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The things that deteriorate are the ones we notice first. If we remain observant – something inadequately taught to the young these days – we see renewal, new life, new purpose, gradually an awareness of the problems of the world and significant numbers of people working quietly away to make life better for others.

McKinsey has revealed that organisational change is often thwarted by employees resisting it, especially the more influential ones. We need, they say, to persuade these innate leaders if change is to be effectively achieved. I am sure they are right; change is usually resisted, often for the wrong reasons.

But I question the extent of the constant change being perpetrated everywhere. I am not a Luddite trying to retain out of date machinery and systems. I want us all to benefit from the new technical discoveries. I also want everyone to enjoy life. It seems that organisations are promoting change largely for their own benefit and not much for the customers’.

“Externalising costs” – that chilling phrase heralding the disappearance of someone to talk to – brings with it customer queues in person or by phone, a plethora of Frequently Asked Questions (only not the ones you want answered) and an almost total absence of real service. Someone needs to point out that customers’ time is as valuable as suppliers’ time. This must be done effectively not left as merely a self-evident statement.

Someone also needs to act on the fact that the high and growing unemployment rates around the world could be reduced if service were once again to become a byword of good supply. So how do we arrange that suppliers pay for keeping their customers waiting or causing them unnecessary difficulties?

It is already done in some areas of business. A ship or train that cannot be prompt at its mooring to unload pays ‘demurrage’, a fine for causing disruption. Why should not a late arriving delivery from a supplier do the same? Is it beyond the wit of humans to devise a way in which a supplier creating unnecessary extra work or delay for a customer could be charged for doing so? A builder who fails to meet his deadlines feels it in the pocket. Why cannot others?

When first in business I was taught to ask a vital question before hiring a new employee: ‘What will happen if we do not employ this person?’ It saved many unnecessary hirings and made for a tighter, lighter ship, easier to navigate. Before structural changes are made to a business, before customer services are further reduced, could we pause and ask ‘What will happen if we do not make this change?’

Is it possible that customers might just be better served? Is that too novel an idea?