The Notebook: Talking down the City? Not a bit of it in this newspaper
One of the delights of this job is the ability to sit down with people from across the Square Mile and ask them very simple questions.
One of the perennials is “what keeps you up at night?” The CEOs you’d really want to work for say “people”. That one who said “the fact we’re going to have to give pay rises” seems like less of a dream boss.
But perhaps the simplest question is just “how’s business?” Across the City I keep hearing variations on a theme: the response, invariably, is something along the lines of “it’s tough out there, but we’re doing pretty well.”
Is the City doing pretty well? Individual businesses seem to think so. It’s hardly in a CEO’s interest to tell me it’s all going to pot – and for clarity’s sake, I can confirm I haven’t spoken to anybody senior at Vodafone for a while – but the mood remains one of cautious optimism.
Last week, the City minister opined that one of London’s problems was the meedja – specifically, our temptation to talk the City down in some form.
I’m not sure I buy that; the three principles we live by here at City PM Towers are pro-business, pro-markets and pro-London. Should that preclude us from reporting that firms are looking elsewhere to list, or that there are concerns about the resilience of the fintech sector? Surely it’s our job to tell government that it needs to get its act together to ensure clearing stays in the capital, rather than being picked up wholesale to the continent, beyond the current 2025 agreement with the EU?
There is a difference between talking down the City and being honest about its problems, a distinction the City minister of all people should understand.
But, lest we not say it enough, perhaps this will do for a confidence boost: from all my conversations, I think it’s tough out there – but the Square Mile is still doing OK.
Voda’s coda for change
Margherita Della Valle’s introduction to the City as Vodafone CEO – a 7am announcement of 11,000 job cuts and a brutal assessment of the quality of the business – was quite something last week. The follow-up from BT, floating as many as 55,000 job losses, was another marmalade-dropper. The key conclusion seems to be that telecoms giants need to find a new purpose before their dial tone drops out.
Inigo-go
Speaking of City success stories, I had the pleasure of a good waffle with Richard Watson and Stuart Bridges, two of the three founders of successful insurance upstart Inigo, recently. Quite apart from the fact that business is booming, based on an offering with premium service and specialised work at its heart, it was abundantly obvious just how much fun the two of them were having steering a new ship through the Square Mile. Perhaps fun is the key to business success.
Stay another day
Sports teams are supposed to be constants in one’s life, but I am peculiarly afflicted by my favourite teams leaving me. As a Wimbledon football fan, I saw my club uprooted to Milton Keynes., forcing the creation of AFC Wimbledon. My adopted US NFL team, the Oakland Raiders – a product of some time spent at university in the Bay Area – then moved to Las Vegas two years ago. Now the baseball side I had a season ticket for, the Oakland A’s, also appear set for Sin City. Fingers crossed Surrey doesn’t leave the Oval anytime soon.
No bullsh*t, it’s well worth a read..
“I’ve seen countless business leaders with fantastic pedigrees make career-defining mistakes when managing change in a business.
Chris’s book provides the sort of leadership lessons and actionable advice that will prove invaluable to the next generation of business leaders.”
So said yours truly of Chris Hirst’s new book, No Bullsh*t Change.
You’ll find my quotes on the inside page – I was booted off the front in favour of Sir Clive Woodward, who to be fair has won one more Rugby World Cup than I have.
Despite the imagined slight, I stand by my words – it’s well worth a read, and I’m delighted that Chris is writing his first column for us in our opinion pages today, sharing the – apparently controversial – view that if you want people in the office, you just need to tell them.