Reflections. Here we go again.

It's interesting how things go full circle.

Thirty years ago I had just accepted a job to turn round an ailing specialist coatings business in Scotland. We were in the teeth of a big recession, the company had halved its workforce and barely had a pulse. It turned out to be the most fulfilling, and possibly the easiest job I've ever had.

What it did have was a tight knit workforce, which itself was part of a close community. it had good skills and attitude by the bucketload. Fortunately, I knew nothing about specialist coatings but had been brought up in Scotland, which as the new CEO meant I sort of understood how communities like this worked. Because it barely had a pulse it was difficult to make a mistake - almost anything that was done to recognise and support a skilled team was likely to improve things.

One of the wonderful things about the business was the complexity of the product. It was highly technical, involving the laying down of nanostructires as a transferable coating used …