Now I certainly am no expert on this sector, and I wouldn’t know a derivative if it bit me in the ‘proverbial’! However, it seems pretty clear that those clever lads and ladettes who have been in receipt of all those mega-bonuses were not quite as clever as they thought either! There seems to have been some pretty fundamental mistakes made in their core businesses and now Bradford & Bingley has joined Northern Rock and HBOS on the scrap heap of losers. So whilst I have no expert recipes for saving them (or anyone else for that matter!) I would observe that if what you are doing isn’t working then it is clearly time to do something different, time, in fact, for a Change.

Easy to say, and much harder to do, but so many folks, when things are not going well, just keep doing more of the very behaviours that have got them into trouble in the first place; in other words.. First stop digging! Someone close to me called yesterday, feeling unhappy about not being able to break out of this kind of pattern repeat. One way out of it is just to break the pattern. Go somewhere different, talk to someone new, read a different type of book, go to a different pub… it really doesn’t matter much what you do as you don’t know what it takes to make it work, so introducing this kind of random ‘newness’ into your life at least gives the Universe an opportunity to step in.

Change is scary and complex, but it is also organic and once we infect ourselves with just a little of the bug, it can lead us to also sorts or places and possibilities. I am not suggesting this is a recipe for successful corporate strategy, but it certainly is one component that can have unexpected value..

 “Don’t fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.”

“Everyone has a ‘risk muscle.’ You keep it in shape by trying new things. If you don’t, it atrophies. Make a point of using it at least once a day.” Roger Von Oech