The first part of a three-week course in ‘making dreams happen’ in the 21 March 1993 issue of the Observer Magazine (‘The science of success’) had an odd cover with gases bubbling up containing various luminaries, suggesting rather more ephemeral success – though perhaps a comment on Anita Roddick’s ‘natural’ Body Shop products.
Still, in ‘the quest for fulfilment’, even two of the best managed companies in the post-war years – IBM and GM – had recently announced the ‘two biggest annual losses in corporate history’, so who knew any more about the solidity of success?
‘In the 80s, popular work scientists and their followers often admired people who excelled in making it happen,’ wrote Richard Askwith. ‘One bestseller of the period with a revealing title was Wess Roberts’s The Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun… modern ideals include Donald Trump… and Margaret Thatcher.’ Though the latter only figuratively skewered their enemies.
‘In the 1990s, jobs are scarce and precarious, the world is changing at an unprecedented rate and you need to be resilient, flexible and capable of adjusting your sights at short notice,’ said headhunter Yvonne Sarch. ‘The old concept of career ladders to be climbed no longer applies.’
All too true. But I’m not sure Carol Kennedy sold the work of America’s ‘leading business evangelist’, Tom Peters, and his new book, Liberation Management. ‘Its basic message, buried in its 800-plus crowded pages, is that soft industry is superseding lumpy objects.’
One also swerves to avoid ad manager Winston Fletcher. ‘I make as much extra time as possible for work. I never go on a journey without a writing pad and a calculator; and I have a reading light above the bath, because I know I like lazing in it and can put the time to good use by reading business documents.’ How about putting the time having a bath to good use by… having a bath? That’ll be £16.99 please.
