by Paul Rowson
There was one final flourish from him as we left the meeting. Almost shyly he handed me a lovely note saying how he had been going through a difficult time personally, how his way of coping was to’ let go’ away from home and how he had appreciated my (non-existent) support. Wrapped up inside the note was a tape cassette entitled ‘One Night in San Francisco’ featuring the music of Johnny Nitro and the Doorslammers. He must have returned to the bar the next morning en route to the airport to purchase it.
A few years later, after I had somehow been promoted and been given a UK wide responsibility, I went to the same conference run by Business for Social Responsibility, where as last time, I received a minimal acknowledgement from their chief executive. Later on in the same trip his attitude to me changed from a solitary cursory ‘nod’ to fawning interest in my every utterance. This was another case of the strange ‘ability’ of the Prince of Wales to make people alter the way they act in his presence.
Being a minimalist in terms of preparation it was only a few weeks before the flight date that I realised the conference, that year to be held in Washington DC, would be on the same weekend that my son and his fiancée were running the New York marathon. On the day after the marathon the Prince of Wales and Camilla were attending an environmental summit in San Francisco with various Californian bigwigs. Julia asked me, as I would already be in the States, if I would fly west after the conference to be ‘our man’ at the environmental summit. The fact that my environmental knowledge was minimal never troubled our chief and I was just expected to show my face and not dribble when eating. The rapidly planned timetable went something like this:
Wednesday –Friday Conference in DC
Saturday Train to NYC
Sunday Watch the NYC marathon (try to spot my son and soon to be daughter in-law) then catch the last flight out to San Francisco
Monday Schmooze with the Prince in the morning and then catch flight back home to London
Unfortunately, as about seventy thousand visitors were in New York to watch or run the marathon, hotel beds were scarce and I ended way up on 141st street in Harlem. The gentrification of Harlem had not quite reached this far north but the newly opened Sugarhill Harlem Inn was a real, albeit fluky, find. The converted brownstone, run by a guy from Northern Ireland and his black American wife, did not even have a sign over the door or a table in the dining room. Three days into running their first bed and breakfast they might not have had the sign up but they already had taste, warmth and humour. I was offered a meal in the evening as our conversation had already taken in a couple of beers. It was served on a tray on my lap and I was then asked to pay what I thought it was worth after they initially suggested a sum so low as to be embarrassing. Ten hours later, and with their help, I saw my son and his fiancée pass within two hundred metres of the Sugarhill door as they reached the twenty mile point.
After a five hour wait in the plane on the runway apron, while storms over the mid west cleared, I arrived in San Francisco at four am and was whisked away in a patient friend’s pickup truck for a shower and breakfast. At the environmental summit downtown the press presence was high because of the royal attendance. Going through security I got a surprised look, and then the usual minimal nod, from the ceo of Business For Social Responsibility, who were based in San Francisco.
The handsome and articulate Mayor opened proceedings and then we had to endure a series of well meaning, but deadly boring, academics read their papers. I was half way through a very interesting sotto voce conversation with the man next to me as to the merits of early Jethro Tull records when we broke for lunch.
Tactics were clear from now on. The Prince and Camilla had entered the building as he was to speak after the break. I assertively broke into the little group he was chatting to which I noticed contained the BSR boss. Simply through my longevity with BITC, the Prince knew who I was. He turned to me in the effortless way royals are trained to do, leaving the woman he had been talking to with the distinct impression that he would have liked to have continued the conversation with her for hours. We made some small talk which mainly involved me opting for pragmatism as I swiftly abandoned my republican leanings and waxed lyrical about his environmental achievements and BITC’s commitment to work with him on global warming issues. I was privately thinking that if he had not flown in with a huge retinue, who had collectively burned enough carbon to melt a good chunk of the polar icecap, the environmental cause might have been better served. However the occasion demanded diplomacy, as I kept reminding myself.
After this conversation with the Prince ended, and with mission accomplished, I wanted to hit the buffet where I could see the Jethro Tull fan club was already on dessert. Amazingly I was trailed by the ceo of Business for Social Responsibility who was keen to converse with me on ‘some interesting mutual opportunities’. Given that in two separate previous conferences spanning six days we had not exchanged a full sentence this was quite a turnaround. The mutual opportunities consisted of, after a little bit of feigned interest in me, a fairly direct probing to see if I could sort a royal visit to his outfit. I appeared to give this great consideration, he not knowing that I had zero sway in the royal diary, and then further timely reflection to pay him back for his former rudeness. I kept it going for as long as I could and then said that it I thought it would not be possible, at which point he spotted somebody more important over his shoulder and beat a quick retreat.
After a curtailed further conversation on the superb ability of Ian Anderson to stand on one leg while playing the flute I left in haste for the airport. As I got to the door the BSR man passed by and blanked me completely.
To say that my ceo, to whom by this time I directly reported, had a low boredom threshold would be to understate the case. Ten minutes into the final interview for a senior position, where she and I formed the panel, I could sense her restlessness. Actually I could tell, by the time that the unfortunate man had sat down, that Julia was not going to appoint him. Given that this was the culmination of a long recruitment process for a big job and given that he had travelled three hundred miles to give his power point presentation I was unprepared for her next move. She surreptitiously passed me a scrap of paper on which she had scrawled the words ‘Wrap it up’, followed in capitals by the word ‘NOW’. The candidate had still got the first slide up with his name on, which made the order quite a challenge to comply with. I made some excuse about an ‘emergency call from the Chairman’ and blathered on about time pressures as the bemused man was ushered back into reception. Julia, being a genuine confidant and close friend of the Prince of Wales, had mastered his diplomatic skills in these situations. Thus it was she oozed charm and regret and all but blamed me for the abrupt end of the interview, while still leaving the candidate with the impression that it had been a masterful, albeit brief, performance by him.
Interviews at this organisation broke every rule in the HR book which is why they were so good and so much fun. Candidates were rarely asked the same questions nor were those terminally boring question sheets used for consistency of approach. ‘Tell me how you arrange your knicker/tie draw’ was a favourite from our chief, which in truth was actually quite a perceptive enquiry on many levels.
On one occasion Kelloggs in Manchester had kindly given us a room to make a Director appointment for the North West. We had interviewed three candidates without a break and when the third left, the Kelloggs catering staff wheeled in a tray with lunch on it. We would have been grateful for the expected sandwiches but they had really pushed the boat out with dim sum and a delicate hot stir fried main course. I and the other two BITC panellists demolished this in short order then, as we were stacking our plates on the trolley, an agitated member of the catering team burst back in without knocking. “Oh sweet Jesus you’ve finished……that was supposed for our senior executive team next door”.
We could only surmise at this point that next door they would have been grumpily munching on the modest sandwiches intended for us while
reflecting that austerity measures were not meant to reach directly into the board room.
After this bonus were suitably refreshed as the fourth candidate, an American woman in an inappropriately short skirt, strode into the room bristling with imagined gravitas. Without being invited, she immediately sat down and held a deliberate and challenging silence, foregoing the usual polite opening conversation and settling small talk. I enquired as to whether she would be using power point for her ten minute presentation and was instantly rebuffed with “Honey…power point is for middle managers”.
I made a mental note never to use it again and we got the interview started. It was a classic example by her of how to misread a meeting dynamic as she pouted her way through answers to the two men and gave peremptory replies to our female colleague on the panel who, as we had informed the silly woman at the outset, would have been her line manager.
After about ten minutes I began to wish that Julia had been in Manchester for the interview as I’m sure that I would have been rescued by the ‘Wrap it up’ note before the American had got into her stride,
The Daily Mail produced a list of who they had computed to be the most influential women in Britain and Julia Clevedon was, unsurprisingly, one of them. She certainly had a contact book to die for and used it with imagination and skill as she drove the agenda forward. I was never entirely sure on any given day what the agenda was as Julia’s brain was on full alert for a minimum of eighteen hours in any twenty four. The consequence of this would be early morning calls where she would order me to follow through on at least five major new ideas. Two would be barking mad, one quite often of borderline legality, and one of world class genius. The problem arose when neither of us could spot which one was which.
On appointment to my national role I had been told that Julia was very big on appraisals. It was with some trepidation that a date for my own was put in the diary after my first year in post. I walked into her office and was pleased to see she was taking it seriously arriving, as she did, a mere thirty five minutes late. This was good news as many a head of state or senior politician had been kept on hold for longer. I was then informed that the appraisal would be in a ‘nice little Italian restaurant’ down the road, which indeed it was.
It was such a ‘nice little Italian restaurant’ that it was rammed to the gills and we were inches away from the couples dining next to us on either side. Julia has a voice so loud that it has cleared carriages on trains, and she proceeded to extol my virtues and berate me about my shortcoming at full volume. After about twenty minutes I stopped her in mid sentence, turned to the next couple and said “How do you think I’m doing?” They expressed the view that I was doing rather well in the circumstances and with that Julia, completely unabashed, carried on.
A month later a superb and detailed note of the appraisal arrived. It made the recipient (me) feel valued, important and talented. Of course it had the desired effect of making me redouble my efforts to work for an amazing woman. She was, to the many captains of industry who would always take her call, the nanny they missed who had reassured, flattered and cajoled them. She was fearless and charismatically charming in their presence and often scathing about them in their absence. Just when I thought that I was a pretty indispensible member of her inner circle we had the biggest row that I have ever had in what might loosely be called my ‘professional’ career.
Julia had appointed one of her favourites to a senior post without reference to me (his manager) and despite the fact that he has behaved with dubious professionalism in a couple of instances. In a fit of pique I planned my response which I at least had the sense to wait until I had calmed down to deliver.
Julia had been invited as a VIP guest to the opening of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester and was heading north on the train. I phoned her and quietly told her how annoyed I was about her decision and how unprofessional I considered her behaviour. I expected her to at least articulate an expression of faux regret and maybe offer an apology. Instead she hit the roof and tore into me for my impudence. God knows what the poor occupants of her train carriage were thinking as she cranked up the volume. She had just reached a crescendo of invective when the train entered a tunnel and she was cut off. A minute later my mobile rang and Julia continued with renewed vigour. I was now attempting to give as good as I was getting, when we were cut off again. By the time we had reconnected for the second time we were both behaving like teenagers having temper tantrums after having been sent to bed early.
The phone went dead again and I was not sure at this point whether it was the poor reception or my chief executive ending my career. I am someone who rarely gets visibly agitated at work but this was a notable exception. What made it worse was the fact that Julia, in the best VIP seat, was visible on every TV news bulletin of the opening ceremony that evening. She was clearly enjoying herself and seemingly unperturbed by the events on her journey up to Manchester. I, meanwhile, seethed quietly at the injustice of it all.
On the Monday I was asked to meet Julia for coffee in a hotel near St James’s Palace, where she had been meeting with the Prince. She was compassionate, focussed and flattering and when I left uttered her normal battle cry “upwards and onwards”. All was forgotten as life returned to what passed for normal. There was a generosity of spirit from Julia, which coupled with a complete lack of pomposity, more than compensated for the eccentricities of behaviour. At the executive team meetings, agendas meant nothing and the first hour was usually taken up with gossip, jokes, reports on the ineptitude of some major private sector figures who had incurred her wrath since the last meeting until reluctantly we’d start - usually with the least important topic on offer. She would take calls from anyone during the meeting and often left the room to do something more interesting while we sat trapped.
On one notable occasion in summer, and with the windows open, we had just launched into a vital report from the finance director. I was sitting next to Julia and we both could see out across the Grand Union canal which ran by the door, and over into the Packington housing estate. At about the same time as the lame looking quarterly figures were being given we both noticed a pair of trousers come sailing out of a third floor window. We then heard a woman using brutal builders language in what was obviously a domestic dispute of seismic proportions.
What made Julia a great Chief executive, was her ability to focus brilliantly in times of crisis. Unfortunately it was the domestic crisis rather than the impending financial one which interested her and so we both watched as further items of clothing tumbled to the ground and the verbal abuse got louder. Other colleagues became aware of the external fracas. Displaying commendable resilience the finance director ploughed on apparently forecasting imminent and quite possibly terminal danger for the organisation, although I can’t be sure as no one was listening.
Hands free systems on cars do not enable phone calls to be taken without risk, or in the case of business calls to be conducted efficiently. On many occasions I have been deep in conversation with a colleague on work related matters only to find myself two junctions further down the motorway than intended. I was once driving way over the speed limit in a forlorn attempt to avoid being overcome by the obnoxious odours from the chemical works at Runcorn when the phone went off. It was very early, I was on the way to north Wales and knew only Julia would be calling at that hour. With minimal foreplay she launched into some detailed financial matters which I would have struggled to understand even if I was behind a desk. Slowing down dramatically I spotted cones by some road works about a hundred metres ahead. I say road ‘works’ although no work was actually going on and as there was nobody in sight.
Pulling inside the cones I stopped and turned off the engine. Furiously taking notes I was just about getting an understanding of our latest financial blip when I noticed a blue light flashing immediately behind me. At the same time I felt a jolt to the rear of the car. With horror I instantly took in what was happening. The breakdown cameras had spotted
me and must have assumed mechanical failure. Now the breakdown truck was about three seconds away from winching me on board. Knowing that Julia would brook no interruption I left her talking as I got out and begged the breakdown guys to release me, which they eventually did on the undertaking that I moved on pronto.
It was instantly obvious when I got back into the car that my absence had not been noticed as Julia continued to unburden herself. Moments after joining the main carriageway Julia apologised and said that she would have to go as St James’s Palace, that is to say the Prince, was on the other line.
So often in life what appears to be an insurmountable problem is that way because at the time our own perspective deems it to be thus. The finance issue was never mentioned again, which is just as well because I never quite knew what it was in the first place.
Possibly the greatest gift any senior business executive can have is a sense of humour. My chairman in Wales who was on a seven figure salary said to me ”Paul – take your work seriously but don’t take yourself seriously” and this was a maxim he stuck to even when under extreme pressure himself. We happened to be on the same train back from London where he was sitting with two grim face colleagues as I joined them. He appeared unusually angry and then said rather petulantly “I’ll just have to rewrite the whole bloody paper again then”. With that he violently snapped open his briefcase and pulled out a copy of ‘Viz’ which he read, laughing out loud, all the way to Swindon.
Julia had such a brilliant sense of humour that there was rarely a day without belly laughs. After several of us checked into a hotel in Birmingham we regrouped in the foyer. I casually asked Julia if her room was OK as she seemed to be heading back to the reception desk. “Well the second one was fine”. On further investigation she regaled us and the rest of the people in the foyer including the deeply embarrassed reception staff with the story.
