How often in private practice and (indeed sometimes in house) as a professional do you get that last minute call or email at around 5pm on a Friday evening, just as you are starting to think about the weekend, that goes something along the following lines. “I am really sorry but I have to draft this complex agreement and I’ve been trying to get round to it all week but something always keeps coming up. Could you help me out here? Oh and by the way my business needs it by first thing Monday morning.”
 
And of course it’s an important client and so bang goes your Friday evening with your family or friends and maybe a substantial part of the weekend as well. By Monday morning you have delivered and the client is happy but you have created an unanticipated crisis on three other accounts and start the week rather jaded.
 
The scientist Bob Carter summed this problem up: “Poor planning on your part does not necessarily create an emergency on mine”.
 
But it does not have to be like this. The client could have anticipated the Friday challenge and instructed you on Wednesday or Thursday. And communications like Skype and IM give us the chance of instantaneous and informal communication. Why not encourage such clients to use these medium to at least alert you to the possibility of the urgent work, allowing it to be planned and executed in an organised way.
 
It’s far less risky to be prepared and not always working late to deal with a crisis which is not of your own making. I am not sure who it is attributable to, but the “5 P’s” sums this up – Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance.
 
But you have to be given the chance to benefit from proper planning in the first place, and not be forced into crisis mode by your client’s absence of organisation.

American pilots landing complicated jet planes with all sorts of electronic systems on aircraft carriers reputedly have one simple check on a yellow sticky note stuck in front of them in the cockpit. It says: “Put the landing gear down”.
 
This is because with all the other complex things they have to manage, landing a small but very sophisticated plane on a moving runway in the middle of the sea, they had a history of crashing because they forgot to carry out one simple but very important and essential action.
 
Actually pilots are one of the professions which use checklists very effectively. I sat in the co-pilot seat of a Cessna light aircraft a few years ago flying from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and watched the pilot running through his pre flight checks which were very thorough and impressive.
 
However good and competent we may be as professionals I suggest that having and using check lists as aide memoires for tasks such as contract or business reviews or for project planning adds a degree of certainty and consistency.
 
Here’s a great quote I found on the subject from Atul Gwande an American surgeon and writer:
 
“Checklists turn out...to be among the basic tools of the quality and productivity revolution in aviation, engineering, construction - in virtually every field combining high risk and complexity. Checklists seem lowly and simplistic, but they help fill in for the gaps in our brains and between our brains.”
 
Astronauts have to rely on checklists in the most stressful circumstances such as take off. Bert Rutan an American aerospace engineer said:
 
“A NASA astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut can't be creative. He has to follow a predetermined detailed checklist written by an engineer and if he gets a little creative he'll never fly again.”
 
So even if at first sight as professionals we might look down on such a practice and believe we are all infallible in our work, actually we are not, and having a means of verifying we are not forgetting some basic issue like lowering the landing gear enhances our ability rather than diminishing our professionalism.

I am spending a fascinating week in Hong Kong which is in many ways the epitome of the cultural and business meeting points of the East and West – of Europe and America with Asia and China.
 
In this time of seismic global political change, it is somewhat comforting and encouraging to see how effective and seamless this confluence is in Hong Kong. There is no cultural clash, rather a congruence where the two cultures sit side by side and complement each other. All the signs on the transport system, for example, are in Cantonese script and English. As a European I feel naturally quite at home here. I know this is partly because of the British historical connections, but Hong Kong has gone beyond this and is now a true global centre.
 
It makes me think that we should celebrate, build on and use these sorts of differences rather than being challenged by them or worse creating polarised positions. In a team or in a meeting having different types of people from a variety of backgrounds and approaches is a positive asset not a problem, as long as they all listen to and respect each other. There is well documented support for the dangers posed to businesses with a very strong leader whose ideas are not properly challenged because everybody else is a yes person afraid to put forward a contrary view. See this Harvard Business School article by way of example.
 
Different perspectives from around a business can by contrast solve problems. There is a great story from the Pacific Power and Light Company in the USA whose cross country electrical wires kept breaking in winter because of the weight of ice forming on them. They held brainstorming sessions to solve the problem with representatives from all parts of the company – even the mailroom. A linesman talked about brown bears and they tried to think how to get them to shake the telegraph poles – honeypots on top delivered by helicopters. Madness you might think. But then a secretary said why not just fly the helicopters low over the line and blow the ice off the wires? Problem solved.
 
Mahatma Gandhi said “No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive”. Like Hong Kong we should rather embrace the inclusive nature of different cultures and views.

​I am shortly going on a family break to see an old friend in Hong Kong. I enjoy visiting the Far East because the cultures there are so different to Europe. This is nowhere more true than in Japan.
 
When I first visited the country I took a bus (curiously called a limousine) from Narita airport to my hotel in Shinagawa in Tokyo. Waiting in a queue for the correct bus I watched the workers loading luggage in a very enthusiastic and organised way on the bus before mine. After they had finished they bowed to the bus presumably as a gesture of respect.
 
The Football Association in England has been running a Respect programme for several years aimed at allowing referees to officiate at and young people to participate in matches without being subject to abuse by players, coaches, parents or spectators. Having coached my one of my son’s football teams when he was younger for several years I can vouch for the need for this. Often the parents can become more passionately involved than the players!
 
“Respect” for others is for me an important part of professional life. Even if you disagree with or even don’t like somebody you work with or who is on the other side of a transaction I suggest they should be given the courtesy of being treated with respect.
 
Bill Clinton was asked what he thought was important advice he could pass on to others. He said:
 
“I’ve come to believe that the most important thing is to see people. The person who opens the door for you, the person who pours your coffee. See them. Acknowledge them. Show them respect. The traditional greeting of the Zulu people of South Africa is “sawubona”. It means “I see you.”
 
If even a luggage loader at an airport in Japan can be civilised enough to show respect to the bus or at least to his job then how much more so should we as professionals adopt this behaviour in our working and personal lives.