Banks are never born in a stable

I write a lot about organisations, companies mostly, the people who run them, the people who work for them, and the way they select people and move them around. Every year an unbelievable number of books are written on leadership, usually by Americans reflecting a national obsession with getting to the top.

Most of these books write about the qualities needed in leadership. It's fashionable these days to write about humility, the idea being that a humble leader can engage with every level of employee or any of the company's customers. I'm sure a lot of bosses understand this need, but, if they ever had the common touch, it soon deserts them as they climb the corporate ladder.

Last week I found myself in the boardroom of one of the world's largest banks. As boardrooms go this was spectacular, sitting atop a high-rise glass and steel office block. The ceiling was two storeys above us. Along one side of the room was floor-to-ceiling glass while, on the facing wall, above broad stainless steel doors was a giant map of the world in polished steel relief.

You would have needed a cricket fielder's arm to throw a pencil sharpener from one end of the giant desk to the other. Even speaking to each other across the table was impossible without an acoustic system. This room said nothing about humility and everything about power.

Judge an organisation not by its marketing patter, or the mellow words in its annual report, but by its innards. If the makers of the next James Bond film are looking for the kind of interior they need to reflect the megalomaniac tendencies of a Mr Big intent on mastery of the globe, they might send me an email. I know just the place.