I find it a paradox that a company such as Swires, built on strong Unitarian values and moulded by the power of its future Billionaire siblings, employs such little organic virtue from its past. John Swire, brother of Adrian and keen conservationist ( he died last November.. very little reported in the Journal as opposed to the Swire News, who did a page lead on him as a sort of obituary, substantiating his corporate fairness and the importance of his group to both lead by example and value its employees..), was a partisan and honest member of his tribe. Peter Sutch to a degree was both a protégée and a mentoree of Sir John's. So what went wrong? As the wavelets of dissent lick the ankles of middle management and the Corporate emperors begin to realise that resting on non thorny laurels was an ill gotten comfort whilst the LCC's began to de hitch the train, has the free reign for CX just gone a mile too far? Where salvation should have been in the form of a cloned Dixon or Walsh, we saw the emergence of a really nice and cuddly Swire chap, ( with a name right out of an Enid Blyton review), but with little ability to rehitch the carriages of the CX train. He would rather play into the hands of higher mentors who expect traditionalist principles of little change. Appointing a circus ring leader as head of human remains and enlarging his empire with almost free reign, creates the business of communication atrophy such as the likes of the Melissa communique…and the Saudi like censorship deal…I wonder if Merlin knows how his minion managers are fairing outside his Westminster property?..does he care?..but back to the virtues of old, where value and respect were garnered through mostly FairPlay and hard work; where the latter flourished on the respect we had for the return of good governance, management honesty and third floor pilots who deserved our respect.
Esse quam videri…to be, rather than to seem..its a moto as deep as our brand but sadly, not one of us probably right up to the ninth floor recalls its origin, purpose or reason..maybe it should now become..Esse Videri quam..?..all our managers seem..they rarely do..they function not for the common cause but the furtherance of kudos.. ego and corporate rank.. the GMF has bought his command through doing..well..doing absolutely nothing..he joins rank with the plastic knodding dog at the back of the old Cortina.. the night of the long 600 knives resulted in what exactly??..lower cost re appointments? Certainly no clearing of the lower or even upper corporate cupboards.. where the sell by dates remain expired.. the taste a little more toxic as their mould remains..pretty much the same. We heard the call for unity..ideas and substantiating those cuts.. but we heard little from those who sit smugly behind the trenches..waiting for that gaseous wind to blow the bonus ever so much closer to home..lets just hope there is enough mustard left in that zephyr to hit the back of their throats as they see the train finally run off the rails..the sad matter is..it was OUR train..not even theirs..