A study in beard management
The Twits is a 1980s children’s novel by British author Roald Dahl, featuring a spiteful, lazy, unpleasant couple who play nasty tricks on each other and actualise their wicked fantasies on their pet monkeys.
The inspiration for The Twits was Dahl’s disgust at beards. Dahl’s biographer Michael Rosen recalls their first meeting. Dahl confided in Rosen’s son Joe that Rosen’s beard, “…probably got this morning’s breakfast in it. And last night’s dinner. And old bits of rubbish, any old stuff that he’s come across. You might even find a bicycle wheel in it”.
The Editor wishes to make clear that no comparison whatsoever is intended.
Indeed, counsel has advised against it.
The Editor merely observes that Roald Dahl understood something important. Namely, that beards containing bicycle wheels and the remnants of previous meals need to be combed out frequently.
Failure to do so may result in unnecessary accumulation: A breadcrumb here. A sardine there. Half a crumpet. A lawnmower.
One thing leads to another.
Before long, an otherwise respectable beard begins resembling an archaeological dig.
Students, please. There is a lesson here.
Small things have a habit of accumulating when neglected.
A professional makes one bad decision. Then another. Then a third.
A dubious assumption remains unchallenged. An inconvenient fact goes unexamined. An allegation is accepted without scrutiny because scrutiny is terribly time-consuming.
Before long, the professional beard has acquired its own ecosystem.
Which brings us, entirely coincidentally, to Bec Payne.
Charlotte’s Twit
Our regular readers will already be familiar with how Charlotte Kok describes the P&C Partner. Indeed, it was Charlotte who first calls Bec “The Twit”.
And what does Charlotte think of Bec?
Charlotte takes over the narrative
The Twit Bec Payne is not a graduate of my Elite Altitude Finishing School for Lady Executives. The type of people who need the services of my school are typically looking to remove any last vestiges of conscience… that pesky, remaining scruple or two… their final inhibitions…
No. Bec never needed our help at all.
Bec possesses gifts that cannot be taught.
Many aspiring executives spend years cultivating the ability to avoid awkward questions, overlook inconvenient contradictions and arrive confidently at conclusions unsupported by evidence.
Bec’s cavalier dismissal of how other people make a living comes instinctively.
To watch her work is rather like watching a grandmaster play chess against herself. The outcome is predetermined, the evidence largely ceremonial and the result achieved with admirable efficiency.
Naturally, I recognised a kindred spirit.
The difference between us is merely one of method: I prefer to manufacture the narrative. Bec prefers to inherit it.
Either way, the destination is much the same.
And so I say, without hesitation, that there are things concealed within Bec Payne’s beard that have not seen daylight in years:
- Allegations accepted without scrutiny
- Assumptions mistaken for facts
- Careers sacrificed for administrative convenience
- Entire investigations reduced to paperwork
One finds all sorts of curiosities in an old beard. A bicycle wheel. A sardine. A lawnmower…
The occasional Bids and Tenders Manager…
Editor’s note
The purpose of today’s lesson was not to determine precisely what may or may not be concealed within Bec Payne’s beard.
That is a matter for future historians.
The lesson is that neglect has consequences. Beards do not become repositories of bicycle wheels overnight. Nor do HR professionals acquire ecosystems of their own.
Small things accumulate. Questions not asked. Assumptions not tested. Decisions not examined. Responsibilities quietly delegated to someone else.
One thing leads to another. Small things accumulate.
Until one day somebody discovers that the beard is not merely concealing strange artefacts.
It is concealing consequences.
Charlotte’s conclusion
And that is the reason I love working with The Twit Bec.
Many aspiring executives imagine that success requires intelligence, diligence, judgement and attention to detail.
This is nonsense.
Success depends upon something far more important: The ability to delegate thinking to somebody else. Bec has elevated this principle to an art form.
Nothing I ever tell her is independently verified.
Nothing is meaningfully challenged.
Nothing is examined with sufficient vigour to become inconvenient.
This creates efficiencies.
The time ordinarily wasted investigating facts may instead be devoted to accepting them. And delivering payback their consequences.
A truly modern approach to management.
Indeed, one might say that Bec has solved the oldest problem in executive decision-making.
How does one arrive confidently at a conclusion without first gathering evidence?
Simple.
One doesn’t.
One merely skips the middle step.
Students, please.
A woman with talents such as these does not require Elite Altitude Finishing School polish. The amount of detritus in her beard would have qualified her for an honorary doctorate on sight.
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