Leslie Hutchinson, born in 1900 in Grenada, swiftly made himself felt in the sweaty haunts of Harlem and the chic boîtes of Paris before arriving in that Twenties London chronicled by Waugh’s diaries. As another character says about that dalliance: “I don’t mind diagnosing a simple case of good old sex.”

This 360-page biography of the elegant singer and pianist “Hutch” is more than a pendant to Evelyn Waugh studies. Hutch was the inspiration for Chokey, the black lover with whom Margot Beste-Chetwynde takes up in Decline and Fall. This 360-page biography of the elegant singer and pianist “Hutch” is more than a pendant to Evelyn Waugh studies. Hutch was the inspiration for Chokey, the black lover with whom Margot Beste-Chetwynde takes up in Decline and Fall. He was chief executive of Nationwide Building Society for 10 years, then director general of the Institute of Directors. Open, learning societies will be as successful as organisations that behave in the same way.

Perhaps Mr Garratt’s conclusions will be morefar-reaching than he imagines.Tim Melville-RossThe reviewer is chairman of Investors in People UK. In a few words, working towards the Standard will help organisations achieve the very breakthrough in thinking and performance that Bob is advocating. About a third of the UK workforce is already covered by the Standard, and there is overwhelming evidence to show the organisations concerned improve productivity, customer orientation and their focus on training and communication as a result of adopting it.I suggested at the beginning that all this will be good for society at large, and not just as a direct result of a more successful business sector. We asked of every decision we took: “Is this fair?” The result was a series of good decisions that restored our position in the market in a remarkably short time. What we had done was introduce a process of systematic learning in the organisation, not difficult in principle, but it does need discipline and an effective organisational process, as Mr Garratt explains.This leads to the 12 capabilities in the book.

You will have to buy it to read about them all, but key words and phrases which run through them are leadership and customer orientation, a learning climate, clarity, performance and adaptiveness.What external help is available to organisations to develop in this way?I’m sure Bob Garratt will forgive me if I use this opportunity to highlight the excellent Investors in People Standard. If they do, the right emotional climate for the organisation to succeed will emerge.What this means in practical terms is that the board must set a clear purpose, vision and values for the company. But they must do this openly, in full consultation with staff. This must be done with precision, so even the values are actionable, and sometimes measurable.When I was chief executive of Nationwide Building Society, the organisation, in common with many others in the industry, went through a difficult period during the deep recession at the beginning of the 1990s, which was particularly characterised by a crisis in the housing market.It was even more important that we should keep close to our customers, and one of the values we had adopted was to be fair in all our dealings. This will lead to a genuinely learning organisation, led by a learning board that openly recognises it doesn’t have all the answers, but is willing to ask the right questions.

Words that flow from the top as a result of this process must correspond to actions. As Mr Garratt says, these “soft”, human, aspects may cause us problems, but they also get us out of them.But the key question is, if an organisation is not run in this way, how can it change?The business leader, or the board as a whole, must adopt the key principles of accountability, probity and transparency. The creation of an appropriate emotional climate in the organisation is vital. We know from thorough research and the experience of enlightened business leaders that there are strong links between good people management and sustained company performance. Good staff properly selected, trained and developed are much more likely to retain good customers.These qualities will emerge in organisations where recognition is given to the importance of emotions and relationships, still difficult words for many business people to cope with.

This in turn has led to reward systems linked to a narrow definition of performance.As Mr Garratt reminds us, it is now generally accepted that over-concentration on financial rewards does not motivate people. He refused to be considered for the post of Poet Laureate after Hughes’s death.Also on the Whitbread shortlist were the novels White City Blue by Tim Lott, and Music and Silence by Rose Tremain, as well as the second volume of a biography of the composer Berlioz by David Cairns.The ceremony in London was hosted by the broadcaster Sheena McDonald, who was badly injured in a collision with a police car last year.. The Twelve Organisational Capabilities by Bob Garratt (HarperCollins, £19.99)

The Twelve Organisational Capabilities by Bob Garratt (HarperCollins, £19.99)
My only real criticism of Bob Garratt’s book is that, after his earlier The Fish Rots from the Head, the title is rather prosaic, and doesn’t do justice to an important piece of work.The expression “every business person must read this book” is as overused as “our people are our greatest asset”, with neither carrying real force, but this book provides the key to resolving one of the most important issues confronting business and society.The book explains why organisations can succeed in the long term only by building on the strengths of their people, and how a transformation to this approach can be achieved.Mr Garratt explores the historical reasons behind the creation of a corporate mind-set that people are a cost, a necessary evil whose impact on the firm must be kept to a minimum, with the trend to specialisation ensuring employees are productive in a narrow sense, but kept well away from anything that might involve the use of their imaginations.This is, thankfully, already a caricature of today’s more successful organisations, but it is historically important in explaining behaviours.Henry Ford once complained: “How come when I want a pair of hands, I get a human being as well.” Much work organisation in this century has been based on the research of F W Taylor, who focused on increasing efficiency by breaking work into smaller, more specialised, measurable units. Poetry has been going through a remarkable period.”Heaney’s work is dedicated to Ted Hughes, who was a close friend. Between them they have won the Book of the Year twice each in the past four years.Dr Anderson defended the choice of judges.