3-2-1 Technique

Numbers are impatient teachers. 3-2-1 Technique gives you the figure first and the explanation later. That is usually the right order.

The wisdom here is arithmetic, not poetry. Small inputs, repeated honestly, beat grand declarations made once a year. The figure is only there to keep you from negotiating with yourself.

What this concept offers is a pause — one extra beat between what happens and what you do about it. Civilisation, someone said, is measured in that beat.

The best school principal is visible at the gate in the morning and invisible during the teachers' period. Presence at the right hour, absence at the right hour — that is the whole craft.

An organisation is only a group of people who have agreed, for now, to pull in roughly the same direction. You will meet this idea again this week, wearing different clothes. Now you will recognise it.