Sandwich Salvation at Clyde’s Truck-Stop: We All Need Something to Believe In

‘The sandwich is your pulpit, it’s where you preach the gospel of good eating.’

I recently saw ‘Clyde’s’, a play by Lynn Nottage currently at The Donmar Warehouse, London (directed by Lynette Linton, until 2 Dec).

Montrellous: This sandwich is the culmination of a long hard journey that began with a wheat seed cultivated by a farmer thousands of years ago.

This splendid work is set in the bustling kitchen of a Pennsylvania truck-stop staffed by ex-offenders. It’s the story of damaged lives and second chances; of confronting hard choices and recovering self-esteem; of finding salvation in a sandwich.

Montrellous: I think about the balance of ingredients and the journey I want the consumer to take with each bite. Then, finally, how I can achieve oneness with the sandwich.

Proprietor Clyde (Gbemisola Ikumelo) is a ruthless tyrant in high-heeled ankle boots. She has served time herself, and rules the business with an iron fist, periodically popping her head through the serving hatch with blunt demands for harder work and faster service. 

Clyde: Social hour’s over. Pick up the pace, or tomorrow I can get a fresh batch of nobodies to do your job. And I’ll make sure you go back to whatever hell you came from. Try me!

Rumour has it that Clyde is in debt to gangsters from down south for whom this is nothing more than a money-laundering operation. Certainly she shows little interest in the food.

Clyde: You melt American cheese on Wonder Bread and these truckers’ll be happy…You know my policy. If it ain’t brown or gray, it can be fried.

The kitchen, however, is the realm of Montrellous (Giles Terera), a wise, spiritual figure who is ‘the John Coltrane of sandwich making.’

Montrellous: Maine lobster, potato roll gently toasted and buttered with roasted garlic, paprika, and cracked pepper with truffle mayo, caramelized fennel, and a sprinkle of…of…dill.

Montrellous has coached his admiring colleagues Letitia (Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjó) and Rafael (Sebastian Orozco) to leave their troubles at the door; to aspire to better things; and to explore the art of sandwich making as a form of self-expression.

Rafael: We speak the truth. Then, let go and cook. Montrellous taught us that. We leave the pain in the pan. We got each other’s backs, and that’s how we get back up.

Letitia: Montrellous is a sensei. Drops garlic aioli like a realness bomb. He knows what we only wish to know.

Between them Clyde and Montrellous represent two poles: cynicism and pessimism versus positivity and hope.

Clyde: Look, I’m not indifferent to suffering. But I don’t do pity. I just don’t. And you know why? Because… dudes like you thrive on it, it’s your energy source, but like fossil fuels it creates pollution. That’s why.

As the play progresses, we learn that each ex-offender is struggling to escape an unfortunate past and a challenging present. Rafael is a recovering drug user who attempted to rob a bank when he was high. He could easily slip back into addiction. Letitia stole medicine for her sick daughter from a pharmacy, and took ‘some Oxy and Addy to sell on the side.’ She continues to contend with childcare pressures and an unreliable ex.

Lynn Nottage

Montrellous: And you know what they say: cuz you left prison don’t mean you outta prison. But, remember, everything we do here is to escape that mentality. This kitchen, these ingredients, these are our tools. We have what we need. So let’s cook.

The camaraderie amongst the kitchen crew is threatened when they are joined by Jason (Patrick Gibson), a felon with a violent record and white supremacist tattoos all over his face. It’s a combustible environment.

Letitia: You here cuz you done run outta options, ain’t nobody gonna hire you except for Clyde.

Gradually we witness how, through industry, truth-telling and mutual support; through learning new skills and raising aspirations, these troubled characters from diverse backgrounds can grow confidence, pride and a sense of identity.

Montrellous: Let whatever you’re feeling become part of your process, not an impediment… This sandwich is my strength. This sandwich is my victory. This sandwich is my freedom.

It would be easy to belittle the central premise of this play. Can you really rebuild lives by means of an obsession with the humble sandwich? Isn’t this all somewhat fanciful? Is the piece taking convenient finger food a little too seriously?

Montrellous: We all make our choices. You never know watcha gonna do when you meet the Devil at the crossroads…But, we ain’t bound by our mistakes.

I spent a whole career selling deodorant, jeans and fried chicken. It’s easy to mock that too. What I observed is that work provides an opportunity to focus on shared beliefs and goals; on building teamwork and purpose; on striving for something better. 

In our case, we were seeking to create compelling communication in a 30 second film or 6-sheet poster: emotional product demonstrations. We were on a quest for distilled truth. Absurd perhaps. But I learned that the activity itself doesn’t really matter too much. There is a dignity in labour. We all need something to believe in.

Rafael: Montrellous say the first bite should be an invitation that you can’t refuse, and if you get it right, it’ll transport you to another place, a memory, a desire cuz like everything he touches be sublime.

Eventually the humble truck-stop gets an enthusiastic review in a local newspaper – and Montrellous receives evidence that his endeavours have been worthwhile. He is fortified for a climactic confrontation with Clyde.

Montrellous: No! I won’t destroy the integrity of the sandwich!

In the final exchange, Letitia asks Montrellous if it’s possible to make a perfect sandwich.

Montrellous: Perhaps, or will it just awaken another longing? Let’s see.

‘I read a sign somewhere that said:
‘Everyone walking can always stumble over truth,
But never you mind, because we always get right back up and leave it there.’
Everybody wants to go to Heaven,
But nobody wants to die.
May as well have your Heaven on Earth.
Something to believe,
Something to believe in.
Someone to believe,
Someone to believe in.’

Curtis Mayfield, ‘Something to Believe In’

No. 444

Medea and the Consequences of Love: Should a Company Consider the Victims of Its Success?

Sophie Okonedo. Photograph: Jane McLeish Kelsey

I recently attended a fine production of Euripides’ ‘Medea’, a Greek tragedy first produced in Athens in 431 BC. (@sohoplace, London until 20 April)

‘I want him crushed, boneless, crawling – I have no choice.’

‘Medea’ is a muscular play that grapples with big themes: betrayal and retribution; xenophopia and feminism; how victims turn to vengeance. It presents us with the dark aspects of heroism and the consequences of love. And in so doing it poses questions about our own attitudes to success.

‘I have done it: because I loathed you more than I loved them.’

Medea ( terrifically played by Sophie Okonedo), a princess of Colchis (in modern-day Georgia) and descended from the gods, has fallen for Greek hero Jason, and used her magic powers to help him steel the Golden Fleece. Now married to Jason and settled with their two sons in Corinth, she discovers that he plans to wed the King’s daughter in order to secure his position there.

‘Her sun is rising, mine going down - I hope
To a red sunset.’

The King, anticipating that Medea will cause trouble, has decreed that she and her children should be exiled. She is overcome with rage, a sense of injustice and a passionate desire for vengeance.

‘Poor misused hand; poor defiled arm; your bones
Are not unshapely. If I could tear off the flesh and be bones; naked bones;
Salt-scoured bones on the shore
At home in Colchis.’

Jason confronts Medea and argues that she only sees one side of the story.

‘I see, Medea
You have been a very careful merchant of benefits. You forget none. You keep a strict reckoning.’

Rather arrogantly, he suggests she is lucky to have been taken from a ‘barbarian’ land to civilised Greece.

‘I carried you
Out of the dirt and superstition of Asiatic Colchis into the rational
Sunlight of Greece, and the marble music of the Greek temples: is that no benefit?’

Jason concludes that Medea has brought all this on herself. She, incandescent with anger, plots her revenge.

‘I’d still be joyful
To know that every bone of your life is broken: you are left helpless, friendless, mateless, childless,
Avoided by gods and men, unclean with awful excess of grief – childless.’

I was quite taken with the way that this play presents the collateral damage that comes in the wake of achievement.  

When I was a child, like many people, I first encountered Jason in the 1963 movie epic ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ (featuring the extraordinary stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen). This cinematic Jason is brave, ingenious, romantic. He is a luminous hero.

Euripides gives us Jason’s sinister side. He comes across as disloyal and egotistical; bigoted and sexist.

‘A man dares things, you know; he makes his adventure
In the cold eye of death; and if the gods care for him
They appoint an instrument to save him; if not he dies.
You were that instrument.’

The play asks us to consider the victims of Jason’s heroic journey. He has been on a quest for glory and power. But he leaves behind him a trail of death and destruction; of broken hearts and lives.

‘Not justice; vengeance.
You have suffered evil, you wish to inflict evil.’

For Euripides heroism comes at a cost; success creates victims and victims demand vengeance. There’s a price to pay for love.

‘A great love is a fire
That burns the beams of the roof.
The doorposts are flaming and the house falls.
A great love is a lion in the cattle-pen,
The herd goes mad, the heifers run bawling
And the claws are in their flanks.
Too much love is an armed robber in the treasury.
He has killed the guards and he walks in blood.’

This may seem strange, but as I sat in the theatre, I found myself wondering about the world of work.

In commerce we like to celebrate success. We tell tales of battles fought and victories won. We make heroes of our top performers. But how often do we stop to consider the colleagues who don’t quite attain the highest levels; the collateral damage of our leaders’ high standards and impossible demands; the victims of success?

A progressive, modern business should be mindful of the failings of its triumphant talent; should strive to ensure that no one is left behind in the advance; should keep an eye on maintaining a coherent culture, even when everything’s going well and to plan. Because a unified culture can sustain you through the tough times that will inevitably follow.

‘It is dangerous to dream of wine; it is worse
To speak of wailing or blood:
For the images that the mind makes
Have a way out, they work into life.’

As a society we imagine that we have only attended to the issues relating to mental health in the last century, and only taken them seriously in the last decade. And yet in the 5th century BC, Euripedes was well aware of the psychological pressure Medea is under as she builds ‘that terrible acropolis of deadly thoughts.’

Indeed the Chorus recommends that some respite be attained by getting out more, by sharing problems – by embracing a ‘talking cure.’

‘We Greeks believe that solitude is very dangerous, great passions grow into monsters
In the dark of the mind; but if you share them with loving friends they remain human, they can be endured.’

This is sound advice, and perhaps the first step to avoiding seething jealousies in the workplace. We may also heed Euripides’ encouragement to nip prospective problems in the bud.

‘To annihilate the past -
Is not possible: but its fruit in the present -
Can be nipped off.’

I left this production of ‘Medea’ inspired by the compelling performances and timeless themes; by the relevant issues and rich language (an excellent translation by Robinson Jeffers from the 1940s). And I left relieved not to have been born into the aristocracy.

‘Oh it’s a bad thing
To be born of high race, and brought up wilful and powerful in a great house, unruled.
And ruling many: for then if misfortune comes it is unendurable, it drives you mad. I say that poor people
Are happier: the little commoners and humble people, the poor in spirit: they can lie low
Under the wind and live: while the tall oaks and cloud-raking mountain pines go mad in the storm,
Writhe, groan and crash.’

'Now you say you're lonely,
You cry the long night through.
Well, you can cry me a river,
Cry me a river.
I cried a river over you.
Now you say you're sorry
For being so untrue.
Well, you can cry me a river,
Cry me a river.
I cried a river over you.
You drove me, nearly drove me
Out of my head,
While you never shed a tear.
Remember, I remember
All that you said.
Told me love was too plebeian.
Told me you were through with me,
And now you say you love me.
Well, just to prove you do
Come on and cry me a river,
Cry me a river,
I cried a river over you.’

Julie London,’Cry Me a River' (A Hamilton)

No. 411

The Odd Couple: What Warhol and Basquiat Teach Us About Collaboration

Andy: We’re very different…You’re all spontaneous and wild and so deep and mystical… and I’m still a commercial illustrator really, a photographer, obsessed with the surface of things.

I recently enjoyed ‘The Collaboration’, a play by Anthony McCarten that explores the period in the mid-1980s when artists Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat worked together.

We open in a New York gallery. Swiss art dealer Bruno Bischofberger is expressing to Warhol his concern that the output of the celebrated master of Pop Art is becoming rather familiar.

Bruno: I mean all the brand names, the icons, reinterpreting things we see or use everyday. Everything silkscreened. As great as they are, they’re expected from you now. Forgive me, but when was the last time you picked up a brush and actually painted?

The ageing Warhol has not been focusing on his work. Rather he has been hanging out at Studio 54, partying with aristocrats, models, actors and rock stars. Bischofberger proposes a collaboration with hot young talent, Basquiat.

Bruno: It might be good for you, Andy. You can learn a lot from the young.

In the next scene Bischofberger puts the idea of a collaboration to a sceptical Basquiat.

Bruno: This could be incredible for you, Jean. Your name linked, as equals, with the most famous living painter in the world.

Jean: Is he living?

At length Warhol and Basquiat are persuaded. They begin work together, hesitantly at first. 

Warhol is cool, cautious and considered. Basquiat is daring, instinctive, fluid. Warhol sets up his tracing projector machine and sketches the outline of the General Electric logo. Basquiat adds bold blocks of colour, enigmatic scrawls and a smiling figure with its arms in the air. 

As they apply themselves to the task, they discuss their differing views of art. 

Warhol explains his fascination with commerce.

Andy: One of the things I hope history will remember me for, if there’s any justice, is that I’ve broken down the walls between business and art. Business is art, it’s the best art. And art has always been business. It’s all commerce now.

Warhol also rebuts the criticism that his work lacks passion.

Andy: I am commentating. In a neutral way. No one ever gets this, but I’m trying to make art that forces you to ignore it…the same way we’re ignoring life.

Basquiat, by contrast, believes that the best art has mystical properties.

Jean: Paintings can have supernatural power if you imbue them with them. These symbols, these images. Wherever they come from, they have a power. They’re like… incantations.

He suggests that art should have meaning and purpose.

Jean: Art should disturb the comfortable…comfort the disturbed.

Inevitably, with such contrasting opinions on their craft, there are occasional flashpoints.

Andy: I make beautiful things. Carefully. Very carefully. I produce out of what I see.

Jean: ‘Produce’? You re-produce.

Nonetheless the Odd Couple work well together. Despite their differences, or perhaps because of them, they gain energy and inspiration from each other. They revel in the exchange of ideas and approaches. They enjoy the challenge. 

Eventually Warhol picks up his brush again and paints.

Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (General Electric II)
acrylic, oil pastel and silkscreen ink on canvas

Looking back on this collaboration that took place nearly 40 years ago, one can’t help but be struck by the chasm in age, career stage, style and perspective. Warhol was world famous, but stuck in a rut. Basquiat was in the ascendant, but with a lot to learn. Warhol was concerned with brands, media and fame; with surface and repetition. His work was aloof and distant. Basquiat’s art was populated by skeletons and skulls, masks and symbols. It was vibrant, dreamlike and magical.

Jean: Don’t you need a new challenge? You can’t just screenprint your life away.

Perhaps in the world of commercial creativity we should spend more time plotting irregular collaborations. Successful team alchemy is not just a matter of putting together like-minded soul mates. It is achieved by combining diverse skillsets, temperaments and outlooks; by creating the conditions for provocation and exchange, discovery and inspiration.

By the end of the play Warhol and Basquiat have produced enough paintings together to fill the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. Bischofberger is satisfied. It’s time to move on.

Andy: I think we’re done. Don’t you? Let’s just say we are. That’s the great thing about contemporary art – who can fucken tell?

'We came the long way,
And I thought you knew,
It was the long way.
My darling, I thought you knew.
We came the long way.
So don't break my heart. 

We been through the desert
Where no water flows.
We've walked streets and highways
Where kung fu is afraid to go.
It was the long way.’

Junior Byles, ‘It Was a Long Way’ (W Boswell / J Byles)

No. 363

The Industrialisation of Storytelling: Have We Lost the Plot?

Arthur Darvill as Dave in The Antipodes at the National Theatre (Photo: Manuel Harlan)

‘I just wanted to remind all of you that what you’re doing is important. We need stories as a culture. It’s what we live for. These are dark times. Stories are a little bit of light that we cup in our palms like votive candles to show us the way out of the forest.‘
Sandy, ‘The Antipodes’

I recently saw Annie Baker’s excellent play ‘The Antipodes’ at the National Theatre, London (until 23 November).

Baker’s writing is thoughtful, funny, full of nuance and intrigue. She seems more interested in character than narrative; in atmosphere than plot. Her dramas unfold naturally, in their own time, enigmatically. Critics have called her work ‘slow theatre’.

‘The Antipodes’ is set in a brainstorming session amongst a group of creatives trying to come up with an extraordinary story. No medium is specified.

Most of us recognise the large characterless conference room with its grand glass table and carpet reminiscent of ‘The Shining’. There is the industrial quantity of mineral water, the obsession with food – ordering it with great ceremony, eating it with quiet intensity. There is the reverence for authority and process, the dominant masculinity, the awkward silences, the vainglorious Boss. There is the arrogant veteran, the patronised PA, the eccentric knitter, the selective note taker. The participant who is ‘disappeared’ half way through the process. There is the mythologizing of the company’s Golden Age. The lanyards and the NDAs. The liberal use of ‘awesome’ and ‘genius’. The swearing.

It’s all painfully familiar.

‘The most important thing is that we all feel comfortable saying whatever weird shit comes into our minds so we don’t feel like we have to self-censor and we can all just sit around telling stories. Because that’s where the good stuff comes from.’

Of course, only the Boss is allowed to use his phone in this brainstorm, and he is constantly leaving the room, distracted by domestic concerns. A conference call with senior management begins with a chat about the weather and then lurches uncomfortably into technical difficulties. Despite promises to respect participants’ time, as the project proceeds the sessions become longer and later, until finally the creatives are sleeping in the conference room. 

 ‘The stories we create teach people what it’s like to be someone else on a visceral level. As storytellers we know how to shift perspective and inhabit different viewpoints. Imagine what would happen if everyone in the world could do every once in a while what we already do on a daily basis. It would be revolutionary.’

Baker seems to be asking us to question the value of storytelling and its relevance to contemporary issues and anxieties.

We all know that stories make sense of the world. They teach our children about cause and effect, freedom and responsibility. They enable us to articulate our brightest hopes and darkest fears. They provide understanding and escape. They help us walk in other people’s shoes. They bind communities together.

But we have turned storytelling into an industry. We classify and codify it. It is a course we can take at college, a craft we can learn, a process we can teach. It’s a commodity, a business, an algorithm.

Baker quotes Christopher Booker’s 'The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories.'

Annie Baker, Photo: Zack DeZon

1. Overcoming the Monster
2. Rags to Riches
3. The Quest
4. Voyage and Return
5. Rebirth
6. Comedy
7. Tragedy

Baker wants to remind us that storytelling is not entirely benign. Stories can mislead and distract, exaggerate and embellish. Stories can obstruct truth and defer action. And our individual ‘journeys’ can be contrived and self-deceiving. One of the characters expresses concern that personal experiences shouldn’t simply be translated into material for storytelling. Surely some episodes are too precious to be broadcast.

‘I guess I’ve always felt like my personal life is the part of my life that I don’t want to turn into a story.’

We become aware that, while the creatives are struggling to invent the greatest story ever told, all is not well in the real world beyond the conference room. There seems to be an escalation of storms and natural disasters out there. Towards the end of the play the Boss questions the relevance of stories to a world facing existential crisis. 

‘I think maybe there are no more stories. Not that we’ve told all the stories. Or that there are only six types of stories or something. But I think maybe it’s the end of an era. Or maybe it should be the end of an era. Like maybe this is the worst possible time in the history of the world to be telling stories.’

So where does this lead us? 

Well, despite the compelling provocation posed by ‘The Antipodes’, I still believe in the power of stories to convey understanding, to create community and to inspire change. I still believe therefore that they have a role in tackling our current concerns. But I also think we need to protect the intimacy and magic of storytelling from commoditisation and industrialisation. We need to ensure storytelling prompts action rather than postpones it.  And we need to be cautious about the ends to which we deploy it.

 ‘We tell ourselves stories in order to live.’
Joan Didion

'But if you disguise
What these things are doing to me,
If you criticize them,
I'll know that you can see.
Until you realize,
It's just a story.
Until you realize,
It's just a story.’

The Teardrop Explodes, 'Treason (It’s Just a Story)’ (G Dwyer / N Michael / J Cope)

No. 257

Some People Don’t Bounce: The Price We Pay for the Choices We Make

Arthur Miller

'What is the key word today? Disposable. The more you can throw it away the more it’s beautiful. The car, the furniture, the wife, the children—everything has to be disposable. Because you see the main thing today is—shopping. Years ago a person, he was unhappy, didn’t know what to do with himself—he’d go to church, start a revolution—something. Today you’re unhappy? Can’t figure it out? What is the salvation? Go shopping.'

Solomon, ‘The Price’

I recently saw an excellent production of Arthur Miller’s 1968 play, ‘The Price’ (Wyndham’s Theatre, London, until 27 April).

Two brothers meet for the first time in sixteen years to sell their family furniture, which has been stored in the attic of a New York brownstone. Back in the 1920s their parents had been wealthy, but they were impoverished by the Great Depression. Victor, the younger brother, missed out on his education to care for his father. He became a New York cop and is now nearing cash-strapped retirement. Walter, the older of the two, broke free from the family and embarked on a career as a successful surgeon. 

‘The Price’ is a play about the corrosive effect of financial strife on family relationships; about a family at war with itself.

It draws on Miller’s own experiences of the Depression, which at its height saw one quarter of Americans out of work. Before the 1929 Crash his father owned a women’s clothing factory employing 400 people. He was wiped out and left traumatised, withdrawing into silent introspection. 

In the play Victor observes of the brothers’ father:

‘Well, some men don’t bounce, you know.’

Running through the drama is a conversation with an elderly furniture dealer, Solomon, who is carrying out a valuation of the attic’s contents. We gradually realise that the whole play is in fact a valuation: of choices made, paths taken, compromises reached.

In an interview in 1969 Miller explained:

'The play is about people who make decisions in life and the price they pay for those decisions. In this case, the price of being a socially responsible individual and the price of being a successful one.'

Walter has sacrificed his family relationships in the pursuit of career and status. He endeavours to make recompense now with financial and employment offers to Victor. But he comes to appreciate that forgiveness cannot be bought.

Victor, in his turn, has sacrificed his education and career for his father. But he has also deceived himself in the narrative he tells about the past. He and his father were, in fact, complicit in their co-dependency.

‘We invent ourselves to wipe out what we know.’

I left ‘The Price’ reflecting on the fact that all the choices we make in life come with a price attached. When in business we opt for one course of action, we leave another unrealised. For every decisive action, there is a road not taken, an opportunity not fulfilled. We promote one candidate, we disappoint someone else. We prioritise one function, we relegate another. We invest in one initiative, we disinvest in others. Decisions carry costs.

This suggests some questions.

Do we consistently face up to the price we must pay for the choices we make? Do we truly own the consequences of our actions? Or do we, like the brothers, deceive ourselves, avoiding ‘the truths we know but dare not face’?

Sadly it’s never easy to revisit missed opportunities after the fact, to remedy past mistakes, to make up for lost time. As Victor’s wife Esther observes:

‘All these years we’ve been saying, once we get the pension we’re going to start to live… It’s like pushing against a door for twenty-five years and suddenly it opens… and we stand there.’

 
'When love breaks down,
The things you do
To stop the truth from hurting you.
When love breaks down,
The lies we tell
They only serve to fool ourselves.’

Prefab Sprout, 'When Love Breaks Down' (P McAloon)

No. 224

Coming Apart at the Seams: What Are the Repressed Truths Holding Your Business Back?

'There are six basic fears, with some combination of which every human suffers at one time or another...

The fear of poverty
The fear of criticism
The fear of ill health
The fear of loss of love of someone
The fear of old age
The fear of death.'

Self-help guru Napoleon Hill, ‘Think and Grow Rich' (1937), quoted in the introduction to ‘The Humans’ by Stephen Karam

I recently attended Stephen Karam’s fine play ‘The Humans’ (at the Hampstead Theatre), which considers the plight of a modern middle class American family struggling to keep their heads above water.

‘Don’t you think it should cost less to be alive?’

The Blakes are in many ways a typical family, bound by deep bonds of shared experience, rituals and affection; by in-jokes, teasing and bickering. Their conversation weaves effortlessly in and out of the facile and profound.

‘Well you’ve still got the will to eat superfoods – if you’re so miserable why are you trying to live forever?’

And they have the usual intergenerational disagreements around such things as religion, lifestyle, ambition and work.

‘Are you so spoiled you can’t see you’re crying over something hard work can fix?’

But the Blakes are under attack. They are assaulted from without by unaffordable housing, lack of career opportunities, unstable employment, poor pension provision, debt and unfaithful lovers.

And they are also assaulted from within. Grandmother Momo has dementia. Dad Erik is haunted by nightmares and memories of 9/11. Daughter Aimee has a chronic illness. And there are family secrets that can no longer be suppressed.

The Blake parents steadfastly cling to the belief that the American family is inherently equipped to survive; that they can get through this; that they will endure.

‘The Blakes bounce back. That’s what we do.’

But the context of contemporary life, with its very particular anxieties and inequalities, makes this confidence less convincing. It’s hard to survive in America today. And the sense of a family imploding under numerous and constant pressures is enhanced by the faltering lighting in the apartment building, and by the eerie thudding noises that emanate from the flat above. The Blakes are falling apart at the seams.

In the programme notes Karam sheds light on the theme he is exploring by quoting Sigmund Freud’s essay on the ‘uncanny’:

‘The ‘uncanny’ (unheimlich) is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, something once very familiar…Something uncanny in real experience can generally be traced back without exception to something familiar that has been repressed.’

Sigmund Freud, ‘The Uncanny’ (1919)

I found myself considering how modern businesses similarly have to cope with escalating pressures from within and without; how they also suffer tensions that derive from repressed truths dating back to the origins of the company - an enduring blind spot, a perennial vulnerability perhaps; an imbalance of talent and contribution; an asymmetry of credit and recognition; personal resentments and regrets, petty feuds and rivalries; the lack of an apology, the absence of forgiveness.

Often these tensions are suppressed, papered over, for the good of the business, for the profile of the company, for esprit de corps. But veterans and insiders know: the fault lines that were there at the outset can be seen and felt. They are familiar, not far beneath the surface. They continue to tug and tease at the corporate psyche. They play out in its ongoing challenges and disappointments.

Ask yourself this: What are our company’s repressed problems, our unarticulated tensions, the truths that dare not speak their names? What are the stresses and strains that derive from our past, but remain ever-present, uncertain and unsettled?

Often the greatest challenge any enterprise faces is to look in the mirror and see itself – clearly and honestly, without gloss or self-deception. If you at least ask the questions, you may find you’re half way to answering them.

'The changing of sunlight to moonlight,
Reflections of my life,
Oh, how they fill my eyes.
The greetings of people in trouble,
Reflections of my life,
Oh, how they fill my eyes.
Oh, my sorrows,
Sad tomorrows,
Take me back to my own home.'

The Marmalade, 'Reflections Of My Life’  (William Campbell Jnr / Thomas McAleese)

No. 203

Dressing for Yesterday: Seek Out the Social and Economic Jet Stream

Group Captain James Stagg

‘Have you ever been to the beaches of Hastings, or Brighton, or Portsmouth? Ten o’clock in the morning it’s baking hot, the beach is packed. By midday, there’s a howling wind and the Punch and Judy man has packed up for the day. By two o’clock, the rain is horizontal, but by four o’clock the sun is beating down again and it’s eighty degrees. Nothing is predictable about British weather, that’s why we love to talk about it.’

Group Captain James Stagg, ‘Pressure’

I have an uncomfortable relationship with the weather. For some reason forecasts pass me by. Through the fog of getting up in the morning I rarely register what the bulletins are saying. They talk over and through me. And so my sartorial choices are driven by yesterday’s conditions. I assume a meteorological continuity that the British climate doesn’t warrant. And I find myself venturing into the searing heat in a tweed suit; into a cold snap with just a cotton smock; into the pouring rain without an umbrella. I always dress for yesterday.

Earlier this year I attended a fine play dedicated to the vicissitudes of the British climate. ‘Pressure’ by David Haig relates the story of Group Captain James Stagg, the Chief Meteorological Officer for the Allied Forces, who in June 1944 was responsible for forecasting the weather on D-Day.

The fleet is assembled along the South Coast. The tides, times and phases of the moon are appropriately aligned on only a few days each month, and General Eisenhower has allocated the 5th of June for the largest amphibious invasion in history. As the big day approaches, Stagg and his American counterpart, Colonel Irving Krick, are required to give a definitive meteorological assessment. 350,000 lives depend on them making the right call.

Krick employs the conventional method of forecasting: he revisits the charts from previous years where conditions were similar, and establishes analogues. He is confident that the weather will be fine.

‘The proof is in the past. I anticipate calm seas and clear skies on Monday – perfect conditions for the Normandy landings.’

Stagg disagrees. Sensitive to the temperamental British climate, he urges Krick to think beyond historical analogues; to take into account other factors; to think ‘three dimensionally’. He is a meteorological pioneer and he has recently discovered the jet stream. He predicts severe weather.

‘My forecast is not only based on weather at the surface. I’ve considered upper air-currents within the troposphere, at the tropopause, and in the lower stratosphere…The most powerful of these currents, measured two hours ago at twenty-eight thousand feet, is three hundred miles wide and three miles deep. I’ll refer to it as the jet stream.’

Stagg explains that the jet stream is prompting storms to move more rapidly than the surface charts would imply, and so severe conditions can be expected in the Channel on 5th June.

Ultimately Stagg persuades Eisenhower to delay the invasion by a day. He is right. There are high winds, heavy seas and low cloud on 5th June; but there is sufficient good weather on the 6th to make the Normandy landings a success.

It struck me watching the play that much of modern strategy is driven by the type of historical analogues on which Krick depended. We love case studies, precedents and best demonstrated practice. We cling to models and algorithms that anticipate tomorrow on the basis of yesterday; that predict the future on the basis of the past. Ten years on from the global financial crash, this remains the case.

Stagg teaches us to lift our eyes from the rear view mirror and think three dimensionally. The best strategists have foresight, an instinct for change, a curiosity about the evolving factors that might precipitate events. They seek the social and economic jet streams that are driving outcomes from high up in the stratosphere.

They don’t dress for yesterday. They dress for today.

‘Look out, kid.
Don't matter what you did.
Walk on your tip toes,
Don't tie no bows.
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose.
Keep a clean nose,
Watch the plainclothes.
You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows.’

Bob Dylan, 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'

In memory of Charlie Robertson, my first Planning Head at BBH. Funny, sharp, considerate and inspiring, he was everything you’d want from a strategist and leader. And he didn’t need a weather man to know which way the wind was blowing.

RIP Charlie Robertson (1954 – 2018)

No. 202

The Jean Brodie School of Planning Leadership: Coaching is about Leading Out, Not Thrusting In

Lia Williams Photo: Manuel Harlan for Donmar Warehouse

'I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the crème de la crème. Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life. You girls are my vocation. If I were to receive a proposal of marriage tomorrow from the Lord Lyon, King of Arms, I would decline it. I am dedicated to you in my prime. And my summer in Italy has convinced me that I am truly in my prime.'

‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,’ Muriel Spark

I recently saw a fine theatrical adaptation of Muriel Spark’s ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ at the Donmar Warehouse in London (until 28 July).

It is 1932 and we are introduced to Jean Brodie, a charismatic and subversive teacher at an Edinburgh girls’ school. She inspires her dedicated pupils with stories of Italian holidays and Giotto; with advice on love and appropriate window closure.

The free-spirited, independent-minded Brodie is constantly questioning the more formal, disciplined teaching methods of the head of school, Miss Mackay.

'I am cashmere to Miss Mackay's granite.'

As the play progresses, we come to appreciate that Brodie is deeply flawed. The fierce loyalty she demands from her pupils creates a clique. And she has more than a passing fascination with continental fascism.

Despite this, I was quite taken with Brodie’s teaching philosophy.

‘The word ‘education’ comes from the root ‘e’ from ‘ex’, ‘out’, and ‘duco’, ‘I lead’. It means a leading out. To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil’s soul. To Miss Mackay it is a putting in of something that is not there, and that is not what I call education. I call it intrusion, from the Latin root prefix ‘in’, meaning ’in’ and the stem ‘trudo’, ‘I thrust’.’

Perhaps Brodie could suggest some leadership lessons for the commercial sector.

When you are appointed Head of Planning, you may find that your greatest strength becomes your greatest weakness. You were promoted because you’re sharp, smart and pretty good at strategy. And so your first instinct on being presented with a problem is to endeavour to solve it yourself. When, however, the problem comes to you in the shape of a young Planner with a few theories of his or her own, this instinct doesn’t help.  

If the primary task of leadership is to maximize the output, value and wellbeing of the human capital available to you, then a key challenge is to create high performing self-sufficiency in your Planners. You won’t achieve this by telling them to write up your answers.

As Broadie would have put it, coaching is about ‘leading out’, not ‘thrusting in.’

In my brief and not entirely successful tenure of the Head of Planning role at BBH, I set myself the task of enhancing my Planners’ ideas and hypotheses, rather than imposing my own. I was a pluralist who believed there were many right answers to any question. And in time I grew rather to enjoy the intellectual challenge inherent in this approach.

On taking the reins, you may also be inclined to promote a strong sense of departmental identity and esprit de corps; to rally the team round a unifying vision and sense of purpose. This is a natural path to take. But, as Brodie warned, it can be counterproductive.

'Phrases like 'the team spirit' are always employed to cut across individualism, love and personal loyalties.' 

Be careful that coherence and consistency don’t translate into uniformity and homogeneity. A successful strategy department is characterized by diverse skills and personalities working in harmony. Make difference your friend.

The third lesson from the Brodie handbook is perhaps an obvious one.

Brodie set out from the start to instill confidence; to convince her pupils that she believed in them and that she was on their side. Brodie’s girls were ‘the crème de la crème’, and they were ‘in their prime’.

'One’s prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognise your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full.'

Confidence is a precious commodity in any organization. It prompts people to inspired leaps; motivates them to engage Clients with conviction; supports them through the hard times. A critical responsibility of leadership is to build and sustain self-confidence.

So, three lessons from the Jean Brodie School of Planning Leadership:

- coach by ‘leading out’, not ‘thrusting in’

- create harmonious teams of individuals, not uniform teams of carbon-copies

- build self-confidence: the sense that your Planners are ‘the crème de la crème, in their prime’

Perhaps we should give the last word to Miss Jean Brodie who, for all her flaws, leaves an indelible impression.

'I am a teacher! I am a teacher, first, last, always!... It is true I am a strong influence on my girls. I am proud of it. I influence them to be aware of all the possibilities of life... of beauty, honour, courage.' 

I was invited to write this piece by Ben Shaw, the new Head of Planning at BBH, London. It first appeared on BBH Labs, 2 July 2018.

No. 188

‘The Landscape of Fact’: How Measurement and Language Can Become Vehicles of Control

Photo: Colin Morgan by David Stewart for The National Theatre

‘Yes, it is a rich language… full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception — a syntax opulent with tomorrows. It is our response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes; our only method of replying to … inevitabilities.’

There’s an excellent production of Brian Friel’s 1980 play ‘Translations’ running at the National Theatre in London (until 11 August).

The drama is set in 1833 amongst the Irish-speaking community of Baile Beag, Donegal. Bibulous Hugh, ‘a large man, with residual dignity’, teaches Latin and Greek literature to the local peasantry at his informal ‘hedge school.’ In a ramshackle old barn his students learn grammar and word derivations, and swap quotations from Homer, Tacitus and Virgil.

‘There was an ancient city which, ‘tis said, Juno loved above all the lands. And it was the goddess’s aim and cherished hope that here should be the capital of all nations – should the fates perchance allow that.’

English is rarely spoken in the area ‘and then usually for the purposes of commerce, a use to which [that] tongue seemed particularly suited.’

Meanwhile British troops are camped nearby charting a map of the area for the Ordnance Survey. This entails Anglicising the local place names. So Bun na hAbhann becomes Burnfoot; Druim Dubh becomes Dromduff; and Baile Beag becomes Ballybeg.

Hugh is no admirer of the English language.

‘English succeeds in making it sound…plebeian.’

And he explains to the British sappers that their culture is lost on the Irish.

‘Wordsworth? … No, I’m afraid we’re not familiar with your literature, Lieutenant. We feel closer to the warm Mediterranean. We tend to overlook your island.’

The British are also in the process of establishing a national education system in Ireland. This is one of the first state-run, standardised systems of primary education in the world. English will be the official language, and the new system will make the traditional Irish-speaking ‘hedge schools’ redundant.

The drama prompts us to think about control. The British claim that their measurements and mapping will lead to fairer, more accurate taxation. But there’s an underlying suspicion that darker motives are at play. On the face of it the new school system will be superior to the old, and some in the Irish community regard English as a gateway tongue to travel and better prospects. But Hugh is concerned that Ireland is losing its cultural identity.

‘Remember that words are signals, counters. They are not immortal. And it can happen — to use an image you’ll understand — it can happen that a civilization can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape of … fact.’ 

We may recognise some of these themes in the world of commerce. Periodically our leaders, our owners and our Clients seek to monitor our output and ways of working; to map the landscape and contours of the business. We embrace timesheets and targets; scales and scorecards; ratios and rotas. Of course, it’s all in the interests of efficiency and best practice. ‘What gets measured gets done’ and so forth.

But there’s often a misgiving that measurement is a means of re-ordering priorities, of setting a new agenda, of enacting control; and a concern that the measures can become an end in themselves. As Sir John Banham, the former President of the CBI once observed:

‘In business we value most highly that which we can measure most precisely… Consequently we often invest huge amounts in being precisely wrong rather than seeking to be approximately right.’

Similarly we may find that our leaders, owners and Clients seek to impose their own language upon us. We are taught catchphrases and buzzwords; axioms and aphorisms; jargon and generalisation. Listen and repeat. Listen and repeat. As we endeavour to wise up, we dumb down. As our ambition expands, our vocabulary shrinks.

In his recent documentary ‘On Jargon’ (BBC4, 27 May), the brilliant writer and film-maker Jonathan Meades contrasted jargon with slang.

‘Jargon is everything that slang is not. Centrifugal, evasive, drably euphemistic, unthreatening, conformist. ... Whilst slang belongs to the gutter, jargon belongs to the executive estate. It is the clumsy, graceless, inelegant, aesthetically bereft expression of houses with three garages; of business people who instinctively refer to their workmates as colleagues…It is delusional. It inflates pomposity, officiousness and self-importance rather than punctures them. Slang mocks. Jargon crawls on its belly - giving great feedback, hoping for promotion.’

Now I should concede that I have been no stranger to aphorisms. When I was in leadership positions, I was prone to headlining new agendas; to punching out big themes. And I have often referred to my workmates as colleagues.

Of course, it is the responsibility of leaders in modern businesses to achieve corporate clarity and coherence. But it is imperative in so doing, to avoid clichéd conventional wisdom; ‘newspeak’ and ‘doublethink.’ And it is critical that independent thought and freedom of expression are not victims of the process.

Sometimes, in seeking to control difference, we simply succeed in making everyone the same.

One of the last of the great Cavalier Clients was Geoffrey Probert, who ran the deodorant and oral categories at Unilever. He was mindful that Agencies were at great pains to fit in with their Clients; to conform to their language and way of working. He warned against it.

‘Agencies can spend too much time trying to be like their clients. We’ve got loads of people just like us. We need you to be different. That’s the point. Just concentrate on doing the things we can’t do.’

No. 186

‘There Are No Ends…Only Means:’ Should We Be Concentrating Less on Goals and More on Behaviours?

'You're so busy trying to win, you never stop to figure out what it is you're winning.'

I recently attended a performance of Gore Vidal’s excellent 1960 play ‘The Best Man.’ (The Playhouse Theatre until 12 May, or you can watch the 1964 film version, starring the splendid Henry Fonda.)

‘The Best Man’ concerns itself with the mechanics of politics and the corrosive effects of ambition; with compromise, horse-trading and smears; with power, corruption and lies. Fundamentally it’s a play about means and ends. And it has many contemporary resonances.

The action is set in a Philadelphia hotel at convention time, as two candidates seek their party’s nomination for President. Bill Russell, the front-runner, is a northern intellectual, a man of principle with an Achilles’ heel. Joe Cantwell is a self-educated southerner, a political street fighter with a ruthless streak. Both candidates want the endorsement of ailing former President Art Hockstader.

Initially our sympathies are with Russell. A reporter asks him whether people mistrust intellectuals in politics. Russell replies:

‘Intellectual? You mean I wrote a book? Well, as Bertrand Russell said, 'people in a democracy tend to think they have less to fear from a stupid man than an intelligent one.' Actually, it's the other way around.’

Hockstader, however, is concerned that Russell’s intellect constrains him from getting anything done:

'You got such a good mind that sometimes you're so busy thinkin' how complex everything is, important problems don't get solved.'

Hockstader is equally worried about Cantwell’s qualifications for the job. The ex-President berates the southern Governor for acting as if the ends always justify the means:

'Well, son, I got news for you about both politics and life. And may I say the two are exactly the same? There are no ends, Joe, only means…  All I'm saying is that what matters in our profession . . . which is really life ... is how you do things and how you treat people and what you really feel about 'em, not some ideal goal for society, or for yourself.' 

I was quite struck by this last thought – that there are no ends, only means.

In the world of commerce we obsess about aims, ambitions and aspirations. We are preoccupied with objectives, visions and missions. We are endlessly planning for the future, defining our purpose, setting our targets. In our highly competitive, fast-paced environment, we tend to be more focused on ends than means. And generally we’ll do whatever it takes to achieve our goals. Indeed ‘whatever it takes’ can be a prevailing principle.

One has to suspect that this concentration on ends over means lies behind the succession of scandals that have dogged the corporate world in recent years: the corners cut, values compromised and responsibilities shirked; the cheated tests, accelerated obsolescence and falsified information; the unpaid taxes and unequal pay; the data breaches, sexual harassment and abusive relationships; the passengers dragged off overbooked flights and the customers arrested in coffee shops. I could go on.

Perhaps we should take Hockstader’s advice. If we focus more on good behaviours and productive relationships; on doing the right thing rather than chasing the right objective; on how we behave rather than why – if we focus more on means than ends - we might find over the longer term that our colleagues are more motivated; our Clients are more trusting; and our consumers are more loyal.

It’s a tough ask, I know.

In one of the key exchanges in the play, Russell endeavours to sustain a principled position in the face of Hockstader’s practicality:

'And so, one by one these compromises, these small corruptions, destroy character.’

Hockstader replies wearily:

‘To want power is corruption already.' 

No. 179