Month: July 2023

Driving around the countryside of Co Donegal, occasionally I will pass a temporary sign that says, Wake in Progress.  The quiet, winding lanes will be full of parked cars and vans, as the local community come to pay their respects at the former home of the departed.  The tradition of holding a wake – the time between death and burial, when friends and relatives sit and wait beside the corpse of the deceased, a period of reflection, a remembrance but also a celebration – has declined across much of Western Europe but remains commonplace in Ireland.  I imagine that today most wakes are decorous, but that has not always been the case.  There is a famous Irish song from the mid-nineteenth century about Tim Finnegan, who fell off a ladder when drunk, breaking his skull.  During the wake held at his house, an argument broke out, which turned into a fight, during which a bottle of whiskey was thrown, broke and spilled over his prostrate body, at which point he sprang back to life, saying: Thunderin’ blazes! You think I’m dead?   Excess whiskey was the cause of Tim’s apparent death and so too his return to life.

This paradox was, no doubt, why the song lyric appealed to James Joyce, who borrowed the revenant’s name for his final masterpiece: Finnegans Wake.  In this book, for some time known as Work in Progress, which takes the form of an extended series of philosophical reflections blended with multiple digressions, wordplay and jokes, there is repeated suggestion that what begins must end and what ends must begin again, that what rises will fall and that what falls will rise again, and that all of life is repetition and recycling.  Joyce spoke several languages and enjoyed inventing words that were combinations of elements from different tongues.  The name Finnegan can be decomposed into fin, the French for end, and egan a homonym for again in English: Finnegans means, therefore, to end again and again.  The word Wake might suggest the noun that means the ceremony of remembrance for the dead, or it might suggest the command that means wake up!  His title, therefore, combines ideas of both death and life.  These themes of circularity and continuity are emphasised throughout the text of the book, which starts and ends mid-sentence – the same sentence, Joyce claimed – and which is promiscuous with grammar as well as language, spelling, and narrative structure.  

Continue reading “Awake”

We were twelve in number – six executives and six non-executives – and we had spent the last five hours in a spacious conference room in Vauxhall, on a hot and humid June afternoon, discussing aspects of the company’s strategy for the next three years.  As the meeting came to an end, and the prospect of dinner together at a nearby Eritrean restaurant came into view, as Chair of the meeting, I brought the formal proceedings to a close.  “Let’s take a few minutes”, I said, “before we leave for our meal, to decompose”.   My words provoked some amusement among my colleagues: “Do you mean decompress?”  “Do you want us to turn to compost?”  On the contrary, I had meant exactly what I had said.  At the start of a Board meeting, each attendee should compose themselves, making ready to come together as a group to do the difficult work of governance; at the end of the meeting, each should feel free to decompose, to return to their constituent self, and allow time for individual relaxation and rest. 

“What do you do at Board meetings,” one of my friends asked me recently, “apart from eating sandwiches?”  In the boardroom, as elsewhere, there is no such thing as a free lunch.  Governance is a specialised form of work, and to do it well takes lengthy preparation time, high levels of concentration, the employment of good listening and discursive skills, and the ability and willingness to develop collective recommendations in a constructive and collegiate manner.  This is not easy work and should be undertaken with the serious and responsible mindset that the task demands.  The Board is ultimately responsible – legally and morally – for the oversight of the company, the effective deployment of the resources at its disposal, and for securing the interests of various groups of stakeholders, including investors, staff, customers, suppliers, and the wider community.  Good Board meetings require all participants to come to the table primed and prepared to do this work. 

Continue reading “Decomposed”