Downing Street in need of a cultural turnaround project

There is a possibly apocryphal story about a high-flying financial services executive who, when hiring, always took their preferred candidate for lunch before signing on the dotted line. Unknown to the ambitious, keen to impress applicant, the exec pulled this trick at the same restaurant every time – and always told the restaurant to deliberately get his potential new charge’s order wrong. How they reacted dictated whether or not they got the job.

One could quibble politely, which was fine. One could get on with the meal and not say anything, which perhaps showed a bit of timidity, but in the grand scheme of things if you get salmon instead of a sea bass it’s hardly worth kicking up a stink. The one thing you couldn’t do, as the competitor in this particular task, was be anything but fastidiously polite to the waiting staff.

We recount this tale in the context of yesterday’s long-awaited report into booze-ups at Downing Street.

Amid the jaw-dropping text messages (“I think we get away with it”) and eye-catching detail (the ‘altercation’ between staff), it is this line that grabbed our attention: “I was made aware of multiple examples of a lack of respect and poor treatment of security and cleaning staff.” Therein lies proof of a culture that the possibly apocryphal boss sought to avoid in their firm.

The old maxim that culture eats strategy for breakfast may be slightly overdone but it is true. And it is clear that the culture at the heart of No.10 at that period was rotten, and how much of that led to the oft tin-eared response to the public’s legitimate concerns around lockdowns will be for the historians to navigate.

The good news is that there have been plenty of examples of culture change at businesses of all sizes.

What all of those turnarounds have in common is boss class taking responsibility and driving it forward. Culture change has to be embedded in every bit of an organisation. Over to you, Boris.