Editing blog retrospectively to make myself look dumber

 It's the Colorado River, and it's Utah, not Texas. 

More news from somewhere

With the news that Arizona has now fallen to Biden's elite commando team and Trump forces have abandoned their tanks and fled across whatever river separates it from Texas, combined with a 50k+ majority in PA and a flipping massive street party in Philly, my angst about the election has abated somewhat. There aren't going to be 38 faithless electors.

Also, there was other, more local, news today. A man leaving his office clutching a box. Crazy times man.

The last 5 or so years have seen, I think, a remarkable change in the way I work. I'm constantly fascinated by professional sportsmen and sportswomen who, by around 38, are retired, having achieved stuff. I reckon I only began to get into my professional stride at around 40. I'm pretty confident now. I can do stuff. There isn't a single Premier league footballer close to my age. Odd.

I can do stuff, in big organisations. The key to doing stuff is (a) being clear what the thing you want to do is, and not trying to do 3 or more things at once, (b) building alliances with the people who have the power to stop the stuff you are doing, though sheer awkwardness, and (c) getting a good team around you. It doesn't really matter if the stuff you want to do is right, or proper, or true. It can't be done without (a), (b) and (c). Even in a start-up, where (b) might not apply, without (a) and (c) you aren't going to make it.

And yeah, persistence. That's something the sportspeople understand. The really, really good ones are largely very very boring, fixated people. They do one thing, really well. They don't have outside interests or political views -- in the main -- because, well, yeah, they are boring, and they only see the thing they do, and they do it over and over and over and get really good. I'd never made it as a professional athlete, body aside, because I don't have anywhere near the level of focus of, say, Johnny Wilkinson. Booting rugby balls over the crossbar, hour after hour after hour. Not mindlessly, but with total focus. Honing his craft.

But you don't have to have Faldo levels of boring persistence to get stuff done. You just have to have ordinary levels. You have to stick at it. You have to observe what doesn't work, and stop trying to bash your head through a brick wall, and find the people you need to work with, and butter them up, and build relationships, and stick at it, and, often, drive change through a series of deeply unsexy small wins, until the whole is unrecognizable from when you started. 

I'm very proud of the work I've done on decarbonisation over the last 5 years. I don't think any particular piece of work really stands out from the others, but the whole is a big step forward, and it was done with lots of other people in my team, plus lots of other people who don't work on decarbonisation at all but without whom it couldn't have been done, and it will, I think, stand the test of time.

It took a lot longer than a year. Any meaningful change that is going to persist, and change a large organisation for good, will take a lot longer than a year. Other than the sort of meaningful change the the chap who crashed to Co-Op Bank into a brick wall drove, or the Carillion Directors new business model for their company -- liquidation. I guess those kids of long term changes can be rustled up pretty quickly. But, I digress.

You can't fix things quickly, without good people, good relationships, a focused plan, and enough persistence that when it doesn't go how you want first time, you don't flounce out of the room with a cardboard box.

I can't remember why I wrote this now. 

Nothing to say

 Until he's out of the White House and Biden is inaugurated I can’t post anything. I’m just too anxious.