Encouraging response on intitial sketches from AK matched by great ideas from Paul W. We are discussing his Red Blues� esp where the blues are and where they might have come from. Some confirmation of ideas that have come from the prior research and some great new angles as well. I need to go back through the Cream history tape that Keith did for me.

Talking of blue � I am listening to Blue Ridge Saturday Night recorded in the Heritage Studio Galax Virginia � that�s where I want PW�s Lullabye to sound as if it was done. I got this in the Smokies � in the bit where they chased all the people off the land to preserve the indigeous landscape. I need to reply to Gary in Tennesse who showed me round the park describing Lullabyes progress to encourage his son to pitch in.

I posted Gilbert�s Lullabye on www.kwase-kwasa.org in the Forum Discussion. Looking down the discussion I see that he and I said we might have a crack at God Bless the Child. Posting the mp3 there seems to be the easiest way to get it to Peter Chatterton.

Paul suggests that when I am implicated in his stuff it gets redder. Well there�s a funny thing.

I have been down loading Pix from the Olympus prior to delivery to Robert. Also took a few of Jake to remind myself how it was done. Cheque contribution came in through the post � gratefully received.

Thoughts with Robin getting bored with anti-biotics in Southern California. I have sent her the outline of an idea to turn over in her mind during the longeurs.

I have a different car this weekend � a Vauxhall � feels very different from the Rover 45 that I have so systematically trashed doing 12500 miles in 6 months. Jake has done his bit for the upholstery. Maybe a Toyota next week.

The war has pulled the volume back on www.kwase-kwaza.org although March will end up being the best month since September 02 . I have just posted a really important article about AIDS and human rights. The point is that if you look at the UN Declaration of Human Rights and then look at the greatest threat to the greatest number of people then one issue looms largest.

Working on piano interpretations of Rainy Days and Sundays and Saturday Sun.

�Sunday Sat in the Saturday Sun�

I wrote to Graham about the work that Stuart Veitch is doing on New Product Development which involves a me-too piece of medical equipment. This could be a key element in our pitch with the Judd Institute at Cambridge. Stephen Bates was the mastermind on this at our end and he and I have been tossing ideas around this week on the amazing growth of the French car industry in the last 7 years � growth in value added at 8% compound is really good. We suspect that this has to do with a great strategy on managing the costs of complexity in a high level supply strategy � all meat to the Judd machine.

Graham had the head DTI Lawyer on a week�s secondment this week and I was in on a morning�s meeting. I went through my new trick on how the global quality standard is rooted in international law and a UN body in Geneva which seemed to do the business � and then I pitched into a theory of trust and communication (cf the break down in diplomacy). Anyway in my latest offering I have lined the US Society of Automotive Engineers lean standard up to the elementary theory of communication from Habermas.

Keith and I spent some time discussing the link between Demming�s Plan Do Check Act and the Australian (Jung simplified) theory of team roles. One way of putting this is that there is a shadow side to each of the four phases. So if you look at the Check phase � the shadow side is to check not only the business process but to check the team as well. On the Plan phase there is both the vision but also option appraisal on execution. Doing is simpler in that there are foot soldiers and project managers.

The Act phase is I think the secret complexity � where words mean more than appears on the surface. Getting from Check to Do � which is how the learning loop is completed � Aufhebung in Hegel�s terminology. You actually need to go into a problem solving phase � part of this is doing Pareto on the check data � this is Graham�s favourite step. The thing that interests me most is the role of intuition in the next phase. This partly stems from parallel inputs I have been getting from Geoff Callow who is visiting prof at Loughborough and Alan Coombes who used to teach problem solving from Ford but is now at the U of Hertfordshire (where they have the gamelan).

Roughly speaking I think if you step from the four phase Demming cycle to the Australian eight phase team role cycle you still don�t get to the bottom of Act. The next level down is Myers-Briggs which resolves each of the eight into two giving sixteen overall.

Lets see if I can do this on the creative phase. Creativity is partly about intuiting possibility � but it has an introvert and extrovert variant. In the extrovert variant feeling is embedded in the externally world. In the introvert version analysis is imbedded in the internal world.

Alan�s theory suggests that good problem solving works from the introvert to the extrovert.

Now lets try to unpack the data gathering end. Before you enter into the plan phase you need to gather information from far and wide � and this is an input to the creative side phase. Fact gathering runs off an extroversion that is involved with facts and is emotionally engaged with variety. The other introvert version of fact gathering is harder to focus just now � maybe because this a process I do but don�t have under control � it might have something to do with the obligation to work from facts � or a self denying ordinance to restrict oneself to facts.

The introvert and extrovert versions of the fact gathering phase couldn�t be more different, I conclude. One is pragmatic to a fault whilst the other takes the obligation to be scientific very seriously.

Lets see if I can work this back up. Start with a rigorous and principled investigation but then add in the pragmatics. This balanced approach is an input to the creative phase in problem solving in which analysis is initially to the fore � I guess this is the hard symbolic element in theory creation. Only when all this preparation is complete should you take the intuitive step. This is a fourfold theory of the mis-named Act phase.

Keith and I actually agree that this is what our boss Graham actually does. He is assiduous in gathering and testing the facts � but at the heart of his strategic process he takes an intuitive step � which he doesn�t talk about. Maybe he doesn�t even know how he does that. Its clever stuff though � my grand theory is that you can�t have a successful grand theory of leadership � that good leadership style is context dependent. In fact I have a project up my slieve on all of this and I am thinking of trying this out on Prof Barlow at John Moores and Alan Combes.