Endings

Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

We're not good at endings. That point when narrative reality collides with the story we've been telling ourselves.

I'm sure that somewhere within P&O Ferries, somebody said "oops" or somesuch and then found themselves suddenly available for employment whilst others, in a fit of wilful blindness, convinced themselves it is all just a squall.

I noticed it this morning in a local law firm whose story has encountered narrative reality. I'm sure the acquisitions of competitors and overheads looked like a great idea at the time. A really great story.

Reality is that every company has a lifecycle, and those lifecycles are getting shorter the more complex our interdependency and the more vulnerable we become to a systemic shock somehere we've never paid attention to.

I watched a BBC documentary last night on Rolls Royce here in Derby. It's a local icon, and generations have worked there creating fantastic products. I found myself thinking that the number of fut…