Knowing when to admit defeat

When given a novel and complex task, it can be difficult to admit that it is either beyond you or the task is undo-able.

I recall one such task which started with the CEO taking me to one side and saying 'The Chairman wants this done. X and Y have already had a go but he did not like working with them. You are my next hope.'

I should have known that the project was nigh impossible. My team was unsuited to the type of work and so I would have to lead from the front and learn new campaigning skills I did not have. What I had not realised was that the Chairman was wanting to re-create his youthful past, expecting a large and complex organisation to act like a light-footed start-up.

The lessons I learned were profound:

• Know your skills and don't be flattered into taking a job for which you know you are unsuited, even if you are the last one standing. It may be the job that is wrong rather than the people
• Make sure you have your constituency behind you and that they are not watching you from the wings, seeing you banging your head against a wall and thankful that they are not involved
• The opposition can be your friend. My Chairman was more inclined to listen to the other big organisation involved rather than my organisation as they did not dare suggest that the project might be impossible
• Know when to go back to those who gave you the job and admit that you cannot do it. It is better to be seen as honest about your own abilities than a 'failure' to be disposed of

It all ended in tears, as you can guess, and I became another person 'found wanting'. It was irrelevant that this said as much, if not more, about the Chairman than the people involved.

Theresa May could learn some of these lessons.

A run-of-the-mill middle-rank administrator, she is totally out of her depth with Brexit but, having been given the task, is determined to see it through at whatever cost to herself and the country. Like me, she is trying to achieve a big notch on her CV, fully expecting to walk away the moment the finishing line is crossed, satisfied that she could look at the badge 'She delivered Brexit' on television captions and her study wall, in her retirement.

• She does not have the skills to lead and bring people together. Flattered to have achieved the top job almost by accident, she had to pretend to be an ardent Brexiter when she had campaigned on the other side 
• Because she failed in those early stages, neither her party, nor the country, has ever been united behind her. The abortive election simply underlined this. She promised a new approach which never happened
• She has singularly failed to engage with the 48% Remainers or the Opposition from the start (and is still not doing so in a meaningful way as she seems incapable of talking to anyone who did not vote Tory)
• Now she is trying to push something through in the teeth of opposition from her party and the country and is refusing to go back to the people who gave her the brief and ask if they still mean it now that the reality is clear(er)

It is time for her to be honest, not to be pig-headedly stubborn: to check the brief with the client. Ken Clarke was right: she is a Bloody difficult women indeed.

What so many Prime Ministers do not see at the time, is that they will be reviled in retirement for not having listened properly and acted honestly when in office: just think of people like Thatcher (Poll Tax), Blair (Iraq War), Brown (Spending) and Cameron (the referendum) ... All of them could have done with a seriously large majority behind them before taking a politically risky step. May is just going to be one more entry on this list.