Shaping the Future of the Workplace

In this speech, James asks those charged with managing worplaces to keep calm about climate change and forensically examine official reports about it, and about energy.

In the face of the prevailing wisdom of the time, he argues that the reality of climate change does not mean an impending climate catastrophe. He goes on to polemicise against emotional, sustainability medicalisation and risk agendas at work, suggesting that they form a displacement activity that distracts from genuine innovation there – in the macro-generation of energy and in better acoustics, for instance.

James then puts forward his distinctive view of outsourcing and the Private Finance Initiative, which is that, in the NHS as elsewhere, they have emerged from an abdication of managerial responsibility for innovation in general and IT in particular. In the process, he ridicules the condescension bound up in the unquestioned doctrine of ‘change management’.

James contends that while stress in the workplace is widely exaggerated, stress from inadequate transport and commuting infrastructure is widely underestimated – even if northern Britain is well aware of it. Teleworking, he feels, deserves support, not as a defence against terrorist interruptions of work, but rather as a chance to think in quiet.

James concludes with an attack on politically correct etiquette, the cult of victimhood, and ‘partnering’ at work. Instead, he upholds leadership there.

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This speech opened the national conference of the British Institute of Facilities Management in March 2007, held at Keble College, Cambridge.