If you had to choose a pope?

Category: Editorial

I'm back. A wonderful week of rest and relaxation followed by a night flight with only a couple of hours' sleep and return to 3,000 emails! Not only that, but Outlook could not cope with so many and kept restarting - so that I actually had 9,000! A major job cleaning them off webmail and then sorting out my Outlook.

And so, back to work. I have been to New Orleans. You can always find something to learn from, and this week I found a wonderful poster entitled "Peter's Laws". I transcribe it below, with a source in case you would like your own copy.

It seemed appropriate to me. New Orleans is built below sea and river level. Why would anyone do that? It is surrounded by levees and protected by powerful pumps. I think that Peter's 20^th law must be: If you find a difficult place to build, get on with it.

I love to travel in the USA. I am interested in language and it is a joy to be surrounded by such positive phrases. In the UK the classic response (often after having put right a mistake) is "No trouble". In the USA it is "You're welcome". Such a difference. I asked a man on the hotel reception to record my loyalty card details. What did he say? "It will be my pleasure." Beat that.

This has been a week when a congregation has elected a pope. How would you do that? I have been reading a book by James Surowiekcki called "The Wisdom of Crowds". He would say that you need to satisfy the conditions of diversity, independence and decentralisation. When I have finished the book I will review it for you.

Brefi Group has a management exercise, the Spaceship Shortlist, that challenges a group in the same manner as perhaps the cardinals were exercised on Monday. The key is to decide the criteria before debating individudal cases. In all my experience of running it, I have never known a group do this. They prefer to get straight down to business.

We have been running CorporateCoach as a blog since January. If you link across to the parallel article, you can add your comments. These will be posted after they have been moderated.

Having just returned, I shall be back to New Orleans in a week for the CoachVille Conference. Lots to learn there! I hope to meet more of you there, too.

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