HAMMERSMITH -- I went to nine schools.  And today I have just dropped off my 11 year-old at only her second school in her life. 

I expected some drama.  Some kind of excitement.  Some tears maybe, or anxiety.

None.

I kept my composure.

She's ready for a change.  All the worrying is done.  Now she wants to get on with it.

It helps of course that schools, like businesses, are getting better at bringing in new people.  There was a special entrance today. There was a lady on the pavement to direct the kids, but more importantly, to handle the parents.

It's all quite clever.

When I went to my first boarding school, age 11, in Nairobi.  It was my 4th school.  I remember my mother still sewing name tags in my smalls as we drove up the drive.  We only had half the list of clothes because we had no idea what a "tackie" or a "slip" were.

My guide was an exhausted and cynical 10 year-old, called Satu.  He assured me I would be flogged in my first few days.  Told me which teacher had a twitch or a personality disorder.  He explained where the best Marmite was to be found in the tubs of breaded Marmite that were deposited in the quad a break time. 

And where to find my dorm room, which I shared with 35 other boys.  Including Freddie.  Who cried every night until Christmas.

Not so today. 

Like young executives walking into the office, the kids didn't even look back.

It's about change.  New challenges.  New responsibilities.  And a chance to do bigger and better things that you could do at the old place.

Amen to that.

/df

LONDON -- It's quite fun to listen to Obama's speech on the radio.  He's got a fantastic voice.  Listening to it, without seeing the smiley face and gangly limbs of the Democratic Presidential nominee, is a very interesting experience.  He'd be amazing for books-on-tape.  I reckon he'd do a great Harry Potter. 

But he also makes policy, ambition and... uh... America... sound exciting and exhilarating.  And that's important in politics as it is in business.

However, business does not really have a role for grand oratory.  You cannot really imagine a boss wandering the halls and jumping up on desks to say "I have a dream..."

But you can imagine leaders in business telling many small stories that are compelling and repeatable.  You want to hear what policy, strategy and business decisions really mean.  And maybe in that respect Obama and politics really fail.  There are not any compelling stories that you remember that make a lot of sense.  "I will cut taxes."  Or "In 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East."

There are few stories that tell you a lot about what they will do and how it will be different.  "To the man I met in Louisiana, who lost his family..."  Those don't really cut it.

So, in spite of how interesting and sometimes exciting politics can be, give me an office and a business to turn around, start, improve or motivate any day.

/df

LONDON -- How does "1.3 billion people" sound for an internal audience?  Worth digging out a budget for?

The Chinese Olympics this summer have been a great success.  By anyone's measure.  We are still in the 'good news glow' in the final days.  Undoubtedly the world will rush back in after the closing ceremonies and talk about drug test failures, athletes' dysfunctional relatives, and China's various misdeeds.  And many pundits will ask the question: Did this advance China's PR goals?

Has China -- the implicit question will be -- pulled the wool over people's eyes?  Have they managed to cause enough excitement and confusion to distract people from the long list of misdeeds that the media likes to drag out?  (Being a native of Canada, a mild-mannered people, annually demonised by our seal hunt, I can feel their pain.)

But it occurs to me that the game for China isn't external.  Or at least not entirely external.  There is a massive internal audience for these games.  As prosperity clearly starts to move across China, you can imagine people seeing their country succeed like for the first time.

The Chinese celebrated themselves in the lovely and lavish opening ceremonies.  They celebrate their athletes in the biggest medals haul ever.  And how can their internal audience not eat it up?

Who has ever seen a Chinese cheerleader before this month?  Where did the double-medal women's beach volleyball teams come from?  Or the sailing teams?

If I am sitting in my front room in rural China and looking at all this, I only have one thought: 'Man, are we good."

/df

LONDON -- Czech President Vaclav Havel was a well known playwright and dissident before becoming the symbol of post-cold-war politics.  In a new book he tries to exorcise the ghost of his 15 years as a public servant of a different type.  And he ends up talking about what the daily grind did to his creative abilities.

For 15 years he wrote a speech every week...

Perhaps it's because of all this hard labour that I now find writing so difficult.  I'm not the same person I was when I wrote my plays.

And it makes me think of all those people, from journalists, to speechwriters, to corporate writers, who get up every morning and work with words for the good of others.  These are people who are forced to churn out ideas on paper to a schedule. 

Havel continues...

How wonderful it is, by comparison, to be a writer!  You write something in a couple of weeks, and it's there for ages.  What will remain when presidents and prime ministers are gone?  Some references to them in textbooks, most likely inaccurate.

And I wonder when you will ever find students staying up late with candles and incense reading corporate memos aloud to each other.

Not soon.

Perhaps that's why I am painting the kitchen and writing this today when I have four work-related documents to write.

/df

(The book is To the Castle and Back and it's published by Portobello Books.)

KENSINGTON HIGH STREET -- I've just had another one of these conversations.  Two, in fact.  It's only 3 in the afternoon and I am already sick of the sound of my own voice!

Usually it takes longer.

Today's epiphany is that employee engagement is very different for different kinds of businesses.  It means different things for various functions... And even different people.  And it is obviously very different regionally.

So, it's easy then.

I like to think of employee engagement as being about the employees having the willingness, ability and understanding to add any discretionary efforts toward making the organisation more successful.

Got it?  That'll be £25....

What do you mean you have no idea what I just said?!

Like most people, I work an average 5.5 hours in my work day.  The other 2.5, I am sharpening pencils, making coffee, talking to Ruth, etc.

If I do more of the right stuff and work for even an extra half hour, I can have an amazing impact on productivity.

But someone's got to make it understandable, interesting and worth my while.

How's that?

Yea, someone should really write a book on this stuff.

/df

GASPE, QUEBEC -- It would be a contentious issue in the community where I am spending my holidays, as many of the older members of the community are still quite taken with the Republican nominee.  But I have been reading recent commentary on John McCain's temper and his history of "degrading and demeaning" people who work for him.  And it is quite disappointing.

Now all signs are that Mr McCain will not be the US President any time soon -- Ladbrokes are giving 3/1 odds -- but it's an interesting state of affairs to have a potential president who was voted the second most unpleasant boss on Capitol Hill.

Stories of his verbal abuse of staff go back decades.  I have said previously that I think there are workplaces in the western world that contravene the Geneva Convention.  And the political world is a place that still rewards bullies and attracts people with combination of vanity and insecurity that makes for a bad boss.

When I used to work in politics on Canada's Parliament Hill right out of university, I was surprised by the behaviour of some recognisable politicians.  There were tantrums and threats and extramarital affairs that beggared belief.  But it didn't make me cynical then.  I thought that political life was so rotten that only people who were 50% deluded that they could change the world and 50% filled with ego would go into politics.

Then I went into business.  And it wasn't much better. 

The problem is that people who are petulant, rude and self-centered often get ahead faster than others.  Because they demand it.

Certainly times have changed and it is less frequent now.  But it's not a good sign if it appears in the Oval Office.

/df

GASPE, QUEBEC -- It's amazing how quiet things are right now at work.  Clients are away.  Bosses gone.  People on holiday.  You can hear the echo.  Even down the Internet connection.  But I don't think we should be deceived.  There's a lot that goes on in the summer.

For one thing it's only summer in the northern hemisphere.  And there are usually some very interesting business moves in the summer.  How many people are affected by these stories of the past week?

• First National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank of California are added to the listed of defaulted US banks.
• Ryanair's Q2 profits fall 85% and its share price 25% when that is announced.
• BAE Systems paid GBP531m for the data protection company Detica.
• EDF tries and fails to buy British Energy
• Tesco signals that its going into banking in a big way

And that was just last Monday and Tuesday.  But for many people those events won't have happened because they were on holiday.

For others they will see opportunities and chances while sitting in the office this week and in the weeks to come that others won't.  In some respects those working away in the heat of the northern summer have an advantage.  In part because they will probably take holidays in September or May when other people are not on holiday.  But they will also see things and do things that will put them ahead.

When everyone gets back in a few weeks' time, they shouldn't be surprised to find that some things have moved on. 

/df

CROSBY BEACH -- I'm standing out with Anthony Gormley's life-sized statues in Morcombe Bay.  They are both much, much smaller, and much, much bigger than I had thought.

Amazing really.

I am writing another book.  In my spare time.  This one will be new from start to finish.  And it's about leadership at work.  These statues sum up an interesting part of what I am trying to incite: a willingness to stand against the tide. 

Although these metal men, who are drilled into the beech, are only my height (6 foot +) they look frightening and impressive standing at various points submerged in water.  They don't move.   The waves lash around them.

Organisational culture can be just as complex and seemingly overwhelming.  But leaders need to stand up for what is right.  And organisations, through leaders, need to make sure that they provide support for everyone from the local line manager to the CEO to be able to do what is in the best interests of the company and it's employees at all times.

Man, it's windy out here.

/df