In Praise Of ... Tea

Now being married to an American, I admit to being a morning coffee convert. One might even cite the Boston Tea Party as a metaphor for shaking off the colonial yoke of British rule.

However, the current century to date has seen British high streets taken over by chain coffee shops in a full-blooded assault on our national drinking habits. Sure, you can still order a lonely teabag in a cup of hot water, but who wants that when you can start the day instead with a double-shot expresso skinny frappe latte freshly made to your personal specifications by a ‘barista’ who even writes your first name on the takeaway cup?

However, come the afternoon and in British workplaces up and down the land the tables are turned. Drink that coffee in the afternoon and your work colleagues will look pitifully in your direction, as if to say, “You might want to think about reducing your caffeine intake”.

Not least, we live in a networking age and the afternoon tea ritual is  social one. Who's gasping for a cuppa? Shall I make us a brew? According to the UK Tea Council, the British drink 165 million cups of tea daily or 60.2 billion per year. 98% of British tea is consumed with milk and 96% is brewed from tea bags. Tea has less caffeine than coffee and contains beneficial antioxidants, helping to destroy free radicals (which can damage DNA) in the body.

Tea fuelled the urbanisation that led to the world’s first industrial revolution – boiling water for this process helped to stem outbreaks of disease and made living and working in high density on a mass scale possible.  Not least, factory workers were made more productive during their long shifts thanks to the invention of the tea break.

More recently, establishments catering for 'afternoon tea' have become cautiously fashionable again, as people seek a traditional alternative to the coffee shop invasion.

And the picture at the top of this page? It’s Grey’s Monument in Newcastle upon Tyne, dedicated to Charles Grey who famously gave his name to Earl Grey Tea, a drink flavoured with bergamot supposedly to offset the taste of lime in the local water at his family seat in Northumberland.

One of my son’s school friends was extolling to me the other day about his love for Earl Grey Tea. Now fatherhood has taught me some truths that I hold to be universal, including the fact that all kids like cheese, tomato ketchup and ... tea. Suffice to say, I think that our tea drinking habits may be safe for another generation.

Paris In The Fall

At this time of year, let's not overlook the fact that the second stanza of the famous song 'I love Paris' is 'I love Paris in the fall'. Paris is not just for lovers of springtime.

The BBC points out that more French people now live in London than in Bordeaux, Nantes or Strasbourg. French citizens laughing about the British weather, shaking off their umbrellas, peeling off their raincoats and making London France's 6th biggest city on their way to the bar. However, the reality is, as smart six-year city kid Eloise will tell you, that 'Paris raindrops are larger'. The reality is that, underneath all the bluster about being a magnet for French people, London hankers after that certain Parisian panache that only Jean Paul Belmondo in a rakishly angled trilby and Jean Seberg in a New York Herald Tribune t-shirt can muster.

On a trip to Paris exactly one year ago, I witnessed a male cyclist wearing a long white raincoat and no helmet weaving between several lanes of traffic, all the while happily puffing away on a Galoise cigarette. The modern incarnation of Jean-Paul, guilty of a number of health and safety breaches all at once that any modern Londoner would eschew. But in a city where the skulls of past inhabitants are piled high in catacombs as a reminder of the fate that awaits us all, there's something to be said about living life in the present that's life affirming. Joie de vivre if you will. As Jean-Paul Belmondo's anti-hero in À bout de souffle states, 'Being afraid is the worst sin there is.'

P.S. One of my current muses is listening to the latest downloads from Brolin, whose USP is the fact that all of his songs have the name of a city in the title - 'NYC', 'Reykjavik', 'Lisboa' and his latest track 'Portland'. He has yet to get around to making 'Paris', but it's surely only a matter of time.

Social influence exists outside of Facebook

Attending an interactive webinar at work a few weeks back, participants were asked to name a leader that they admired. I made my usual case for the 2 Nelson's (Mandela, Horatio), but was nevertheless swayed by the remarkable number of my North American colleagues on the call who named Sir Alex Ferguson as their most admired leader. Indeed, it's a reflection of the remarkably outward-looking and professional business mindset of Americans, that so many of would cite personal inspiration from this European example of leadership.

In this context, it came as no surprise then to discover this week that Sir Alex has also been interviewed about his leadership blueprint for the Harvard Business Review. So what's his secret?

• I thought of only one thing, building a football club - a great leader is concerned with the entire business, not just a few individuals or a single team;
• If you give in once, you'll give in twice - set yourself high standards. By the time that he retired, staff members would also be at the training ground every day when he got in at 7am;
• If the coach has no control, he will not last - always be the strongest personality in the room;
• Sometimes you have to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a father - a great leader matches the message to the moment;
• I was ready to take more risks - make sure that you always give yourself the chance to draw or win;
• I delegated training. It was the best thing I ever did - what you can pick up by simply observing is incredibly valuable. It doesn't take away your control.

The social influence of Sir Alex Ferguson isn't counted in Facebook fans or Twitter followers. It's measured in the way that he changed the entire culture of an organisation to become the world's richest football club. It's measured in the reputation of his achievements, not his celebrity. It's measured in his deeds and actions. So next time you judge your organisation's social influence on social media, don't just measure the reach and impressions, take a listen to what other people are saying about you. Therein lies the insight and blueprint for your own success.





Fear Of Missing Out

Do you make yourself available to your friends through your smartphone on a 24/7 basis? Do you regularly check your Twitter feed or Facebook timeline whilst out socialising with friends? Chances are that you're suffering from some degree of FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out.

You're not alone. The pervasive reach of communications technology into our personal lives through smartphones and social media apps, has also provided a lucrative new channel for the marketing industry. "Rolling Stones tickets are released at 9am on Friday - don't miss out!" "You have until midnight on Tuesday to get 10% off any pair of jeans in our store!" "Your friend Brian Smith likes us!" "You downloaded this, so we think that you'll also like this!" Hold on a minute, I can't afford to see the Rolling Stones, I don't really need a new pair of jeans, my friend Brian has really bad taste and I only downloaded that track for a joke.

Do yourself a favour and step back from all the advertising noise feeding off your FOMO. A hotel chain that I've used regularly emailed me with a deadline this week to book one of their £25 a night rooms "before they were sold out". Dude, I'm the one who decides where and when I go somewhere! Pressing the delete button on this one offered a real degree of release.

However, I bow to the superior expertise of my father-in-law in this matter. Nuisance phone calls he handles with aplomb, "Yes, why don't you give me your personal number and I'll call you back whilst your having your dinner." Sitting with his children and grandchildren on the deck of our holiday beach house this summer looking out at the Atlantic Ocean, his line was, "I wonder what the poor people are doing today". The reality being that you'll always miss out unless you see the moment for what it is. So take a selfie of your 'boring' life, stick it on Facebook and then go to the pub ... and don't forget to leave your smartphone at home. 

That's proper football

On Wednesday night, former Newcastle United goalkeeper Steve Harper will return to St. James Park for his testimonial - a match against AC Milan. In the context of the modern English Premier League, there are a number of unusual factors surrounding this game.

• The Newcastle squad for this match contains 21 Englishmen.
• The player has chosen to donate all proceeds to charity rather than to his own retirement fund.
• Harper is the longest serving player in the history of Newcastle United, with 20 years service at the club.

Never the first-choice goalkeeper, Harper was restricted to 157 league appearances for Newcastle in total, possibly denying himself a shot at an England call-up in the process, but not once uttering a word to the press about his 'frustration'. However, his loyalty and commitment have not gone unappreciated. Such is Harper's continuing popularity, that all 52,000 tickets for his testimonial on Wednesday have sold out. On his final playing appearance for Newcastle last season, the whole of St. James Park rose to a standing ovation before the end of the match, reducing Harper himself to tears and leaving a lasting impression on his children who were present about the important qualities of their father as a human being.

When the modern mercenaries of English football ply their trade in the Premier League next weekend, they would do well to remember the example of Steve Harper and the enduring value of loyalty and selflessness. It's telling that the greater players but lesser men who arrived at Newcastle for a season or two and then followed the route to fame and money elsewhere are absent from the teamsheet of celebrated ex players for Wednesday night. Harper's own words about his testimonial are typical of the man, “It’s important people realise this game is not about me – it’s about using my time served here to hopefully raise a lot of money for some of the fantastic facilities we’re fortunate to have on our doorstep.”

Wednesday night's match at St. James Park may be a footnote to the elite world of the Premier League, but it is a parable for where the true soul of English football resides. 

Stranded on Kennet Island ...

There are relatively few times when you head off with a trolley bag on a Monday morning that you're heading to a glamorous destination. Given the time of departure, it's usually work. More often than not, you'll only ever see the inside of a meeting room.

What then to be stuck by a business park inside a hotel in Reading for a 3-day meeting, whilst the last of the British summer blazes outside at 29 degrees? There's no escape from a Kennet island hotel, although whether or not its island status is defined by the River Kennet or the dual carriageway of the A33 is debatable.

That said, for the observant among us, the hotel's location in the M4 corridor, close to Heathrow Airport and astride Reading's concentration of global technology companies in Green Park offers a fascinating snapshot of what drives the modern economy. The besuited manager interviewing a fresh-faced job candidate over coffee, the prevalence of foreign accents at the bar and in the elevator, the company names on meeting room doors in the business suite, the laptop computers on every table. Transient human relationships arranged around the availability of car parking and taxis. This is Reading, but this could be anywhere.