Transforming organisations

Value

The demands of business are such that we can so easily lose sight of our values, or even worse, forget what it is that really matters to us.

Back in 1955 a well meaning uncle gave me a copy of Mr Crabtree Goes Fishing by Bernard Venables. It is a paperback of cartoon sketches showing Mr Crabtree and his young son Peter fishing for various species during the different seasons of the year.

I read that book so many times as I grew up that the pages eventually disintegrated and fell out; my favourite fish became the perch. When I was 28 and looking for a place to live the words on page 95 of the book kept flashing across my mind, even in the middle of the night ....”if you want to catch really big perch ....fish the River Wye at Hereford.”

So one day in 1977 I visited the place, walked over the old Wye Bridge by the Cathedral, down the bank and scooped out a handful of water to drink. In that moment I determined to spend the rest of my life living in this lovely city. Two weeks later I arrived with nowhere to live, no work and very little money.

And now, thirty four years on, it is great when a client postpones a meeting at short notice; I can be on the river in under six minutes.

Someone once said to me “You know the price of everything, but the value of nothing” They may have been right, the book cost five shillings, but how do you put a value on that?

Labels: personal values and business

posted by Tim @ 12:23 AM