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If you do someone an injury or cause an injustice or discomfort it is right to apologise. Most people do not go about life maliciously wanting to hurt or inconvenience others. An increasing number, however, fail to think about the consequences of their actions leading to disruption of others’ lives and well-being.

I’m sick of people saying sorry. Most of them don’t mean it. Most of them won’t do anything about it. Do you remember those workmen’s road signs we used to have that read INCONVENIENCE REGRETTED? Rubbish, nobody regretted anything. They meant “If you get hurt by what is going on don’t sue us; we’ve already regretted and you won’t get a dime”.

What do we expect from suppliers?

Comprehensive knowledge of a product / service being sold; its price, capabilities and shortcomings, warranties, advantages over competitors, anticipated developments, new technologies and systems that provide comparable benefits and value,

We require punctual arrival at meetings; delivery of promises; good after-sale service attendance; and fast response to enquiries via whatever medium.

We ask for professionalism in every aspect of dealings including quality standards, honesty of information, disclosure of potentially conflicting interests.

Above all we expect quality of product, service and behaviour.

Are we getting it? No. As only one example, in the last year Singapore has slipped in service rating from top of all countries to No 3, below the United States and Hong Kong. And Singapore is still one of the best service countries in the world.

What is going on?

Personal pride in work has declined. It has not disappeared; you can still find pockets of exceptional quality. When young I had a wonderful example of it. A craftsman who put a new thatched roof on the house my father bought just after WWII became a friend. He would come and admire his work from time to time and I would ask him why. “Best job I ever did,” he would reply. When I further asked if anyone else would know that he replied “It doesn’t matter, I know it”. It was my life’s lesson about quality. It is your own standard that counts, nobody else’s.

Complaining about quality standards does not work so rather than produce yet another disgruntled blog we are starting a page on our web site called CAUGHT IN THE ACT of giving good service.

You can see it at www.TerrificMentors.com under the “ABOUT YOU” tab. Our first two accolades are posted today. We need your help, please, to post many more. Tell us of outstanding service from someone or from a group of named people – not an organisation – and brief us on how to contact them and we will verify that they would like to be mentioned in CAUGHT IN THE ACT of giving good service.

It is time to praise the good rather than castigate the not so good.

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We’ve all met the Smiling Tiger at one time or another. Flashing Colgate-white teeth, upturned lips, icy eyes. Instinctively, we put our back to the wall, protect our more vulnerable parts and listen to hear if there is a ticking sound emanating from his midriff.

We’ve all met the opposite, the Gordon Brown’s of this world, whose only possible picture caption is “I want to be happy…” Gloomy, depressed, apparently dyspeptic, our hearts go out to those supporters who must spend their lives trying with, one suspects, diminishing success to help them look on the bright side.

Neither picture is accurate. The Smiling Tiger is a crook, the GloomDoom has many moments of fun but contains them fearing that any display would cost money. Struggle as we may, our ability to conceal our true personality is limited – but our ability to change it is tremendous.

We teach things the wrong way round and I have really no idea why. We advance the theory of manners, which is highly complex and has to do with acceptable social intercourse, when we should be teaching the practice of manners. We run courses in communication which go to great lengths to explain its importance but forget to take the simple steps of finding out if our audience can hear us.

Even more strangely, courses in negotiation usually have as much relevance to the process as stringing rackets has to becoming Wimbledon Champion.  So it comes about that our bargaining is adversarial, our negotiating, predictably ritualistic and our presentations, PowerPointed to destruction. All in the name of conformity.

The rule for successfully conducting all these activities is ‘introduce the unexpected’. That throws people off balance – a distinct advantage if used sparingly – allowing you to surreptitiously move the goalposts before the next round begins.

Whether asking the taxi driver to wait or demanding the withdrawal of a country’s fleet from a major international seaway, a smile makes all the difference to the outcome. Don’t always feel like smiling? That is why you have to do it and do it and do it. In the end you will feel like it because it will pay you such handsome dividends.

Isn’t this exactly the opposite of what I was saying earlier? That we cannot conceal our true personalities? That is the paradox. Our personalities reflect our behaviour, so behaviour must come first. Soon our personality adopts the message sent by our actions and personality and action become as one. That is when we are genuine.

Smile from your soul; if you don’t think you have one attend to that problem first.

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Personal and corporate scandals always make the top headlines and News Corp is rightly receiving a lot of attention, from many quarters. Yesterday’s real scandal was, however, the statement by ratings agency Moody’s that it may cut the US AAA debt rating. This followed Ben Bernanke’s comment that he was ‘open to the suggestion that more assistance might be required’. This means ‘if necessary we will print more money’.

There is something horribly obscene about the world’s reserve currency being used as a political football between the two major US parties. The stakes are so big, the potential fallout for many countries so bad, the consequences for everyone, of even the threat of a US debt default, so dire that that it makes our society look as though it is still willing to throw a group of humans to the lions. Which, of course, it is.

During Mr Obama’s Presidency US debt has risen 40% and now stands at an eye-watering $14.3tn. Since most people cannot tell you how many zeros there are in a trillion this is a figure few will comprehend. But the rise between 2009 and 2011 is quite simple; and, quite simply, not sustainable.

Public demand led Murdoch to abandon his bid for BSkyB. There were no legal grounds for stopping it and Murdoch is not a man to give in to public pressure; indeed, in the past, the prospect of a battle has generally whetted his appetite and driven him on. This time, he has recognised the extent of the anger and capitulated.

Public demand is needed over the whole of the financial area before it is too late. Initially, not to determine the course of action but simply to understand what is going on and what the options are. The ordinary voter cannot be expected to understand the complex and obscure machinations of the money markets. The interests of those involved in the world’s finance is served by maintaining the confusion.

Recently the Governor of the Bank of England expressed surprise at the lack of anger by people over the 2008 banking crisis and its consequences. It was pointed out to him that [a] most people do not begin to understand the jargon of banking and [b] they are unlikely to protest visibly when the bank can claim unspecified security reasons for stopping access to their bank account. Depositors need their money to buy food.

Public anger at cuts in welfare services, at imbalance in wages and living standards and at market manipulation is understandable. But until a significant proportion of the public understands how the world’s money works there will be neither pressure to do the right thing nor acceptance of the pain that will accompany it.

It’s time to demand, with all the vigor of the BSkyB lobby, an explanation we can understand. Until we do we cannot know how to vote to have it put right.

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There are seven requirements for someone to be creative: Alertness (aka Observation), Sensitivity, Reflection, Humour, Vision (aka Foresight), Problem solving, Memory. Even when all these are in place there is no guarantee that creativity will follow. As has often been pointed out, the minute you produce a template for creativity it is self-defeating. I was asked yesterday whether and how it is possible to teach creativity, given that the world now needs it more than ever.

The nearest you can get to a creative formula is to provide the conditions in which creativity will flourish and then encourage whacky thinking. Interesting that we still do not know the relative importance in personality formation of nature and nurture. Recent research on the brain suggests that nature may play a bigger part and nurture a smaller part than we have hitherto thought.

If true this is not helpful in moving us forward, at least not until we can artificially tinker more successfully with the brain. We will be able to do that sooner or later. Meanwhile, we must content ourselves with making the best of the nurture we have under our control. Conditions in which creativity will flourish are therefore still vitally important.

When planning for the future it is essential to question every assumption. This is also the basis of good creativity. I saved my own life more than sixty years ago by persistently questioning the assumptions of experts that I was complaining about a non-existent pain –“malingering” it was called in those days – until a very senior surgeon diagnosed what was wrong and pointed out that if not treated I would die within six months.

Since those days we have learnt to question the assumptions of authority in general more than was acceptable in Victorian times but we are still suckers for the apparently knowledgeable and for the obfuscating language designed to confuse rather than explain.

Can creativity be taught? Not in the conventional sense of producing a formula which if followed will be guaranteed to lead to creative genius. The best definition of creativity that I have come across is “the ability to perceive relationships”. Tested over many years since a colleague and I first used it, it seems to cater for all situations.

What is certain is that an individual can be helped and encouraged to be more creative with considerable success.  By questioning all assumptions, by permitting outrageous thinking, by applying the seven requirements already mentioned and by rewarding effort as well as result, a more creative approach to invention and problem solving is always available.

It takes courage, but when you finally stand the tomato ketchup bottle on its head you see a truly creative result.

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It is a measure of the moment that I could not begin to write about this subject if I did not have online news 24/7 to refer to in order to find out where the crisis is going and how far it has already gone. The speed at which it can spread is almost too fast to keep up with. Is the problem only financial?

Of course not.  Just as money is only a symbol of goods and services, turmoil about it is only a sign of deep, underlying problems. What we are seeing now in the Eurozone and elsewhere is a series of symptoms. To deal with them we need to understand what they are and what they mean.

Start with the widening US trade deficit, US$50Bn last month, the highest for 31 months. This coincides with a decline in job creation in the States. The US Government is forecasting its own bankruptcy very shortly unless more money can be printed to save it. A family living like this would already be below the bread line.

Continue with the Greek citizens’ refusal to acknowledge that their gravy train has come off the rails. A parliamentary vote to begin to restore order is treated by the credit rating agencies as irrelevant. “Greece,” they say, “has already defaulted.” In Italy, the Prime Minister’s parties continue, even as the Italian Euro burns. Other European countries will follow. The Euro, a massive world currency, is seriously threatened.

Go on to see the former British Prime Minister allege that a major media group has been involved with criminals to obtain personal access to public figures’ accounts. And note the juxtaposition of a UN Secretary General’s forecast of one billion people at risk of starvation at the same time as CEO pay increased last year by 32%.

Sum it up as expectations too high, greed too accepted, corruption too endemic, personal responsibility too lacking and you have the problem at least stated.

The journey back from this situation is long, requires personal discipline that cannot be produced by legislation, demands leadership of those brave enough to lay down their future for their fellow human beings for little tangible reward and seeks to place blame, if at all, in the mirror and nowhere else.

Above all the situation requires steady nerves, an absence of panic and a start to bring back the trust that seems to have been almost totally lost. These remedies are not instantaneous, although if universally applied they would have a dramatic effect very quickly. But the chances of that happening are negligible.

In the meantime we must balance protection of our own families, as far as we can, with protection of the wider family of mankind. One at the expense of the other is no longer acceptable. To do what I am suggesting is the hardest of all possible solutions but the only one likely to bring relief to a world that has completely lost its perspective and can no longer see its Tree on the other side of the Field.

Possible? We will only find out if we begin.

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The Italian economy is nearly ten times that of Greece. A fudged and seemingly unenforceable undertaking by Greece to put her house in order was the apparently acceptable price of keeping the Euro together. The agencies rating sovereign debt were not fooled. But, come on, 1.8% of the Eurozone is enough to hide under the carpet, to pretend a little about, isn’t it?

Not when the problems are contagious. Certainly not when they reach Italy, Europe’s third largest economy accounting for 17.6% of the total Eurozone Gross Domestic Product. If the contagion then spreads to Portugal it may well reach Spain and the Euro will look unlikely to survive. Germany and France, the ‘strong’ European economies, cannot prop up the whole region by themselves.

The second financial tsunami may be approaching. The ripples of the first, three years ago, have not settled yet; a second would bring with it dire warnings for all of us, whichever currency we are in. It is difficult to imagine that another printing of the equivalent of the total amount of American debt would be feasible without discrediting the very concept of money.

The world appears to have forgotten that money is only a symbol of goods and services. It is as good only as what it represents. Printed money of itself represents nothing. Printing money is a simple but very effective form of theft. Everyone is the victim. No wonder those who can are salting away as much as possible. Last year Chief Executive pay worldwide went up 32%, just as the world got significantly poorer, as will be apparent when the inflation inherent on printed money works its way through.

Two questions arise.

Can those who purport to control the world’s finances contain and begin to straighten out the wealth imbalance which is the political cause of the problem? All the evidence so far is that the answer is ‘no’. I do not understand why. Politics is about perception. Controlling the gap between the poorest and the richest requires a political solution. Of course it is undesirable, and it is certainly short term. But, as Keynes said, ‘in the long run we are all dead’. A perception of attempted fairness is worthwhile.

Secondly, can enough people behave incorruptly for long enough to start reducing the underlying cause of the problem? What we see suggests another ‘no’. I do not understand why. Most people have children, if not their own then nephews and nieces. They must want a world that offers some stability and an opportunity to enjoy the benefits so clearly ahead. Surely mankind has not slipped philosophically so badly in the last century that he cannot see beyond the end of his own life?

A third question arises, too, of course. What should we do to protect our own families? I will try to address that tomorrow. Perhaps you will think about it too?

We need all the brains we can get on this intractable problem.

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One of the worst traffic days of the year is when school reopens after a vacation. Understandable when you think of all the equipment children have to carry and of the number going to new schools they need to be introduced to, quite apart from finding their way there. ‘Back to school’ has an ominous ring about it and not just for kids. Parents dread it, too, with a little relief that they will have some time for themselves, no doubt.

Many parents today are drivers for their young. In parts of the world this is necessary; there are sometimes too many risks associated with public transport to allow the very young out on their own. Weird people inhabit public places all too often. In WWII, when I was a child, it was relatively safe to allow us to roam the London Parks. It would be unwise to permit that today.

Now the Chief Medical Officer in UK has advised that children under five are getting too little exercise and spending too much time strapped into buggy and child car seat. The issue is not just one of physical exercise, important as that is. Observation, resourcefulness, initiative, ability to deduce, all need challenging situations in order to develop and the earlier these are encountered the more effective they are.

One of the characteristics we notice most about a baby is its alertness. Even before it has the ability to communicate in a half-civilised way a baby can show its intelligence by how it looks around and reacts to what it sees. Alert babies become alert adults, quick to observe and fast to work out what is happening. Much parenting today discourages this ‘quick on the draw’ approach. Such behaviour disadvantages children.

Body and brain both need exercising. All too often the very young are not getting enough of either. Parents see protection as a form of love; it can be the opposite. If you really love someone you make them independent – not brutally but gradually and firmly. They will have to face the world on their own at some time. We all do.

The resources you need when the time comes cannot be learnt instantly. How you handle your first big challenge depends on how much you have been allowed to experiment, to make non-life-threatening mistakes and how those mistakes have been treated by your parents and teachers. All learning deserves congratulation, not castigation.

The banner I want to see on the news is “Free the kids” not “Fetch and carry”.

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Big of Bone and Happy of Heart was the definition of Queenslanders I thought most appropriate on the many occasions I have visited the Sunshine State. Now we have added reassurance of the relevance of this affectionate description. Rewind two million years and the place was over-run with an immense, hippo-sized wombat who rejoiced in the name Diprodoton optatum.

The camera came later so we have only imaginative reconstructions to whet our appetites – figuratively speaking – for more details. He, or she of course, must have been a formidable friend to the natives of the time, rather as the motor car became man’s buddy a hundred years ago. The analogy is not frivolous. There is no evidence that man’s ancestor actually rode or drove the wombat but his imagined size closely resembled that of a modern car.

Not your cheap Ford or Tata, mind, more the armour-plated, misnamed Beast in which the President of the United States is successfully and safely transported round the world, Ireland notwithstanding. But Dippo, as we shall nickname him, was no beast. For all his three tons weight, he was clearly a favourite pet when domesticated, with a somewhat sad, wizened face whose lines denoted millennia of experience and a peaceful resignation of acceptance of the follies of humans or their then equivalent.

I’m not saying we don’t have him today, in modified form. I have known several academics with similar features depicting kindly understanding of the crazy world we have created. They do not, of course, match the physical stature of Dippo but their incessant search for the meaning of life, both past and present, and their well-distilled philosophy undoubtedly owes its foundation partly to Dippo’s footings and brilliance.

Personally I think Prof Mike Archer’s description of a ‘wombat on steroids’ a little unkind. Us bigger people have much to contend with already and do not need categorizing as freaks. Mercifully, size and weight bring with them their own rewards and at least I would have been able to see over the top, or should it be the roof, of the Great Dippo. I regret not having been around when he was, though at my age I could be categorized as having been a near miss.

The good news is that his discovery is, from the Bittleston family point of view, extremely timely. I adjure toy-makers everywhere to get busy and re-create Dippo in all his glory. If they start now they will have him ready for my just-born first great grandchild when she starts exploring the eternally fascinating world she has decided to grace with her presence. I can think of no better way for her to connect with the past than to befriend Dippo and no better way for her to secure her future than to register without delay at the University of Queensland.

Together they will give her the start in life she so richly deserves. And Dippo will never be forgotten again.

It’s a wombat world, OK.

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Hacking into mobile phones is all too easy and as a source of information for the media, all too fruitful. At times of stress people use their phones to seek help, to be in touch with those who can give them information about how to rescue themselves and, in the end possibly, to say what may be parting words to those they love. Interfering with this medium of communication is, in the words of News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch, “deplorable and unacceptable”.

Cases of hacking into the phones of those whose families have been the victims of terrorist attacks or of missing persons urgently sought by the police is wholly wrong. Such cases have recently come to light and been the focus of attention in Britain.

The culture of the media has been under scrutiny for a long time. Investigative reporting has a tradition of serving the public interest. Watergate would never have come to light but for the perseverance of two dedicated journalists. Bad behaviour at the top has all too often been hushed up. Delving into the murky waters of officialdom when necessary is to everyone’s benefit. Deeper investigation of FIFA might have been a useful area to apply the skills of the undercover reporter.

The balance between what is and what is not acceptable behaviour by the media is something every journalist and editor has to judge daily. That judgment has also to be made by you and I. We are the consumers of doubtfully obtained data. We must exercise judgment about what we will and what we will not subscribe to.

Listeners to The Daily Paradox will know that I am in favour of transparency on most matters. The world suffers from too little not too much information.

Collecting news is what a journalist is paid to do. Initiative and enterprise are drilled into rookie reporters when they are training. Many go into war zones at great personal risk to bring news of how a battle is faring or how those on the periphery are suffering. News shapes views and providing it is a noble and worthy calling.

Ethical behaviour is much discussed today. Business is conscious of a need to impose standards that, even if they limit profit maximisation, are seen by the majority to be decent and acceptable. Journalism has to be responsible for imposing its own standards, too. No amount of legislation can substitute for personally imposed limits.

Punishing those who were pressured into exceeding the bounds of decency to obtain news is the wrong thing to do. They do not set the standards; they are often young and not yet very experienced. If they are set KPIs that require unacceptable behaviour let those setting them answer for the consequences of such management.

Bosses all too often escape on the back of subordinate scapegoats. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen in the investigations now starting into phone hacking.

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The creation of ICSPA is overdue. The International Cyber Security Protection Alliance has been set up to fight cybercrime on a global scale. Its remit, according to UK Prime Minister David Cameron, is “to improve international law enforcement capability and capacity to help protect businesses and their customers against this unprecedented threat,” Let’s hope the general public figures large, too. They will be paying for ICSPA.

The benefits of the internet have been as great as those of education. Education gave us basic social and economic tools; the internet gives us universal knowledge and with it man’s first opportunity to make almost unlimited use of other’s experience.

Questions for ICSPA to address now need to be vigorously posed to the new organisation by all those affected by increasingly sophisticated hacking and the threat of major destabilizing cyber attacks. Governments are right to be concerned. More mobility and wider use of cloud computing create risks we did not even contemplate ten years ago.

The analogy of the motor car is valid, although like all analogies it is not a perfect fit. In the beginning, the man with the red flag preceded every vehicle to warn of the dangers of something mechanical hurtling along at four miles an hour. Later, road signs were developed to act as guides and warn of impending bends around which might be lurking anything, including other motor cars.

Much later again, training was enforced to ensure that everyone had a basic capability. A long time after that, re-training was seen to be necessary as traffic became heavy and fast. Those thought medically or mentally at risk of being bad drivers were tested from time to time to check their eligibility to drive. New rules and more training will be required when the flying car becomes popular.

The internet is more like a car than a book; it has power far beyond that of transmitting a message. What started out as power to calculate became power to analyse and now power to think in ways very similar to human beings. It will shortly be better than us, certainly in all hard thinking if not for some time in creative, artistic and emotional thinking. Its persuasive powers are already as great as those of any other medium.

We are now entering the internet’s Grand Prix era and our first line of defense is training. Internet safety of all kinds should be a compulsory class in early school. Adults taking up the internet for the first time should be encouraged, possibly even required, to take basic lessons in cyber safety. The adequacy of commercial protection systems should be professionally monitored and published.

The internet red flag era is over. We must learn to drive our computers better.