Post #59
August 3, 2022
Claire Bodanis
A surprising encounter sets Claire to thinking about the rights and responsibilities involved in challenging authority.
Last week, I had some time to kill between meetings in the City, so I went into a nearby café for a rejuvenating cup of tea. As I was settling myself, trying to decide whether I could justify ditching work to read a book for half an hour, I noticed Boris Johnson, sitting at the table opposite. I couldn’t quite believe my eyes, so I tried to stare without staring, if you know what I mean. But sure enough, there is no other hairdo quite like that in London. Boris it was.
Then came the inner struggle – to approach or not to approach? Celebrities have a right to a bit of privacy too, I thought. But then I checked myself – this isn’t a celebrity, this is the Prime Minister! While I would hesitate to disturb the peace of, say Daniel Craig, or Olivia Colman, should I come across them by chance enjoying a quiet coffee, our PM is supposed to serve us.
So I got up, went over and introduced myself. I explained that I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to tell him exactly what I thought (perfectly politely, of course) of his behaviour, his lack of concern for the truth, the terrible destruction he has wrought on our systems, our institutions, and standards in public life. To his credit, Boris listened quite thoughtfully. No bluster, no defensiveness; indeed he seemed to take on board what I had said, even though, with his days numbered, anything I said wouldn’t do much more than make me feel better.
Shortly afterwards, we both left; I to walk to my next meeting, the PM to get in his car and drive to wherever PMs drive to after they’ve had a coffee, all by themselves, in a City café. As he pressed the unlock button on his car key, a peculiar thing happened. The car began to unfold – think of those transformer toys that can go from man to boat or something at the touch of a button. Within a moment, the PM’s car had become a giant float, like those ones you see at the Notting Hill Carnival, with a vast inflatable griffin on the top.
I think I realised the truth, dear readers, as you no doubt have, even before I’d woken up. It was the griffin that did it – although really, I should have twigged earlier: the PM sitting alone in a café? Boris Johnson listening respectfully to someone telling him a few home truths? Clearly, I must be dreaming.
But, while I sighed at the disappointment of not actually having got all that off my chest to the man responsible, I reflected on why, in fact, I might just have had that dream. Aside, of course, from the news being dominated by the Tory leadership contest, and the ongoing frustration I feel at the utter lack of decency within our government.
And it came to me: the day before this dream, I’d been chatting with a pal who works in a FTSE company. My friend went on at some length about how awful the CEO was, how everyone was so terrified that they didn’t dare question him, or bring any problems to his door, because he was so unpleasant. Well that’s no way to run a business, I said – are you sure it’s not just an unfortunately forbidding manner? I remember years ago being warned about a new CFO (a woman, as it happens) who’d just joined one of our clients – ‘total nightmare, a real cow, everyone’s terrified of her’. As it happens, when we met this CFO, she was brilliant and became one of our best clients. Very direct, very clear, expected results. She just had no patience with timewasters. Could this CEO be like her, I ventured?
Sadly, it seemed not. But it got me thinking about both the importance – and the difficulty – of speaking truth to power. Personally, I’ve never had a problem with doing so, which is perhaps why I never worked in a company longer than two years, and ended up making a virtue of this ‘talent’ by selling it; in the form of advising companies on reporting, and whether what they want to say is credible or not. And I reflected on how easy it is, really, to tell the truth, to challenge, to question when your job isn’t at stake – indeed, quite the reverse. I’m not talking whistleblowing here, by the way, which is a whole different territory. I mean the difficult, everyday task of questioning your boss, or your boss’s boss, when you think they’ve got something wrong, or made a mistake, or you just think an idea they have is plain daft, and you have a much better one.
All I can say is, it’s worth it; for your company and for yourself. Because doing the right thing ultimately brings its own rewards – particularly now, when businesses and the world are grappling with so many complex problems. If you have a good boss – including our ‘nightmare CFO’, who was only a nightmare to those who were incompetent, lazy or deceitful – then he or she will welcome challenge. And if you don’t, well, perhaps you should heed the advice of the FT last week to ‘run away from toxic bosses’.
And if you’re a boss who might be terrifying your subordinates? Please listen. You’ll thank them in the end.
The Falcon Windsor monthly blog is on holiday for the month of August, which means our next post will be Wednesday 5th October. Have a lovely summer.