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Working together. Economies of scale. Generating efficiencies. They are phrases you’ll read on most pages, of most business magazines, in most countries, on most days. And they are phrases which mean absolutely nothing...and absolutely everything.
If you have ever sat in a meeting and idly ticked off the buzzwords as they drip relentlessly onto the table, before slithering pointlessly down onto the floor, then I imagine the ones above – and many more – will have been on your list.
In fact, it’s actually quite hard to present a future strategy without mentioning at least one of them - which is why we are now very firmly at the stage of familiarity breeding contempt.
But, hold. What if those three dog-eared and forlorn fragments of 1980’s management-speak actually do represent the way forward? What if we can only truly thrive by working together (gulp!), by creating economies of scale (sorry!) and making sure that, in everything we do, we...er...generate efficiencies (help!)? What if, actually, it is the future prosperity of the Channel Islands which is at stake?
Well, that’s exactly the view of a local group of economic thinkers who have gone toe- to-toe with one fundamental rule of living in these islands – that they don’t, ever, mix, and the water is there for a good reason – and produced a report which effectively says that it is only in working together that we can have the successful future we all want.
Conceptually, greater C.I. co-operation is [tick off the management buzzword] a “no- brainer” – but the reality is, it is something we say we do, without ever actually really doing it. It comes and goes like the tides onto political agendas, but you somehow feel that beyond the publicity pics, not much is really going to change. While working together is self-evidently the right way forward, we will irrationally let centuries of historical animosity irrationally get in the way of any meaningful progress. Good move!
On page 20 of this edition, you can read the latest clearly stated argument for why that sort of “legacy thinking” [tick off the management buzzword] needs to stop now, while also giving plenty of data to push the argument beyond challenge.
But, hang on a minute? Work together with Jersey/Guernsey [delete as appropriate]? Surely our continued prosperity isn’t worth so much? Maybe we need to rethink that one.
Enjoy Connect...published across the Channel Islands.
