One tribe goes to war; one tribe fights the fires

A couple of days ago, I ended a comment to this blog with the words Viva Humanity!

This morning, I was reminded of the nightmare that comes when inhumanity lives and thrives, while listening to Lyn Witheridge* on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live.

Lyn is one of the first people in the UK to prove her case of bullying in the High Court. Her story of the ridiculous professional demands and personal insults is not the whole of it. Nor is it sufficient to recognise the depression and the effect on her family life while she was being bullied.

What tips the balance into a nightmare situation, a nervous breakdown and complete feelings of helplessness is when the legal process goes wrong. In Lyn's case, the tribunal rejected her complaint on the basis that she had bullied her employer, the organisation itself. She called for apparently too many meetings to discuss the issues. This is again a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation. My deepest sympathy to anyone forced into this situation anywhere, at work, at home, with their neighbours.

Lyn's efforts were viewed as bullying itself. The court was used by the bully to further their own actions.

This is where our legal system goes wrong; still even today I believe it is happening.The victim is placed on the same level as the bully, where the implication is that there are "two warring parties". With this, a court gives the bully a voice and places value judgements on the victim's responses to the situation that they have been placed in (remember, they were not looking for it). Hence, the bully's actions are condoned and the bully's effects on the victim are strengthened.

This is the nightmare; a war is being fought between an aggressor and a fire fighter, and the fire fighter is damned for his efforts to put out the fire that no one wants but the aggressor. The bully has the Law on their side.

Fortunately, in Lyn's case, her union was funding her case and supported her taking the case to appeal. A nightmare within a nightmare and thank goodness she had her union; it is nigh on impossible for anyone with a private case. Appeals are expensive, transcipts have to be taken of the original hearing; the focus has to be that the original hearing was not conducted properly. And new evidence can only be presented with good reason. If you are forced in to this situation with a civil issue, where you are paying, make sure you get your case clear from the start. All the emotions don't make it easy but get it right first time -- the right to go to appeal is not a matter of course.

The result: Lyn's was worst case of bullying that the judge had ever heard and the tribunal had to be held again.

There are many good people forced on to the back foot by a few. It would serve the world well if the practioners of law were to routinely recognise even just the coarser grains within humanity.

So, Longue Vie à La Bonne Humanitié!

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* Lyn Witheridge's account starts 20 minutes into the programme.

Going faster during the slow-down

Richard Noble and Andy Green, who achieved the world landspeed record in 1997, last week announced that they want to go even faster: 1000 mph in fact. We can expect to see this in 2011.

The BBC announced this news on the same day that Governor of the Bank of England uttered "Recession" on Radio Four's Today programme.

Breaking the LSR to an extent of 1000 mph will be utterly awesome if it faces anything like the challenges presented on the fly during the last project, which achieved the still-standing record of 763 mph. And it will indeed be awesome. Engineering will again be at the edge of its limit: the record stands for over 10 years, and 1000 mph is faster than the record for a low-altitude aircraft. Already, the plan is to change the jet when turning around for the return trip. The team is now looking for a 15-mile stretch of flat stone-free desert, and it is justified in doing this considering the footage of route walking and incidence analysis that it went through last time (The Mission: Supersonic Dreams [not playable online]). This project has the experience to fulfill its goal, regardless of a recession.

It makes me wonder whether it is that the big ideas will keep succeeding while every other is put on ice, and whether the big ideas will be kickstarting those that have stalled whenever there is a return of Confidence.

If so, I hope that the big ideas pushing through to the end will belong to a New Economics (sales of Das Kapital have risen 300% in Germany this year), that they will recognise the value of a producer's labour above that of materials, which is the way that Richard Noble approached his last project.

He operated on a shoestring, not knowing if a sponsor would come forward with his fuel costs, and even, towards the end of the season, with the vagaries of climate (quite ironically considering the stock markets' volatilite reactions to the economic climate); he succeeded because of the dedication of his people. Now he helps teams become more effective using his Transformation Dynamics model.

The concomitant announcements of the LSR and a putative recession could be prescient with my first-hand experiences on the same day (I'll give the wry details another day, suffice to say that I'll be talking about the food industry within the UK motorway service and pub restaurant chains), but it is just that I am looking for such connections and choose to interpret my observations. Staff can be hindered from serving a business's customers or the converse, staff can be empowered and make profits when there are less people prepared to part with their money.

Businesses with the big R on their minds have a choice: do business better for the same price (in this instance, invest in staff and they will be more inspired in their work) or do business worse for cheaper (cut investment in staff and offer nothing special). The difference in choice reflects the dogma, with which I happen to agree even while I don't like it, that selling for cheaper doesn't work in a recession: that is, when money is tight, sell to those want to pay more simply because they are the ones who can afford to make the decision to spend. Are China's toy and textile industries suffering simply because they serve the lower income market?

Taking a long-term view, businesses should follow the first option, maintain and improve standards and operations, and even more so in a recession so they can be ready to take opportunities when they present themselves again.

In fact, the supersonic car website says much the same thing in terms of education. Go faster, Andy, go faster!