April 2008 – Living with uncertainty and the wisdom of fishing huts

Some of my best times have been spent in fishing huts. It’s difficult to explain, but feeding a small stove with wood, enjoying simple food and taking the odd dram of malt with a few friends is the perfect environment for putting the world to rights.

Last week I was sharing a hut on the River Dee with three businessmen, all entrepreneurs in their own way, all exposed to the uncertainties of the markets, all trying to second-guess the future.

Conversations in fishing huts are something of a catharsis, not least because your business worries are subordinate to the immediate and more pressing problem of catching a fish.

In this respect the riverside is a world away from the golf course where business and pleasure can become intertwined. The river provides distance and perspective, the kind of clarity that is sought from companies when they engage coaches for their most senior people.

The nature of coaching, however, means that the problems must all belong to those who are being coached. In that sense the conversation is always going to be artificial and, by necessity, somewhat one-sided.

Sitting in our hut there was no suggestion that anything in our conversation was about coaching. Yet each of us was unburdening problems and each listening to mutual advice. One telling observation made by a fishing friend was that the year he spent away from his business just over 10 years ago, was one of the best things to happen, both to him and the company.

“Up to that point I thought I had to be at the centre of every decision. Now I know that it’s far more important to recruit good people and let them get on with it,” he said.

Today, he and his business partner rarely interfere with the day to day running of their companies, concentrating instead on deal making, developing business opportunities and taking life a bit easier.

This last part is not as simple as it seems for the restless entrepreneur. Retirement and everything that might go with it – perpetual rounds of golf, serial cruising or visiting the ruins of yet another lost civilisation – just doesn’t seem to press the right buttons.

It was noticeable that everyone in our hut, most of whom are now in their mid fifties, was thinking ahead, not to a life of retirement, but a life of work; only not the work of career-building. For want of a better word, it was the work of creating some kind of legacy, although no-one said as much. This was the word used more than once by Tony Blair during his last year in office as prime minister.

I think it’s a good way to look at the future when approaching the later stages of a career. The legacy I’m thinking about is not so much how we shall be remembered - memories fade quickly, so such vanity-inspired reflection is going to be misplaced – but how we can make a difference. This might be something as simple as putting your personal stamp on an organisation.

Those who have seen and contributed to business growth from the early beginnings of an enterprise can, like my friend, feel some satisfaction watching the company go its own way, although there is also the accompanying fear of witnessing everything you built destroyed through a combination of fierce competition and unimaginative management.

I don’t think this would worry unduly any of my hut companions who are all the kind of people who could, in Kipling’s words in his poem, If, risk all their winnings on “one turn of pitch-and-toss.” While that is probably an exaggeration, I’m sure that each of them could lose and start again, even if it is unlikely that they would never breathe a word about their loss.

While losses are painful, they are tempered by a determination to make the next deal count. When one of my companions lost a big fish, he didn’t throw his rod away, but analysed every aspect of the loss, made some kit modifications and worked out what he would do differently next time.

He lost another fish too but it was noticeable that he caught more than the rest of us. He seemed to be better at responding to changes in the environment. You cannot stay in the same place, fishing the same way, if the river falls four inches in a morning. The fish will have moved and so must the angler.

The same happens in the workplace. It’s important to read the changes that are happening in an organisation but some employees never do. Some are trapped by change. They still have their skills and experience but these count for nothing if a new business model demands a different approach.

Older employees who began their careers with a promise, real or imagined, that they were embarking on a lifetime career with one employer can be particularly prone to this phenomenon of fishing the same pool the same way while failing to appreciate that conditions have changed.

While losing a fish is a disappointment, losing a job can be a devastating experience for those who are unprepared for change. Yet change, like a rising river, can happen so subtly that it can go unnoticed for those who have not learned how to move with the business.

Age does bring fresh perspectives in work. “We seem to begin prioritising personal fulfilment as we get older, either through work or in leisure activities, and this may involve changes, either minor or more radical,” says TAEN, The Age and Employment Network, in a new policy document, designed to influence the Adult Advancement and Careers Service proposed by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

The first of these services is to be piloted in London later this year, serving Southwark, Lambeth and Wandsworth. The second pilot service is to be developed in partnership with London’s Mayor, focussing specifically on people who are in work and who want to develop their skills and earnings potential.

“We need to get away from the idea that the only time you need careers guidance is when you are young or unemployed,” says Chris Ball, chief executive of TAEN. “It’s important to establish that such advice is needed by people who are in work and doing well in their jobs.

“People may be facing all kinds of issues that require them to think of changing the way they work. This service is a great opportunity for the government to recognise that support is need to only for those who are out of work and young but also for those who are older and in work.”

The TAEN document outlines a 10-point manifesto for shaping careers guidance to meet the needs of older workers. While nothing can replicate the wisdom of the fishing hut, it is encouraging to discover that the Government is at last responding to the argument that work and incomes are a concern for everyone, no matter what their stage in life.

Career Guidance and Advancement is available from TAEN’s website under the Resources/Learning and Skills’ section at www.taen.org.uk

See also: Age is not a measure of performance and: Can older minds be fresh minds?