.

Do you always play nice?

Next week: The Topless Boating Story