Early in your retail loss prevention career when you get it wrong, they call it a “mistake.” Later they call it “experience…”
What the re-hiring of David Cameron and Sam Altman can teach profit protection professionals about reducing shrinkage…
With apologies to singer, Jamie Lawson, “David Cameron back in the Cabinet? I wasn’t expecting that!”
It is quite rare for a former Prime Minister to rejoin the Government in what, by definition, will be a more junior role than the last post they held – although Foreign Secretary is not exactly a junior position!
So, what could have provoked such a move by our current PM, Rishi Sunak?
No matter how bad their premierships end, former Prime Ministers have a residual charm that other politicians find hypnotizing. Relations with international leaders and other foreign ministers are also important. In particular, Cameron knows Xi Jinping, having hosted the Chinese president in 2015 at the prime minister's residence and posing for pictures with him in a local pub.
'“As a veteran of 40 years in the loss prevention community, with 30 of those years devoted to Intrepid, I have come to realise that any career is a collection of successes and mistakes ”.
Noel Verbruggen - Intrepid CEO
Despite a few scuffles in the Press, particularly over his involvement lobbying for Greensill Capital, Cameron is still widely respected by the Establishment. His experience makes him a safe pair of hands in Westminster at a time of great global turmoil. Someone Rishi can leave to get on with the job.
Then Sam Altman the ChatGPT boss is fired by his board for unspecified reasons. Well, I wasn’t expecting that either!
Only the week before Altman was hobnobbing with Rishi Sunak at Bletchley Park opining on questions such as “AI… unprecedented opportunity for humanity or existential threat?” It’s a pretty important discussion!
In a twist worthy of Hollywood, just 48 hours later Altman was hired by Microsoft to run its AI division for them. What’s more Microsoft offered any one or all of the 743 out of 770 ChatGPT employees (including one former board member!) who signed a letter demanding the board’s resignation en masse for firing Altman, a job. Incredible!
A day later, Altman was back behind his desk at ChatGPT, with his reputation as one of the most influential figures in the fast growing generative artificial intelligence space enhanced, and arguably more powerful than ever. Untouchable…
What makes Cameron and Altman so valuable are their track records, contacts and insights. To put it another way, their “experience.” And quite rightly so…
As a veteran of 40 years in the loss prevention community, with 30 of those years devoted to Intrepid (I sold and fitted some of the very first EAS tagging systems in the UK. For more on that check out my article Intrepid’s 30th Anniversary featured in Retail Risk News — Intrepid Security Solutions Ltd), I have come to realise that any career is a collection of successes and mistakes achieved or made in response to challenges that present themselves.
Over time, inevitably the same or similar challenges present themselves again. At that point by not making the same mistake as last time, or using the same strategy for success, you are more likely to get a good outcome.
Experience reduces the chance of making a mistake. Writer and Harvard philosopher George Santayana, well known for his aphorisms, famously wrote “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Sometimes I see risk management professionals rolling out the latest new thing and I am perturbed. That’s because often the “new thing” is not new at all. Unfortunately, nobody seems aware of the reasons it was tried before, or perhaps why it failed. Santayana was right!
However, the value of experience can be felt in an even wider context.
Matthew Syed, author of the excellent book “Bounce,” considers what are the real secrets of sporting success, and what lessons do they offer about life? Why are the best figure skaters those that have fallen over the most and why has one small street in Reading produced more top table tennis players than all the rest of the country put together?
I don’t want to spoil the book if you have not read it. However, it is fair to say that world class table tennis players do not have faster reactions than you or me. However, they recognise patterns. The same has been shown to be true of chess players and grand prix drivers.
It is the cognitive ability to recognise a pattern in a split second - a situation that has arisen before - and to apply the response that was previously successful, that separates the winners form the losers. To know what the next move is, where to get ready to hit the ball or how to control the car. That is not about intelligence or reaction times. It is about experience.
At Intrepid we have over 30 years’ experience of providing risk management solutions to the nation’s top retailers and other high profile clients. Read our recent case study about work completed at London’s oldest wine bar Intrepid upgrade CCTV for London’s oldest wine bar! — Intrepid Security Solutions Ltd
We make our experience available to our customers for free. Perhaps that is why we still work with some of our original customers, who joined us 30 years ago. Because their experience of working with us has consistently demonstrated that we offer them the best option…
If you would like to see the benefits of our experience in your business, providing risk management and theft reduction products, then please get in touch.
Don’t just repeat the same mistakes. Give us a try!
“We make our experience available to our customers for free. Perhaps that is why we still work with some of our original customers, who joined us 30 years ago.”