LONDON -- How does "1.3 billion people" sound for an internal audience?  Worth digging out a budget for?

The Chinese Olympics this summer have been a great success.  By anyone's measure.  We are still in the 'good news glow' in the final days.  Undoubtedly the world will rush back in after the closing ceremonies and talk about drug test failures, athletes' dysfunctional relatives, and China's various misdeeds.  And many pundits will ask the question: Did this advance China's PR goals?

Has China -- the implicit question will be -- pulled the wool over people's eyes?  Have they managed to cause enough excitement and confusion to distract people from the long list of misdeeds that the media likes to drag out?  (Being a native of Canada, a mild-mannered people, annually demonised by our seal hunt, I can feel their pain.)

But it occurs to me that the game for China isn't external.  Or at least not entirely external.  There is a massive internal audience for these games.  As prosperity clearly starts to move across China, you can imagine people seeing their country succeed like for the first time.

The Chinese celebrated themselves in the lovely and lavish opening ceremonies.  They celebrate their athletes in the biggest medals haul ever.  And how can their internal audience not eat it up?

Who has ever seen a Chinese cheerleader before this month?  Where did the double-medal women's beach volleyball teams come from?  Or the sailing teams?

If I am sitting in my front room in rural China and looking at all this, I only have one thought: 'Man, are we good."

/df

LONDON -- Czech President Vaclav Havel was a well known playwright and dissident before becoming the symbol of post-cold-war politics.  In a new book he tries to exorcise the ghost of his 15 years as a public servant of a different type.  And he ends up talking about what the daily grind did to his creative abilities.

For 15 years he wrote a speech every week...

Perhaps it's because of all this hard labour that I now find writing so difficult.  I'm not the same person I was when I wrote my plays.

And it makes me think of all those people, from journalists, to speechwriters, to corporate writers, who get up every morning and work with words for the good of others.  These are people who are forced to churn out ideas on paper to a schedule. 

Havel continues...

How wonderful it is, by comparison, to be a writer!  You write something in a couple of weeks, and it's there for ages.  What will remain when presidents and prime ministers are gone?  Some references to them in textbooks, most likely inaccurate.

And I wonder when you will ever find students staying up late with candles and incense reading corporate memos aloud to each other.

Not soon.

Perhaps that's why I am painting the kitchen and writing this today when I have four work-related documents to write.

/df

(The book is To the Castle and Back and it's published by Portobello Books.)

KENSINGTON HIGH STREET -- I've just had another one of these conversations.  Two, in fact.  It's only 3 in the afternoon and I am already sick of the sound of my own voice!

Usually it takes longer.

Today's epiphany is that employee engagement is very different for different kinds of businesses.  It means different things for various functions... And even different people.  And it is obviously very different regionally.

So, it's easy then.

I like to think of employee engagement as being about the employees having the willingness, ability and understanding to add any discretionary efforts toward making the organisation more successful.

Got it?  That'll be £25....

What do you mean you have no idea what I just said?!

Like most people, I work an average 5.5 hours in my work day.  The other 2.5, I am sharpening pencils, making coffee, talking to Ruth, etc.

If I do more of the right stuff and work for even an extra half hour, I can have an amazing impact on productivity.

But someone's got to make it understandable, interesting and worth my while.

How's that?

Yea, someone should really write a book on this stuff.

/df

GASPE, QUEBEC -- It would be a contentious issue in the community where I am spending my holidays, as many of the older members of the community are still quite taken with the Republican nominee.  But I have been reading recent commentary on John McCain's temper and his history of "degrading and demeaning" people who work for him.  And it is quite disappointing.

Now all signs are that Mr McCain will not be the US President any time soon -- Ladbrokes are giving 3/1 odds -- but it's an interesting state of affairs to have a potential president who was voted the second most unpleasant boss on Capitol Hill.

Stories of his verbal abuse of staff go back decades.  I have said previously that I think there are workplaces in the western world that contravene the Geneva Convention.  And the political world is a place that still rewards bullies and attracts people with combination of vanity and insecurity that makes for a bad boss.

When I used to work in politics on Canada's Parliament Hill right out of university, I was surprised by the behaviour of some recognisable politicians.  There were tantrums and threats and extramarital affairs that beggared belief.  But it didn't make me cynical then.  I thought that political life was so rotten that only people who were 50% deluded that they could change the world and 50% filled with ego would go into politics.

Then I went into business.  And it wasn't much better. 

The problem is that people who are petulant, rude and self-centered often get ahead faster than others.  Because they demand it.

Certainly times have changed and it is less frequent now.  But it's not a good sign if it appears in the Oval Office.

/df

GASPE, QUEBEC -- It's amazing how quiet things are right now at work.  Clients are away.  Bosses gone.  People on holiday.  You can hear the echo.  Even down the Internet connection.  But I don't think we should be deceived.  There's a lot that goes on in the summer.

For one thing it's only summer in the northern hemisphere.  And there are usually some very interesting business moves in the summer.  How many people are affected by these stories of the past week?

• First National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank of California are added to the listed of defaulted US banks.
• Ryanair's Q2 profits fall 85% and its share price 25% when that is announced.
• BAE Systems paid GBP531m for the data protection company Detica.
• EDF tries and fails to buy British Energy
• Tesco signals that its going into banking in a big way

And that was just last Monday and Tuesday.  But for many people those events won't have happened because they were on holiday.

For others they will see opportunities and chances while sitting in the office this week and in the weeks to come that others won't.  In some respects those working away in the heat of the northern summer have an advantage.  In part because they will probably take holidays in September or May when other people are not on holiday.  But they will also see things and do things that will put them ahead.

When everyone gets back in a few weeks' time, they shouldn't be surprised to find that some things have moved on. 

/df

CROSBY BEACH -- I'm standing out with Anthony Gormley's life-sized statues in Morcombe Bay.  They are both much, much smaller, and much, much bigger than I had thought.

Amazing really.

I am writing another book.  In my spare time.  This one will be new from start to finish.  And it's about leadership at work.  These statues sum up an interesting part of what I am trying to incite: a willingness to stand against the tide. 

Although these metal men, who are drilled into the beech, are only my height (6 foot +) they look frightening and impressive standing at various points submerged in water.  They don't move.   The waves lash around them.

Organisational culture can be just as complex and seemingly overwhelming.  But leaders need to stand up for what is right.  And organisations, through leaders, need to make sure that they provide support for everyone from the local line manager to the CEO to be able to do what is in the best interests of the company and it's employees at all times.

Man, it's windy out here.

/df

ON THE M40 -- It's generally not good to read a newspaper while driving on an autoroute.  Unless of course you are on the Oxfordshire-facing M40 today where nothing is moving.  So, I am tucked into the Guardian which has a feature story about the behavioural economist Richard Thaler and his new book Nudge.

Everyone from Barrack Obama to British Tory leader David Cameron is interested.

What is a 'behavioural economist' you ask?  Well it's not something you grew up wanting to be.  But judging by the business book shelves it's a lucrative gig to have these days.  Thaler and his fellow authors like Dan Ariely and Nassim Nicholas Taleb are shaking up not just your local Amazon, but also the political world of the moment.

In the Guardian article Thaler sums up his views as follows:

"One of the most important influences on people's behaviour is what other people do ... with the right prompting we'll change our behaviour to fit in with what we see around us."

The idea that the politicians like is that government can push people towards good things and then let them opt-out if they wish.  Whereas people like the UK Tory party were once all in favour of choice, they now seem to be saying things like: If we know pensions are good for people, shouldn't we be pushing that option?

Which you have to admit, does make some sense.

But then you have the libertarians (and conspiracy theorists) saying: If we let them decide what's good for us, where will it stop?

And you can see what they're saying.

Although, as someone who has working in politics and government at many levels, I find no sign of enough control or fore-planning to suggest that any conspiracy is possible... anywhere!

The bit that I find professionally interesting here is the idea that maybe the state -- and employers -- have some responsibility and/or need to suggest things to people that might be in their interest.  Like a pension.  Like a school savings programme.  Like long term disability insurance.  And still allow people to opt out.

Instead I see two things in business at the moment that I find disturbing:

1) Companies that say: We can't tell you what might be good for you, that would not sit well with your consumer freedom to spend your money where you wish, on what you wish.

2) The second is companies that actively make it harder for people to buy into good things by putting them off until after a time delay:  No pension until 6 months after you start.  Then you can choose to join...

And who is ever going to say: I have been earning $500 a month for six months now.  I think I'd like to earn less from now on... So sign me up to that useful programme!

I like this discussion by behavioural economists.  I think these conversations are good.  I think that businesses need to take their responsibility towards people more seriously.  It's a duty of care.  Not a free market of manpower.

That's just good business in my books.

/df

SOHO SQUARE -- My friend Tim Luckett has got to be one of the best crisis communication guys out there.  He always seems a little stressed.  And that's got to be a good thing.

Tim gets it coming and going.  Both when that dreaded thing happens -- the proverbial mouse in the box of chicken -- and when you are just planning for it -- what happens if...

So, if you're in either of those situations, call Tim.

But I am interested in the times when we use the word crisis and we don't mean it.  I am interested in the management-adrenaline-junkies who create difficulties just to get through the day.  And I think that our business, the "creative industries", are particularly strong at that.  We could stage the Crisis Olympics in Soho Square and competition would be fierce.

So, here is my list of things that I think do not amount to a crisis:

• Anything to do with your hair or grooming -- or anyone else's, for that matter
• Your failure to meet a deadline or do work in a timely way
• The weather (even if you run outdoor events, I mean, this is London!)
• Your love life... real or imagined
• A client, colleague or passer-by saying something mean to you; unless the police are involved
• A last minute cancellation

In these days of insurance and promised reparations for just about anything, you should have a plan.  Crisis plans are the business equivalent of having the fire department number beside your home phone.  It's just something you learn to do as you grow up.

Everything else is, frankly, poor planning.

/df

P.S. I would certainly welcome any other suggestions of what does not qualify as a crisis.