CEO's Diary: Another one for the portfolio

The CEO's now a 'Trouble Shooter'

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30 April – The chap I met yesterday called late in the day. He’d discussed things with his own adviser (I’ll be candid – I think that’s really his wife) and he’s said yes. We’ll knock up a quick agreement and see how it goes, subject to board consent (of course).

I do believe things like this do offer us real opportunity.

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April 29 – Coming home by train quite late, this time from the West (which is not a regular rail destination for me). I admit I increasingly like going by train. I get so much more done than by driving.

Today was a relatively unusual day where I had to attend a significant supplier meeting. Odd exceptions apart this is an area where I know I am not always at my best. I am an accountant. I might be CEO, but I also know that I have much less hands on experience of actually doing the job we do than people like East, Newc, Hitchin, our stock controller and a few more who have worked for us for years.
I did however set the policy a few years back that we’d have more than one supplier of all major items at all times. Readers of this diary over many years will recall the near crisis we had when a supplier in Belgium nearly went bust leaving us all built scuppered due to over-dependence upon their services. Within that framework, contractual details and pricing issues (on occasion) apart I have learned by and large I can delegate with success.

But today we’re back in the ‘supplier under threat’ scenario and a relatively small, but useful supplier in the West Country had asked for additional payment and an advance on orders. That goes against my instinct, but it’s also the case that whilst we have an alternative supplier we really quite like what this company does – and they’ve shown us real loyalty.

So rather than ignore them I offered to go down and meet them on condition they were completely candid about the financial position they are in. I felt a bit like the ‘Trouble shooter’ series of old – Harvey-Jones of ICI fame if I recall correctly, because what I wanted to appraise was whether we would act as bank to this company or not, and on what terms.

I much enjoyed the day. The supplier is in a mess – but it’s almost all bad debt related. His capital has been horribly eroded by two unfortunate losses. That may of course, say he was undercapitalised in the first place, but now of course the bank are not coughing up when he needs it.

The question for me was a simple one: is there a business here that is worth supporting with our money – and will we see it or our goods in exchange for any risk we take? The Owner had all I’d asked for. The business is small and straightforward. Modern small business accounting packages are fairly good for chucking out data – and he seemed to be pretty up to date with it all. I didn’t see the half anticipated accounting mess I’d expected.

So we prepared a cash flow together. It became obvious he has some costs he can cut – and that he has to. Sales will not support some current overhead – some of which is, shall we say, for personal benefit as far as I can see (no – not tax abuse but vanity business spending that most organisations are capable of). And he needs to de-stock to some degree – he clearly likes his comfort zones. But if he can then there’s a credible business in there.

I made him an offer. We advance the cash he wants. We get a preference share for it. That gives us 40% of his business if he can’t repay 115% within a year.

He seemed to think that was fair – but I did not ask for a response there and then. That would not have been fair. But I’d like to see this guy get out of the mess – and I believe this is viable and can at the very least earn us a return on money and keep a valuable supplier on side. And if he can’t repay in time the investment might be worth having.

It’s one for AM’s portfolio now.

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April 28 – At last some good news.

AM and Newc have, in combination, landed a good order for our ‘new division’. It’s been properly priced, and properly documented and I’m quite sure will be delivered on time and on budget with margins in it.

And it will keep some people busy for some time because there’s a big design and set up stage which we can now make money on because we know enough about what we are doing (I think).

It’s incredibly important to remember that even in a down-turn the world still goes round, there is new business to be won, and work worth having. It hasn’t felt that way for a bit. But this one is worth banging on the drum for – and I will.

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April 27 – I know being boss is meant to be fun. But sometimes it isn’t.

I am usually pretty calm. But we’ve had a VAT inspection and have been given real grief because the VAT Inspector claims we got our billing wrong on tax points on the transition to the 15% VAT rate last year.

Candidly I don’t agree – and if he’s right, then it’s bizarre on the basis that we supply a continual service, usually billed in advance. It’s even more bizarre because everything we charge is a business input so net impact is likely to be zero. And we’ve over billed not under billed. But he wants us to check piles of stuff and re-invoice if need be and you can imagine the customer confusion this will cause.

And I got dragged in because #1 is not a director and a director had to be told off, and I really wasn’t in the mood for it. I fear it showed.

Now we’re checking with the auditors if we really need to do this – which is new experience as we haven’t had a VAT issue for years.

It’s all very, very frustrating.

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April 24 – Customer not happy with my approach yesterday. I'm amazed anyone can get so worked up about something as small as what really happened, but if there's one thing you can be sure of in life it is the unpredictability of people.

Decided there was only one thing to do. I was in the car first thing heading far west (for us) to see them. I don't want this to boil up into something quite disproportionate.

Had the meeting now. He was fuming and talking about telling the trade press all about our apparent failures. I sat and absorbed for a long time. Experience has taught me that listening whilst someone gets issues off their chest is an under-rated and very important art. And then I asked him the vital question that always flummoxes people "What were the best hopes for the outcome of this meeting?"

I bet he wasn't really planning a press release at all. I bet he wanted some form of rectification, and someone to blame for the incident that had arisen, through failure on our part, or so he claimed. I could see how he could blame us, a bit, for what happened. I could not in any way accept it was entirely our fault. I relayed the story to him as I saw it to suggest this might be possible.

I expressed remorse. I asked if he was otherwise happy with our service, the mistake apart. He was. I asked if he'd like six months free as recompense and as indication of remorse, and as full settlement of the matter.

It was a better plan than anything he'd got in mind. It gave him an honourable way out which he hadn't got before then. We agreed. We shook hands. I have to get the letter off by Monday. I'm reasonably happy. Better than ridiculous adverse publicity for next to nothing.

***

April 23 – What do you do when you get a serious complaint about your service?

Especially when it looks like, on investigation, that the complaint is justified.

I’ve done the research. I’ve interviewed those involved.
I’m mitigating losses. Credit note going. Apology going.

Just got to work out the wording.

Yuck. I hate this.

Then we learn the lessons.

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April 22 – Once upon a time I got excited about budgets. I watched them, I avidly read about them, and I tried to analyse them.

As far as I can gather the good news for me in today’s budget is that we are to get an additional capital allowance on investments we make in the next year.

Otherwise I can’t see a lot to excite me.

Have I missed the point?

And to be honest, I have never let the tax tail wag the dog on such decisions. Does any SME really do so when making an investment decision? I’m not sure.

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April 21 – I discussed the problem of having ideal customers with my PA in passing yesterday.

She made the horribly pertinent comment that if we asked our suppliers if we were the ideal customer how many would say yes?

It’s an interesting thought. Do they really understand what we are looking for? Do we know?

Sounds odd – but I do think this sort of thing is worth thinking about. It makes actual decision making when you come to face it so much easier if you know the criteria you’re working by.

And I guess if we know what we really want from suppliers it will be easier to work out how we want to supply our services. It may have little immediate impact – but I’m thinking about when things pick up again. When we bounce I want a big bounce.

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20 April – I missed Friday’s diary. For good reason. I went home and started the weekend.

And at the time I had little I thought I needed to muse on. So I didn’t. Even I don’t think it’s worth writing words for nothing.

But over the weekend I reflected more and more on something the Chair had said – that – which was about us coming out the other side of this recession.

As I’ve noted, we’ve begun to invest in more in house training. I’ve also decided we must keep our management resources intact. And we’re trying as far as possible to increase the quality of what we do, how we deliver it and the quality of those we deliver it too.

And then I mused on that last one. Are we really sure we’re doing enough to profile who we are selling to? It’s not something I pretend I have an answer to yet – but clearly those who value our service most will be those who are willing to pay most for it. How do I identify them? Big is certainly not a reliable criteria, as we’ve discovered. Even growing is not – some seem to grow by grinding others (like suppliers) into the ground.

What makes the ideal customer? It’s something I’ll reflect on. And talk to others about.

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April 16 – had to do that disciplinary appeal I mentioned the other day as #1 had already had one with the member of staff in question.

She’s in the accounts team, young, vivacious, popular with some around here, and often (too often) absent on Wednesdays, and by and large Wednesday alone.

#1 had already warned her about frequent unexplained absence. ‘Bloating’ was her usual excuse. She’s tiny. I guess we’d notice if she bloated. But if I’m honest, no one was taking it seriously. And despite requests that a doctor’s letter and explanation be made available none has been forthcoming.

I decided to put my PA on the case. Her briefing gave me evidence not otherwise available. The girl (may I call her that?) in question is a regular clubber, so I’m told (and as I have never been, I’ll take other’s word for the attractions associated with the activity). More than that, she has a particular dance interest and a local club meets that need on a Tuesday night. It took my PA little time to find out she was a regular, stayed late and any bloating was entirely the result of fatigue.

So I had her in, with her ‘friend’, and my PA as my witness and explained to her all the usual guff about her rights and then laid out the evidence.

I asked what she had to say. I got the bloating argument.

So then I said I wanted to explore an alternative explanation as I’d never heard of medical conditions that happened on only one day of the week. I put it to her that she was clubbing on Tuesdays and unfit for work on Wednesdays as a result.

She went very red. She said it was not true.

I said I heard what she said. But we were no longer willing to accept her absence pattern. From now on she would not enjoy sick pay from the company, only statutory sick pay when she qualified for it. And if she took more than 6 days sick leave in the next six months we would ask for a medical report. We would also be withdrawing the funding and study leave we had been providing for her AAT exams.

Funnily enough it was the last that hit home. She didn’t admit a thing. She just implored me not to withdraw the study support and said she’d never ever be sick again.

I relented on a condition: that she did not have a day of sick without a doctor’s note or other adequate explanation that satisfied me as to its genuine nature for the next six months. If it happened she would not just lose the allowance, she’d have to repay what it cost and study leave would be holiday.

I’m not expecting to have to enforce my threat. I think she knows she’s been rumbled.

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April 15 – Terribly important I go home on time tonight. There are some dates wives do not forget. I'm told significant anniversaries are amongst them.

I will manage it though. The ship is running well. The risk of bad debt appears to be under control. No surprises were sprung on that score whilst I was away, and I spent some time on this and other cashflow issues with #1 today. We have to decide on the next dividend soon. It always takes more work than I expect now – because this issue is now so much more sensitive than it was.

The first month of our new financial year was OK, despite my pessimism. I should learn to live with the ordinary. Sometimes it's as good as it gets.

I ruminated on this with the Chair today. We had no particular reason to talk, he just wanted to know how things were going – and I returned to my theme of two or three weeks ago when I wondered whether we had too many managers for the current climate.

His message was simple. He said if there was sufficient cashflow now, sufficient profit and sufficient demand on the routine managers with direct operational requirement (most of them bar Newc and AM, in part) then I was mad to contemplate cutting the team – and he specifically refused to accept my resignation in case I was planning to offer it! His logic was this. Each of them has proven ability. In combination they are delivering stability. We will come out the other side – sometime. Then the demand on them will increase. When it does having people in place will ensure we have competitive advantage. Keeping them now at short-term expense is planning for long-term profit.

I buy it, completely.

***

April 14 – Back from what seems to have been a very long break, for which I'm grateful.

The crew here did well. No one called me. Newc did mail me, I admit, but that was to tell me that he had found another purchase opportunity for a company that looks as if it is heading out of business. He wanted my consent to begin initial discussions. I gave it. It will be another case, if we do it, where we acquire contracts for little more than taking over the staff, so saving the need for redundancy payments.

In the process Newc demonstrated precisely why he is here - about which I have been musing. He and AM are now on the case. For now I will leave them to it.

I have had to deal with that almost inevitable pile of stuff that appears on your desk in your absence. Everything that can apparently only be signed by the CEO, to the latest disciplinary issue that has arisen (a junior member of the accounts team who seems to take every Wednesday off sick, or so she claims). That's the joy of returning to work.

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April 3 – Time to go on holiday. It seems a long time since Christmas. School breaks up this afternoon and early tomorrow morning the family and dog are bundling up the A1 for what Hello! magazine would have described as a 'well-earned rest'. At least, that's how I see it.

I had a briefing session with East and my PA before going - because they now work pretty well in my absence. I would have included Newc, but he ducked to pursue a sales enquiry. I guess that was appropriate, but it also indicates his lack of predictability in the current environment.

I'm taking this problem away with me. I suspect I will muse on it. I'm never entirely successful at completely turning off. However, I also know that the team at base will only call me if it is really essential. I like that. I like it even more that they can tell the difference between what is, and is not essential.

***

April 2 - Excellent feedback from the first enquiries made to staff about what training they need - sent out on our internal blog.

The answer is IT, IT, IT.

It ranges from things as daft as shortcuts some people know on the database which others appear to be completely oblivious of, to how to use email on phones, to how to word process properly in some cases.

The chairman was right - I would not have anticipated the basic level of some of the requests made which indicate an absence of knowledge and a level of inefficiency which I was not wholly aware of.

It is also easy to deliver, cheap, and requires little additional training of the people who are really good at these things to ensure they can transfer their skills to those who need them. This is a programme we can get underway quite quickly. Thank goodness for some good news. The feedback suggests that it is just that.

***

April 1 - East reported resignation of one of our quite long-term members of staff this morning. At first I thought it was an April fool's joke. He assured me it wasn't. Apparently he is moving to live with a new partner and work in her business. I admit I am delighted, not for him, but because it is another cost I do not need to replace.

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March 31 - One month of the new financial year, and we are down. Not one part of the business made the level of new sales that I would have hoped for this month. The evidence is becoming increasingly clear that we are not immune from this downturn.

I have no desire to panic. I have no reason to panic. We might be down, but we are still profitable. We have cut back on capital spending. There is little doubt we can maintain a positive cashflow if things remain as they are. That leaves us in a lot better position than many people. But, as I noted previously, I'm beginning to wonder if that is enough.

I have a management structure that is geared to growth. I'm beginning to think I was unwise in recruiting AM, simply because it now feels that I have at least one too many managers. I admit I spent quite a lot of time today thinking about how to reorganise things to save cost by restructuring. I came to no firm conclusions. As I've noted, I don't need to right now. There is no reason to panic. But equally, I have to consider the possibilities.
This is one that I will be discussing with the Chairman, but I'll be sleeping on it for a few nights first.

***

March 30 – I know Monty Python always said ‘look on the bright side’. I’m trying.

But I have to admit we’ve already revised upward our bad debt provision for the year end accounts. A couple more have gone bust – nothing major, but part of a trend amongst the smaller businesses I thought would be a real boost for us. And some others are on payment schedules to try to get anything we can. For these ones we downgrade the service to emergency support on the basis of cash on delivery.

Anything new business right now only tends to counter balance losses. I’d like to say I project that as a positive. I hope I do. But old habits die hard.

And if this continues I am beginning to wonder if the management team isn’t a little top heavy. It’s Newc that worries me. He’s beginning to look a little lost at present. He’s a risk-taker, a go-getter, an innovator. These aren’t skills in as much demand right now and on occasion he’s looking a bit like a spare part.

I have to work out how to focus him to justify the reward he gets. Answers on a back of a postcard please to (as they used to say on the wireless when it was still called that). Alternatively, note it below.

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March 26 – As everyone who has run one knows, business is easy except for one thing – people. People come in three forms. Customers, suppliers and employees. All three are meant to try one’s patience. All three do. One just hopes for the sake of one’s sanity they don’t do it on the same day.

Today they did. A customer made what seemed a petty complaint about the quality of our service. This started with a moan about one of our employees in particular, a person with whom we had no experience of difficulty.

This was investigated and it transpired that there was some substance to the report. Not much substance. But it was true that the employee did not appear to have put the customer in full position of the facts they might reasonably have needed to fulfill their own obligations – and that in no small part is what they pay us for.

So the issue was taken up with the employee who explained he’d had to compromise on an issue because one of our key suppliers had supplied a batch of product which he had realised did not perform as expected – he suspected a calibration was wrong – but had not told anyone, so we were unaware of this. God knows why. So he’d just tried to cover the issue up.

And when we went to the supplier they suggested they knew nothing of the problem – until in exasperation East had phoned another user of their product that he knew and asked them if they had encountered any difficulties to be told that they most certainly had, but that it was simply solved by changing a default setting which had for a period been set bizarrely when supplied.

So East, reasonably moaned to the supplier for not telling us of the issue, and lying – who then phoned me to complain – which I batted back to them.

And then I had to placate the customer and tell them the truth – which I decided was best – and explain the issue had not been a real one – more confusion – which was largely true, and that it was now being resolved very rapidly so I could not recur. Sometimes humble pie works. I think it did.

Whilst the employee got a warning for compromising customer service from m, to add weight, – and then I had to relay the importance of the issue to all other staff.

Hassle all round because people fudged throughout. Why can't they just try to do it right?

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March 25 – The Chair likes the training idea. But he thinks I'm going about it the wrong way. It's sobering to be told that I have no right to guess what people's training needs are. He wants to know why I'm not asking all our people, and why they aren't being asked to, at the very least, help design the programme.

Of course managers have a part to play. There may need to be some sober reality on what is possible brought to play, but most of the time he reckons people know more about what is not working and therefore what training is needed than we managers do.

I admit on reflection he's probably right. So that's another exercise I can set running and hand over. I forgave my mistaken assumption that I know best with that apologetic excuse.

But I guess that's why we have him!

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March 24 – I somehow thought that steady state management might mean less work for me. So far this is not true.

I've already mentioned that one of the consequences of the current state of the economy that I have appreciated is that our staff turnover is going to reduce, assuming I am successful at keeping all who want to stay on board. The corollary is that the payback on any training is likely to rise.

I have grabbed this idea and want to build on it. Little builds esteem within an organisation faster and more effectively than an effective training programme. We've always been pretty committed to training, but in the current economic climate I want to add a twist to this.
Training has at least three costs, and maybe more. The first is paying for the trainer. The second is the employee's wages when training. The third is the loss of revenue they might have otherwise been making. The fourth – and which is by far the hardest to estimate - is the time taken whilst the employee seeks to bring the learning into use and operates inefficiency whilst in a state of work transition. Of course, compared to all these the benefits are even harder to measure and quantify. Faith plays a fair part in this process in my opinion.

I can do little about costs two and three – and nor does the current economic climate change these much. But I am reasonably convinced that I can control the cost of training, and even more the time it takes for learning to pay back. On the trainers I intend to use our own people. And they will teach best practice on the specific tasks we know we do, and need to improve.

It seems obvious – but of course it will require us to train the trainers. Today I spent quite a lot of time with various managers identifying what such a programme should be, who might be the trainers and who might be trained. Rather nicely sometimes these last groups swap over. I need to run this all by the Chair who is an expert on these issues – but this is already generating enthusiasm. When some of the conventional motivators won't be that is important.

***

March 23 – I admit to a low feeling.

A few weeks ago I mentioned one of our people had been involved in a road accident, through no fault of his own. Our chap is now OK. We learned on Friday the person whose vehicle hit him had died.

Of course it led to more police enquiry today, and there will have to be a coroner's court hearing.

We have already been assured everything is in good order. There is no suggestion of prosecution of our employee. His vehicle was in first-rate working order. It was he who was hit by a person overtaking dangerously.

But you wouldn't be human if an event like this did not take the edge off your day.

And we've arranged counselling for our staff member in case he needs it.

I feel so sorry for the family of the guy who died - it seems such a waste.

* * *

March 19 – I'm very aware I did not do an entry yesterday. I don't like that – it just happens sometimes. My family needed me more last night. I went home.

I could (and maybe should) say the same now. But writing this stuff gives me perspective.

Perspective on what you might ask? So am I.

I can't be alone in thinking that the world has changed. I can look back to the excitement in writing this diary last summer. I was doing a buyout. I was looking at growth. My thoughts were of acquisitions.

Things are quite different now. I'm looking at maintaining things. I don't rule out acquisitions, but they are not going to be big. We are micromanaging more than I expected. I don't resent that. It just says there's less slack than we had. We need to focus on the detail, and we are.

Take today's example. I spent quite a lot of time in a meeting with Hitchin and accounts staff looking at debt. Maybe I could have ignored this a while ago, or just let them get on with it. We were getting enough new business to take the risk of upsetting those who were not paying on time.

Now the equation is more nuanced. I want people to know how I think so they make the sorts of decisions I want. But that takes a new form of knowledge transfer - at a micro level, and at a time-consuming level.

I think this is an appropriate use of my time at present. It's just not what I was expecting.

Am I the only one who's unsure about what senior management should do now?

* * *

March 17 – Is that 'beware the ides of March' or St Patrick's Day? Either way, East delivered mainly good news today. We have kept most of the contract we thought lost a week or so a go – albeit at the lowest price we could have done it for, which means real loss of revenue and profitability. But it will contribute and it saves the real risk of redundancies.

There's another dimension to this. Not that long ago we had a turnover of staff, both seasonally (as we tend to more active on installation in the summer) and even amongst the longer term people. Right now that has disappeared. I've realised that what I've got is what I'll be getting for now – no one is resigning at all unless they have to as the hassle of voluntarily seeking a job in a market where far too many people are applying for each one makes any move unattractive right now.

This changes your perspective somewhat. In particular, the payback on training has just increased in all probability. I see that as the silver lining. I might increase productivity as a result. That might be very important right now.

***

March 16 - I now have a first draft year end results. They will do for tomorrow's management meeting but I'm not sure I want to send them to the auditors as yet.

We run a pretty tight accounting system here. I have no doubt that our basic numbers are absolutely fine, and there is nothing in the things that I've written about in the last couple of weeks that causes me any concern with regard to a post balance sheet adjustment. Except for potential bad debts that is.

These days with the best will in the world who can tell who is good and who is bad until the cash turns up? We aren't in any desperate hurry for these numbers. We have included a realistic, in historical terms, provision for bad debts on accounts that we think are in difficulty, and that will be good enough for sending to the bank as well, for now. But I don't like nasty surprises in any set of accounts relating to a prior year adjustments, so for the minute these numbers will not be finalised for audit and we will continue to collect the cash to prove that balances for a while to come.

I call that prudence.

***

March 13 – Friday 13th? Bah humbug!

Quite right too.

Having sweated yesterday to deliver the analysis of our competitors I got an email from a Hotmail account saying 'thank you – helps a lot'.

I hope so. We could really do with keeping that one.

The moral? Networking pays even when you think it's a pain in the proverbial.

***

March 12 – It happened quite by chance last night that I went to one of our trade association gigs and met the chap East and Hitchin are negotiating with on the contract I was discussing here last week.

I expected him to avoid me. He didn't. He sought me out. He asked me for help – and said I must not mention a word of our conversation. He is compelled to give the contract to the lowest bidder – which is not us – unless he can show doubts about the lowest bidder suggesting they cannot fulfil the contract obligations over the contract term.

He knew we would. He says he wants to keep us. He's said we need to show why the competition aren't up to it – financially.

Fine, I said – but that does not help me unless I know who I'm competing against I said.

And he, of course, felt duty bound not to tell me. So I had to play cat and mouse – and suggested names and gauged responses.

I hope I'm right. #1, AM and I profiled three likely competitors this morning to show why we're much more robust financially. One looks rather horrible – worse than I had expected based on what we'd previously known.

This afternoon East fed this through to them – saying we thought it useful to submit additional data in support of our bid.

Our accounts stand out as most robust by a mile. If that helps us win business, that's especially good news.

It's made me think of publishing the data on our website. I know major corporate do. But what is stopping us doing the same if it wins work?

Of course – I might wait to see if it does first.

***

March 11 – I know I wrote this diary yesterday. I remember doing so. I know I saved it. I thought I'd posted it. I can't find it now, not anywhere. Not on my machine, not on the website. Gone. I'm sure I'm not going senile. And I'm not blaming my bellowed little NC10 – I suspect I saved it on a stick by mistake and took it home. But it's a quiet reminder about data security. As far as I know I've never lost 25 million records in a go, but even losing a file makes you worried. These things are easy to do. I suspect little harm will come of this, but what next?

Enough of my encroaching senility, I do recall noting my pleasure at AM's response to my challenge. So I'll repeat it. She went away from here and really appraised the problem – and realised we might have not been up to scratch but that in reality no one is complaining much – except her. She wants us to be better than average, and whatever the reason (I suspect it's Newc's lack of attention to detail – which is the corollary of his enthusiasm) she is unhappy that we are not in all we do right now.

She's rightly decided (contrary to what she was obviously thinking last week, when mildly panicking) that this does not need a bull-in-a-china-shop approach. Far from it. She has indentified individuals, problems they have, and training programmes to suit.

Excellent. She kept control of the situation. She has designed a solution that is now hers to deliver. So much better than me imposing one.

***

March 9 – What is it about Mondays? I like them – partly because I enjoy my work. For me they represent new opportunity to right last week's wrongs (of which there are usually plenty).

Not so today. #1 has five in her accounts team. I know them all. They're reliable (well, one excepted). And she was one of only two in today.

As the morning went on so it became clear other teams were also suffering – we have too few people out on the road today as a result and emergency cover is at its limits.

Is it just the bugs that are going round (and I can hardly moan here – having had my fair share) or reaction to the pressure of the year end weekend, or pressure in general? I don't know.

But it's certainly not normal, even for us, and we do – almost inevitably - have highest absenteeism on Mondays and Fridays.

I'll live with it. But these things need monitoring. If stress is rising then I want to know.

* * *

March 6 – Hitchin, East and I all worked well into the evening yesterday – plenty late enough for pizza to be called in whilst wrestling with costing on the job where a retrospective discount has been demanded and a price reduction for the same service in the future.

We built into our model an assumption that whatever w agreed would then be subject to another retrospective discount.

And try as we might this could not add up. We want to keep jobs. That is a priority. We pushed and shoved this every way we could – but ultimately you cannot marginally cost everything or there is nothing left to cover the overhead – and this one as left barely covering its most marginal of costs.

We decided at 10pm to call it a night and sleep on it. So much for my suggestion I’d have a day off after working last weekend.

This morning we reconvened. The vote was 2 to 1 to drop it. East was the contrary vote. He said it’s madness not to go back and say we can’t do it and give them a price we can do.

He won me over. He and Hitchin agreed to pitch together. The bid’s over both their areas.

I think they’ve got a snowball’s chance. But we’ve nothing to lose as we have agreed to walk away if they don’t agree.

Too many more of these and we’ll be rethinking our commitments. I don’t like this. Not one bit.

But I am taking this weekend off.

* * *

March 5 - It never rains, but it pours. Or so someone said.

So it seems.

After AM finding problems we're now fighting to keep a big contract. Big retrospective discounts being claimed and the same service standard in future at much lower price.

Then they'll probably claim more discount.

Question: can we, should we, let it go?

I'll get back to you. I don't know.

* * *

March 3 (well, 4 by the time I got to posting this) – The auditors are happy enough. February billing was what I hoped for. Quite a lot of cash left here today to settle creditors delayed by a week or so over the year end. And all is well.

Well, not quite. Is it ever? As I’ve recounted AM took over the division we created more than a year ago from Newc upon her arrival. Now she’s getting her teeth into things she’s finding problems.

Our first new division was based largely on ‘poached’ people. OK, head hunted will do. And to do date we thought all was going well. But AM had her doubts. Financially things are OK. The division is more than covering costs, and making a useful contribution to central overheads. That’s fine. That’s how we do things here: I can’t be bothered to allocate out accounting and other costs pretty arbitrarily.

The issue is not that, it’s quality. I think most people will realise I like doing things well. Newc does not have the same eye for detail, to be honest. AM does. Maybe it’s an accountant thing. Either way, she has realised that there are issues previously unreported. There is too much reworking going on of work done – and margins are depressed as a result. Sometimes we’re just getting away with stuff that is OK but not to spec. And she’s worried. She wanted my advice.

In doing so she’s having to learn a rule from me. That is you can come into my office with a problem. You also have to offer solutions as well. If you don’t you’re just trying to make your problem into my problem. That’s not why I employ managers. I employ them to address problems. I guide them in doing so. I counsel them on action. I’m available for advice. I’m not here to take their problem away, not unless I think it appropriate to do so, and then with their agreement (usually).

AM didn’t do that today. She arrived to ‘dump’ the issue. I listened. I then asked for the options she was considering. There aren’t that many usually. The first is you can ignore the issue: it’s not a big enough problem to address. The second is to live with the issue: it’s a problem with no known solution – so a ‘work round’ is required. The third is to take it on. That requires a plan. The final option is to re-frame the problem in another way – to turn it from a problem into an opportunity in other words.

She clearly did not think she could embrace option 1. She has rejected option 2. She had no answers to options 3 and 4. So I sent her away and said come back with options we need to discuss. By Friday. But don’t expect to park the issue on my desk. It’s remaining on hers.

I think she was surprised. But it usually only happens once. People learn after that. And I never put them down in the process. I just want them to be proactive.

And if that’s not possible I chose the wrong person for the job. That then is my problem.

* * *

March 2 - A bit of a nightmare of a weekend. The auditors are jumpy - I guess they are paranoid about liability these days.

The stock checking was way in excess of anything we have done before.

And despite our very best efforts we have more work in progress than usual over this year end. Many people are reluctant to accept bills for partial stage work right now, but either way #1 and I had to spend most of the weekend scheduling what we were doing and then proving this in real-time to some of the audit team.

If anyone thinks that's a recipe for a fun time - think again.

I suspect both of us will take a day off during the course of this week simply to recover. And certainly not mister popular at home - at least with the eldest offspring who I let down badly on a commitment that I thought I could meet.

I guess that's a lesson for life, but it's one I would rather not teach.

* * *