Thread by @swardley

Emphasis is flawed. Leaving the EU will require our businesses to become more competitive, it will require UK to find means of releasing all its talent, it will take an important protectionist barrier away ... the act alone won't make us more competitive -brexitcentral.com/leaving-eu-wto…

X : The sooner we get on with it the better.
Me : Don't be too keen. What has become clear to me is that whilst UK has abundant talent, the executive layer (Gov and Corporations) often lacks this. I'm not sure we can compete on a free trading global basis without radical reform.

With radical reform, then yes, I see a positive future. But we need to unlock that talent across the many which means more Government intervention and directed action. We need to learn from China.

X : How do you mean we lack talent in the executive layer?
Me : We have very strong engineers, designers and the like. But, we're missing something at the management / leadership layer in dealing with complex environments. It's not that people are daft, it's more ...

... we're lacking in some form of educational process. I think Dominic Cummings described this as the need for an "Odyssean" education - dominiccummings.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/201308…

There is something missing. I've seen this with strategy which for most corporations is simply meme copying.

The current crop of executives and the future crop - often through the usual routes of private school / oxbridge / prestigious consultancy or investment firm / prestigious MBA - seem almost uniquely unequipped to deal with this new world. Something is going wrong.

I see this routinely i.e. execs declare they are data driven and then cancel something that works in favour of something that has and will clearly fail but supports their gut feel. It's maddening sometimes and we're never talking small sums. Sometimes billions.