It may just be a small sample, but in the bike shop yesterday the bikes seemed to be flying off the shelf. I have no idea how many they sell in a week - but at 6.30 on a Monday there were two bike sales being completed. And at the Hyde Park corner crossing this evening there seemed to be a lot of gleaming Ridgebacks and Giants on show.
I tried to check up on what was happening on the ONS website. But looking at road transport just gave me a lot of car data - ONS don't seem to use anything else -- and the latest cycle data I could find finished in 2001.
Stories from the US of soaring bike sales as SUVs become a thing of the past. I wonder what the hard data is here.
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Lessons in leadership
where did John Browne go wrong at BP? that - rather surprisingly - was the question that came up at a two day festival of leadership at Michael Portillo's alma mater of Peterhouse Cambridge (nice orchard) last week.... All CH rules so can't go into too many details -- but I joined a group on whether leaders needed crises in order to lead. And the proposition was that it was opposition within BP to the JB rebrand to Beyond Petroleum and the replacement of the shield by the helios that lead inexorably to his downfall. Not surprisingly, that thesis was advanced by someone who had worked on the rebranding....
Nice to put yourself at the centre of the story - but the link between people who did not like Beyond Petroleum and the people failing to invest in safety in Texas City is pretty tendentious. So I put forward my alternative critique of what went wrong at BP under John Browne (notwithstanding that an awful lot went right as well).
The first - and biggest - BP mistake was the performance culture. There is nothing wrong with a performance culture - indeed I have never felt under so much performance pressure as I did at BP. But the BP performance culture became a macho obsession -- every quarter better; no admission of failure; no recognition of reality. The result was that any manipulable number was manipulated -- to make it -look good. No surprise that when sarbanes-oxley hit, an awful lot of underprovision - of environmental clean-up; pension provision was discovered. And that is the same mentality that starts cutting back on routine maintenance.
The second problem was the interlocking incentives that became a high performance mirage conspiracy. If my bonus depends on your performance I don't have too much incentives to question the phoney numbers you are serving up. So what should be a way of giving the Board assurance on delivery becomes a virtual performance Ponzi scheme.
The third was a culture of sycophancy. Hardly anyone ever dared challenge John Browne. he knew more about your business than you did. He was always right (and his one error - on Sidanco in Russia would be forgotten by the triumph of the TNK JV - well that was the theory). Everyone was jostling for the succession -- and knew that they were all part of a prolonged beauty contest with only one judge. Not an environment conducive to serious internal challenge - more like the court of Henry VIII.
But what about the non-executives ask the corporate governance groupies? But that exposes the weakness of the non-executives. It is simply unrealistic to expect non-execs to be able to see off an apparently all-conquering executive team. And if the right numbers and messages aren't coming up to the top of the executive tree, hard to see how the part-timers even more distanced from the business are going to be able to do it.
So what are the lessons? John Browne was the most impressive leader I have come across. But he would have been even better if he had encourage a culture of internal challenge and honesty and not ruled by terror. And then someone might have dared admit that there was a big safety issue in the US refineries. Or that things were going wrong in the Alaska pipelines. And his reputation - deservedly high for transforming BP from second division to top player - would not have suffered a torrid final year.
Nice to put yourself at the centre of the story - but the link between people who did not like Beyond Petroleum and the people failing to invest in safety in Texas City is pretty tendentious. So I put forward my alternative critique of what went wrong at BP under John Browne (notwithstanding that an awful lot went right as well).
The first - and biggest - BP mistake was the performance culture. There is nothing wrong with a performance culture - indeed I have never felt under so much performance pressure as I did at BP. But the BP performance culture became a macho obsession -- every quarter better; no admission of failure; no recognition of reality. The result was that any manipulable number was manipulated -- to make it -look good. No surprise that when sarbanes-oxley hit, an awful lot of underprovision - of environmental clean-up; pension provision was discovered. And that is the same mentality that starts cutting back on routine maintenance.
The second problem was the interlocking incentives that became a high performance mirage conspiracy. If my bonus depends on your performance I don't have too much incentives to question the phoney numbers you are serving up. So what should be a way of giving the Board assurance on delivery becomes a virtual performance Ponzi scheme.
The third was a culture of sycophancy. Hardly anyone ever dared challenge John Browne. he knew more about your business than you did. He was always right (and his one error - on Sidanco in Russia would be forgotten by the triumph of the TNK JV - well that was the theory). Everyone was jostling for the succession -- and knew that they were all part of a prolonged beauty contest with only one judge. Not an environment conducive to serious internal challenge - more like the court of Henry VIII.
But what about the non-executives ask the corporate governance groupies? But that exposes the weakness of the non-executives. It is simply unrealistic to expect non-execs to be able to see off an apparently all-conquering executive team. And if the right numbers and messages aren't coming up to the top of the executive tree, hard to see how the part-timers even more distanced from the business are going to be able to do it.
So what are the lessons? John Browne was the most impressive leader I have come across. But he would have been even better if he had encourage a culture of internal challenge and honesty and not ruled by terror. And then someone might have dared admit that there was a big safety issue in the US refineries. Or that things were going wrong in the Alaska pipelines. And his reputation - deservedly high for transforming BP from second division to top player - would not have suffered a torrid final year.
Monday, 7 July 2008
Strategic error
Not a recantation of the Defra strategy refresh - but a lament for a key failure of decision-making under uncertainty.... whatever possessed me to be the only person on the planet who failed to see the last set of the Rafa v Roger epic last night. Am trying to analyse how I go this so wrong... So let us analyse the factors.
First, timing. The rain break at 7.50 meant that I could just catch the last direct train. Five minutes later I would have not been able to get it...
Second, meanness. Staying in Chichester imposed a cost - the extra £ 26 of buying a peak fare to London instead of a saver. £ 26 seemed a high price to pay for the option of a last set - when it looked improbable (notwithstanding Alex the Wimbledon weather man claiming play could restart within 25 minutes) that play would restart and finish that night.
Third, a feeling that Federer would win in the end ... after Rafa failed to take the three key break points for 5-3 in the third set; failed to impose himself at 5-2 in the tie-break; take the two match points he did create in the fourth; a feeling that in the same way as England crumbled in Adelaide, he just didn't quite believe that he could win.
And fourth, so I valued avoiding an evening in Chichester watching it rain at Wimbledon and Sue Barker get ever more despairing, a slightly early start the next morning at more than having the option on watching the final set of the greatest tennis match ever. On a par with my friend Jayne's decision not to pay £ 10 for the option to watch England win the Ashes at the Oval in September 2005 (but that had a much lower probability in March that year - so a less loony decision - but being there is a more intense delight than simply being one of the 13.1 million watching here on TV - so a higher cost for getting it wrong).
But I got it wrong. I now realise that I would have paid a really quite high price to have seen that last set of nerve-shredding tennis in the gloom of Wimbledon. So after missing the last set last year, I vowed never to miss a Nadal-Federer final - only to repeat again. Next year I will not budge - but next year the roof will reduce the uncertainty so maybe this is a dilemma that I will never face again.
Still, Rafa still won - so a great week for Spanish sport - but I can't believe I saw the football... and missed the drama of the tennis.
First, timing. The rain break at 7.50 meant that I could just catch the last direct train. Five minutes later I would have not been able to get it...
Second, meanness. Staying in Chichester imposed a cost - the extra £ 26 of buying a peak fare to London instead of a saver. £ 26 seemed a high price to pay for the option of a last set - when it looked improbable (notwithstanding Alex the Wimbledon weather man claiming play could restart within 25 minutes) that play would restart and finish that night.
Third, a feeling that Federer would win in the end ... after Rafa failed to take the three key break points for 5-3 in the third set; failed to impose himself at 5-2 in the tie-break; take the two match points he did create in the fourth; a feeling that in the same way as England crumbled in Adelaide, he just didn't quite believe that he could win.
And fourth, so I valued avoiding an evening in Chichester watching it rain at Wimbledon and Sue Barker get ever more despairing, a slightly early start the next morning at more than having the option on watching the final set of the greatest tennis match ever. On a par with my friend Jayne's decision not to pay £ 10 for the option to watch England win the Ashes at the Oval in September 2005 (but that had a much lower probability in March that year - so a less loony decision - but being there is a more intense delight than simply being one of the 13.1 million watching here on TV - so a higher cost for getting it wrong).
But I got it wrong. I now realise that I would have paid a really quite high price to have seen that last set of nerve-shredding tennis in the gloom of Wimbledon. So after missing the last set last year, I vowed never to miss a Nadal-Federer final - only to repeat again. Next year I will not budge - but next year the roof will reduce the uncertainty so maybe this is a dilemma that I will never face again.
Still, Rafa still won - so a great week for Spanish sport - but I can't believe I saw the football... and missed the drama of the tennis.
Thursday, 3 July 2008
Signs of the times 3
Fascinating stuff from Stuart Rose yesterday on the Marks slump.... people changing the way they shop. Fewer journeys to stores. More visits to local stores. Rejecting out of town shopping. And overpriced and overprepared M and S food. And there seems to be much less traffic on London streets -- I have managed to ride to work and not have to stop at Great George Street which normally only happens in the school holidays.
And on the TV they are just saying that Starbucks is cutting 12000 jobs in the US and cutting 600 outlets. Need to start monitoring that too.
Having to chop your own vegetables.. and make do with a bit less caffeine (not sure how much there is in a Starbucks coffee anyway) hardly seems the equivalent of the Irish potato famine. Which points to the need to make sure that wallowing in our own recession gloom does not make us forget where the real impacts of the food/ oil price hikes are being felt.
And on the TV they are just saying that Starbucks is cutting 12000 jobs in the US and cutting 600 outlets. Need to start monitoring that too.
Having to chop your own vegetables.. and make do with a bit less caffeine (not sure how much there is in a Starbucks coffee anyway) hardly seems the equivalent of the Irish potato famine. Which points to the need to make sure that wallowing in our own recession gloom does not make us forget where the real impacts of the food/ oil price hikes are being felt.
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