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"It was twenty years ago today"
Twenty years ago today on 23 June 2005, I gave my first all-day training Course. So now, I retire. The website will remain open for one or two years (and it's got loads of my previous emails on it). Today, you've no tips. Instead, I reminisce... the good, bad and ugly of Clarity and Impact.
Pride and regret, part 1: WiT, my signature dish. People seem to really like it, it helps them. Nice. Unfortunately, some people over-rely on it - they do nothing to their bad report other than lots of WiT. Bad, ugly WiT. It gives WiT a bad name. I even thought about dropping WiT from the Course, but instead now tell people that WiT is not a ‘must-do’ but a ‘nice-to-do’.
Pride and regret, part 2: my book. I know I’m biased but I like it. As for my regret, I held out hope that it would become compulsory reading for all students at the world's 10,000 plus business schools (now that would have been nice). But it didn't happen. Ah well.
Delegates and Courses: mostly heaven: most delegates and Courses have been wonderful. OK, I've had some stand-out bad moments. Three really bad delegates. Two really horrible Courses. But let's move on, for the good stuff far, far outweighs the bad. I’ve adored delivering Courses so much, I retire almost with a heavy heart.
‘Redo’ work for clients – a lot of hell: redoing reports... it's tough. Hour after hour, I’d reformat, realign, rewrite, retabulate and more. It does the head in. But you know what? It really helped me, for as I grappled with a client’s report, new ideas would surface, ones that eventually found their way into my book and onto the Course.
Headwinds I’ve endured, tailwinds I’ve enjoyed: Clarity and Impact has had to navigate the Credit Crunch and then Covid. Not good. But as the saying goes: "Them's the breaks", for I've also had tailwinds. In particular, quite soon after starting out, I gave a one-hour freebie evening talk (with huge thanks to Ruth Bender for making it happen) - and within a week, I'd landed four clients that were all household names.
What’s helped, what’s hindered: technology. It enabled Clarity and Impact to go places it could have previously only dreamt about. Without it, there’d be no emails, downloads or website. Also, my ‘redo’ layouts couldn’t have been done on old technology (Lotus 123, Harvard Graphics - remember them…?).
But there’s a downside. Technology enables big companies increasingly to treat us – the great unwashed - with disdain. (If you don't like reading a rant, skip to ‘What I'll miss when I retire' three paragraphs further down.) Got a query and want to find a company’s phone number? Not easy… MI5’s phone number is easier to find (I looked it up just now). When you ring most companies, it’s: “Press 1 for This, 2 for That, etc”… interminably.
Or you hear: “Try our website”. Well, duh! How do you think I - eventually - found this number? The website then gives useless answers. Or Digital Assistants answer questions we didn’t ask. Or we are referred to a ‘forum’ – which is a euphemism for: “Sort it out amongst yourselves” (here's a thought: the first two letters of ‘forum’ are F and O…). Or we type back and forth online… I once did this for 25 minutes, then typed: “Sorted now – thanks... but we could have done this in a 50 second conversation”.
It wasn’t always like this, you know.
Most egregious are clients’ Purchase Order systems. I was wasting five hours a week merely trying to ‘create an invoice’. I fought back and told new clients I’d charge a premium if they required me to use such systems. Once, I even sent a client a three-page note on the step-by-step hell I'd suffered when trying to follow Ariba’s two 35-page manuals.
I could rant also about Amazon, but let's stop there and instead ponder (wait for it)... admin.
There's been ever-increasing admin: “Going Digital For VAT”. GDPR (here’s my policy, I’m proud of it). Constant identity checks. Once, when a client asked for my Anti-Slavery Policy, I wrote: “The other employee is my wife, and she’s not my slave”; the client rejected it. My conspiracy theory on all this admin? Big companies lobby governments to create new admin rules, for it creates an uneven playing field - small outfits are too small to cope economically with new rules.
I will not miss admin and Big Company Disdain. Rant over.
What I’ll miss when I retire. I’ll miss thinking about stuff. For 20 years, I’ve loved trying to solve things… how to redo this client’s awful 'heat map'? Why do those four paragraphs leave me so confused? Can I construct a decision tree for graphs and tables? (I couldn’t.) Or for Story-Telling? (I could - see page 140 of my book.)
I’ll also miss writing. Some people love to paint, they have a palette of colours and create. As for me, I love to write, I enjoy how it constantly challenges me... if I reorder the words, will they have more 'oommpphh'? Will they flow more smoothly? Maybe I should try a different verb? Can I shoehorn in a song-lyric - and will people spot it? (This email has a lot, a record number even, if you'll pardon the pun.)
What I won’t miss when I retire. Yes, I’ll miss writing… but paradoxically I won’t, for it can be tough. Writing my book was a brutal, unhealthy obsession – and these emails are the most stressful part of my working month. I agonise … is it interesting? Useful? Have I purged it of logical flaws, typos, bad syntax?
So too with thinking. I’ll miss it. But also I won’t. Here’s something I penned six months ago: “When I set my retirement date, one overarching emotion swept over me. Relief. Not relief that I’d no longer have to travel (I travelled 100,000 miles on business in 2018). Nor relief that I’d no longer do email updates (close to 200) or deliver Courses (over 1,300). Nor relief about earning a crust to pay bills. But relief that I could - at least - have an empty brain. Finally, I could stop having to think.”
If wondering where that paragraph comes from – and wondering how in retirement, I’ll amuse myself and stop my brain from ossifying – here's the answer: I’m writing forty years of my ‘work’ memoirs. After all, everything that kills me, makes me feel alive. I’ve done 150 pages already - loads more still to do - and it’s been superb. Writing for fun. For me. On my own dime. It won’t be published – if it was, I’d be in trouble. My family might get to read a bit of it, but that’s it. Of course, I’ve other plans too, but let's leave it there.
One last pontification: w(h)ither AI? Will AI render report-writing skills redundant? I really wasn't sure... that is, until my son - just for a laugh - asked ChatGPT about...me. It replied that I teach report-writing etc (yup, that's true), but it then said my 'key techniques' for 'Powerful Presentations' are: "Use icons and infographics".
Oh, how the Moon family guffawed. Conclusion: I've seen AI write great stuff - but do fact-check its outpourings.
And now the end is near: it's curtains for Courses, talks and redos. But do keep in touch, for I will do admin, sell and post books, answer emails - and I might do another email now and then. Many thanks for tuning in, buying books and Courses, sending me fun stuff (keep sending it please), etc. It's been a hoot.
Finally, a huge thanks to my wife (who isn’t my slave). In every step I’ve made, she has been a magnificent non-executive, plus she’s bound over 15,000 handouts; I suspect she might just ceremoniously smash the binding machine.
And I wouldn’t blame her if she did.
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say.
So long. Farewell. Auf Wiedersehen. Goodbye.
Jon
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