Going ‘off piste’ for a moment
One of the Rust’s engaging features to my mind – consistent with comments made by many of its readers that write to me – is its unique and somewhat haphazard approach to its mission.
I’ve lost count of those I fall into conversation with – especially those with connections to marketing and branding disciplines – who either struggle to explain its global success and/or find it unsettlingly counter-intuitive in circumstances where it has seemingly eschewed every principle of self-promotion.
It seems to me there are three primary drivers in establishing a business, all of which involve passion and commitment.
Not necessarily in order of importance, they are the desire to make money; the desire to being independent and run one’s own business, rather than work for someone else; and a degree of passionate interest in a particular subject or avenue of life so consuming that the individual feels compelled to pursue it without an obsessive regard to whether or not it will ultimately provide a living – by which I mean, obviously, beyond subsistence and/or “washing its face” level, which (I’d submit) must by definition be the base position of any business.
In many ways the last of these is perhaps the most intriguing.
I suggest this because – presumably – who in life could possibly be happier than someone who by chance and hard work (graft being an essential of any successful business) had achieved riches beyond any original ambition from immersing themselves totally in something they love?
[Here I would mention a caveat or condition.
A senior marketing consultant I know once told me that, whenever he was called in to advise an initially-successful small company owned and run by a passionate entrepreneur that was now seeking to expand exponentially, his first recommendation was always, if possible “Shoot the owner”.
This was his shorthand way of conveying his wisdom that – to use a supermarket context – those who had run a corner shop successfully would very rarely prove capable of running a supermarket chain, almost invariably because they lacked the wherewithal and humility to manage a bigger organisation, not least the abilities to delegate and/or accept the fact that others might know more about running one than they did].
But I digress.
My ‘tag’ on the Rust is that I contribute upon matters relating to World War One but in this post I venture beyond that brief in the sense that my recommended links today – courtesy of the website of the Daily Mail, relate to pre-history and the modern Royal Navy.
The first is a report by Sophie Tanoo upon the fascinating recent discovery of an ancient ‘circle’ close to Stonehenge.
See here, as appears today upon the website of the – DAILY MAIL
The second is a report by Larisa Brown, Defence & Security Editor, upon the latest travails of a Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer HMS Dauntless.
The history of British Defence power is littered with planning cock-ups, cost over-runs and lack of clear vision and foresight.
To be fair, in many respects this is only to be expected and applies not only to this country.
By its nature, any Defence review – whether of strategic policy or a recent conflict – will tend concentrate upon either those matters that did not materialise and/or the shortcomings and failures that have been exposed by the experience of the military ‘being in action’.
This is perfectly understandable but – it is in the nature of these things that – the findings of the review (and also any recommendations it contains) will inevitably tend to go towards “fighting the last conflict better” than meeting future Defence needs, for the simple reason that the eternal hardest aspect of Defence planning is that nobody alive can predict what the future will hold.
Another overlaying factor is the competition between the different strands of the military high command.
Although “defence of the realm” is often quoted as the first priority of any government, in practice Defence spending is a vexed subject for politicians because no population particularly wishes to go to war or indeed spend money on military hardware when there are so many other peaceful causes also screaming for attention and cash.
The UK’s military Chief of Staff position is rotated by “Buggin’s Turn” between the Army, Navy and RAF, all of which are in a constant fight for prominence.
The Army might contend that “boots on the ground” are more important than ships or aircraft. In reply, the Navy and RAF will point out that, without ships or planes, the Army cannot get anywhere to fight, nor have the ‘cover’ it needs to protect and supply itself.
In the past few years the Navy has managed to gain ascendancy – hence its much-vaunted brand new giant aircraft carriers which, even before they’d left the drawing board, were being attacked by pundits from all sides for being hopelessly wasted-money “white elephants”.
Not that the Navy will care because, once you’ve spent untold billions on two vast aircraft carriers, that gives the Navy something to justify and promote itself with for the next two decades despite the fact that – should by any unfortunate happenchance a serious war be declared – neither of these monsters would likely survive more than a week before being blown out of the water.
Which brings me to the aforementioned Daily Mail report today – see here – HMS DAUNTLESS
