The DOBlog

Category: Philosophical Musings

  • Heel Pricks. A short thought

    Yes. It is a pity that Guthrie cards will be destroyed. Yes, there is potentially valuable data held on them. But there is also a fundamental right to Personal Data Privacy under EU Treaties and there is that pesky thing called the Data Protection Acts/Data Protection Directive.

    The DPC investigated the issue of heel prick cards. They negotiated with the HSE to determine a “best fit” solution that struck an uneasy and far from ideal balance between the desire to have a genetic databank and the need to have specific explicit informed consent for the processing of sensitive personal data in that way.

    Comments today from Minister Kathleen Lynch that this needs to be looked at again and efforts are underway to prevent the destruction are baffling. “Efforts are underway”? So the Department is actively working to undermine the role and independence of the DPC? Is new legislation being prepared with retrospective effect that will be passed by the end of next week? Is data being anonymised (tricky with genetic data)? Is the HSE going to do a big push to get people to request the cards relating to them and/or their children from the HSE?

    What needs to be looked at in my view is the culture and ethos around managing personal data that pervades in some areas of political and civil society. For that is where the root and origin of this dismal scenario lies. (A scenario, as an aside, that has faced private sector organisations with their customer databases on a number of occasions: not obtained lawfully, not obtained for that purpose, destroy it.)

    The reason the issue arises with the heel prick tests is that consent was obtained for the processing of blood samples for a very specific purpose – testing for metabolic disorders in neonatal contexts. The consent obtained was for that purpose. No other. Sensitive personal data must be processed on the basis of specific, explicit informed consent. There appears to have been no plan for maintaining the data associated with those samples or for managing the process of obtaining consent for future purposes (or enacting legislation to allow for future purposes without requiring consent). There appears to have been an assumption that these samples could be retained ad infinitum and used for purposes undisclosed, unimagined, or unavailable at the time the samples were originally taken. This was, and is, not the case under Data Protection law.

    As an Information Quality practitioner, I am bemused by the optimism that is expressed that the heel prick data would be useable in all cases. What processes are in place to link the data on the Guthrie card to an identifiable individual? Do those processes take account of the person moving house, their parents marrying, divorcing, remarrying (and the name changes that ensue), or the family emigrating? If the Information Governance in the HSE is such that this is rock solid data then great. I’m running a conference and want good case studies… call me!

    The quality of information angle is important as it raises a second Data Protection headache – adequacy of information. If the information associated with the actual blood tests is not accurate, up to date, and adequate then a further two principles of the Data Protection Acts come into play.

    Yes the destruction of Guthrie cards is a problem (but as Ireland has been doing Guthrie tests since 1966 it has happened before. Yes it is an unsatisfactory situation (but one that appears unavoidable given the legal situation). But the root cause is not the Data Protection Acts or the DPC. The root cause is a failure in how we (as a society) think about information and its life cycle, particularly in Government and Public sector organisations. A root cause is a failure of governance and government to understand the legal, ethical, and practical trade offs that are required when processing personal data, particularly sensitive personal data. A root cause is the failure to anticipate the issues and identify potential solutions before a crisis.

    RTE reports that the Minister describes the 12% awareness level of the right to have cards returned to families rather than destroyed as “telling”. But what does it tell us? Does it tell us people don’t care? Or does it tell us that the HSE awareness campaign was ineffective? I would go with the latter. Frankly the lack of information has been stunning and, as always in Irish life, there is now a moral panic in the fortnight before the deadline. And again, the governance of how we communicate about information and information rights is called into question here.

    I haven’t seen any data on how often the Guthrie card data was being used for research purposes. I’m sure some exists somewhere. Those arguing for the records to be saved should go beyond anecdote and rhetoric and present some evidence of just how useful this resource has been. We need to move beyond sound-bite and get down to some evidence based data science and evidence driven policy making.

    Storing the samples takes physical and economic resource, two things in short supply in the HSE. Storing them ad infinitum without purpose “just in case” creates legal issues. Legally the purpose for which the samples was originally taken has expired. By giving families the option of having the cards returned to them the HSE creates the opportunity for specific informed consent to future testing, while removing the other data protection compliance duties for those records from themselves.

    The choice is not an easy one but the Data Protection mantra is “just because you can doesn’t mean you should”. And just because you have to doesn’t mean it is easy or without pain. But by clearly drawing a line in the sand between non-compliant and compliant practices the HSE avoids the risk of future processing being challenged either to the DPC or the ECJ (after all, this is a fundamental human right to data privacy we are dealing with).

    Hard cases make bad laws is the old saying. However the corollary is that often good laws lead to hard cases where society needs to accept errors of the past, take short term pain, identify medium and long term solutions, and move on in a compliant and valid manner.

    Rather than weeping and gnashing teeth over a decision that is done and past it would behove the Minister and our elected representatives more to focus their efforts on ensuring that the correct governance structures, mind-sets, knowledge, training, and philosophy are developed and put in place to ensure we never find ourselves faced with an unsatisfactory choice arising from a failure to govern an information asset.

  • Call the Tweet Police (a slight return)

    An opinion piece by Joe Humphreys in the Irish Times on the 9th of January (which I can link to here thanks to the great work of McGarr Solicitors) discusses anonymous comment on-line. In doing so he presents an argument that would appear to suggest that persons taking a nom de plume in debate are in some way sinister and not trustworthy.

    He suggests three actions that can be taken to challenge “trolling”. I’ve previously addressed this topic on this blog (27th December 2012 and previously) I thought I’d examine each of Mr Humphrey’s suggestions in turn and provide agreement or counter argument as appropriate.

    1. Publicly condemn it. Overall I agree with this. However who or what should be condemned? The pseudonymous comment or the pseudonymous commenter? Should you ‘play the man or the ball’, to borrow a metaphor from sports? The answer is that, in an open society the correct course of action is to either ignore the argument or join the argument. Anything else leads to a downward spiral of tit-for-tat trolling and abuse, one of the very behaviours that has sections of our body politic and mainstream media crying “Down with this sort of thing!”

    2. “Develop ways of discriminating against it… … by technology that helps to authenticate people’s identities”. In my blog post of the 27th of December I address this under the heading of “Bad Idea #1”. The concept of identity is incredibly fluid. As Mr Humphreys appears fond of citing scientists and philosophers, I’m sure he is familiar with Descarte’s writings on the existentialist concepts of identity.

    The idea of an “identity register” is one that raises significant technical, philosophical, and legal issues. South Korea has recently abandoned their attempts to impose a “Real Names” policy on the use of social media due to these issues, and “Real Name” policies in social media have been criticised on Data Protection grounds in Europe. In China, where a “real names” policy is in place for social media, people use fake ID to register and the Chinese government has failed to get a significant majority of internet users to comply with their law.

    Describing anonymity as a “market failure” to be fixed by enforced identification equates identity with a tradable commodity. This is, ironically, the business model of Facebook, which Mr Humphreys describes as “an invention of Orwellian proportions”.

    3. “Challenge the anonymous to explain why they are hiding themselves. I’ve yet to hear a good excuse…” In my post of the 27th of December I link to an excellent resource (the GeekFeminism Wiki) which lists a number of reasons why people might not be able to use their real names in on-line comment. Time taken to research this: 30 seconds on Google. They include: survivors of abuse, whistleblowers, law enforcement personnel, and union activists.

    The implication made by Mr Humphreys that people choose to comment anonymously because they don’t want their employer to know they are on social media all day is disingenuous to say the least and belies a biased view of those of us who are active users of modern technologies for communication, discussion, and debate.

    Finally, history has a litany of examples of people who, for various reasons have used pen names to hide themselves. From Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin (Leslie Charteris, author of The Saint) to Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain), to Francois-Marie Arouet (Voltaire), to Eric Blair (George Orwell) there is a tradition of, in the words of preparing “a face to meet the faces that you meet” (to borrow a line from T.S Eliot) for a variety of reasons. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pen_names for more examples.

  • Some food for thought

    The Official Twitter Account of the Irish EU Presidency (@eu2013ie) tweeted earlier today about recipes.

    That gave me a little food for thought given the subject matter I posted on yesterday.

    1. Ireland will hold the Presidency of the EU in the first half of 2013.
    2. Part of what we will be tasked with is guiding the Data Protection Regulation through the final stages of ratification
    3. Viviane Reding has been very vocal about the role Ireland will play and the importance of strengthening enforcement of rights to Personal Data Privacy in the EU. 
    4. World wide media  and our European peers will be looking at Ireland and our approach to Data Protection.

    In that context I would hope that any Dáil Committee would have the importance of the right to Privacy (as enshrined in EU Treaties and manifested by our current Data Protection Acts and the forthcoming Data Protection Regulation) when reviewing legislation and regulation around Social Media.

    While I don’t think that the recipes being tweeted about by the @eu2013ie account contained any Chinese recipes, the news today about changes in the Chinese Social Media regulatory environment are disturbing in the context of the rights to privacy and free speech. One interesting point about China’s approach to control of on-line comment from the FT article linked to above is this:

    It has also tried to strengthen its grip on users with periodical pushes for real name registration. But so far, these attempts have been unsuccessful in confirming the identity of most of China’s more than 500m web users

    Food for thought.

  • Describe what you do in one word…

    This is a challenge an old boss of mine used to set. He was an alpha male. The answer he was looking for was usually a variant of “lead” like “inspire”, “command” or “drink”.

    But it is a good exercise to set yourself.

    This evening I was responding to an retweet of an article I published on my company website last year. Vish Agashe retweeted this post about data modelling and Data Protection. In response I asked him if he was still finding the ramblings of a legodatapsychoeconotechnoqualitatrian interesting.

    Then it hit me. That’s a word. A bloody good word. A “kicking my dad’s arse in scrabble” kind of word. Because it almost perfectly describes me.

    Lego

    No. I am not made of plastic and if you separate my legs from my body you will find it very difficult to reattach them.

    But I spent four years half a life time ago studying law and business in UCD. From that study I developed a love of law and all things legal. In particular I developed the skills of legal interpretation and research that all lawyers need to possess.

    And, just as (if not more) importantly I developed a network of friends who are lawyers. Yes. Some of my best friends are lawyers. Who’d a thunk it?

    Data

    No. I am not an android with a positronic brain and the strength of 10 men (I wish). And if you poke me in the back between the shoulder blades I’m more likely to turn around and put you in a painful joint lock or punch you in the face than calmly power down and go lifeless (hint: if you want that, a few bottles of good wine is the best option).

    But I am obsessed with data. The capturing and creation of it, the analysis of it, the value of it. It’s what I do. I’m a Data Scientist, but in the “lives in a castle in the mountains and don’t ask about the missing corpses” sense of “scientist” (at least at times).

    Pyscho

    No. I don’t own a run down motel and I haven’t hacked a young lady to death in the shower. At least not since the dried frog pills kicked in.

    However I have been a closet psychologist for years. And once I realised that closets had very few hidden secrets (if you discount fantastical lands ruled by big lions) I turned my attention to the Human Equation in the context of change management and how we perceive and value information.

    So, BF Skinner was a lovely man who pigeons experimented on to see just how far would he go to have them support his flawed hypothesis that extrinsic reward/punishment is a key motivator of behaviour. At least that’s my opinion.

    Econo

    Last time I checked I’m not a gas guzzling American mini-van that is anything but economical to run. But, linked to my love of data and the interfaculty degree I did in law and business, I am a fan of economics and economic theory and practice. In particular I’m an advocate of the branch of economics that applies economic principles to the study of law and legal principles, and the application of economic principles to the valuation of and management of data.

    What is the value at risk?

    Where is the economic equilibrium of risk and reward/supply and demand?

    Is the economic deal fair when Entity A gives data to Entity B… what is the valuable consideration given for the exchange of assets?

    Techno

    No. I don’t play annoying 9000 beats per minute europop techno. Except for Saturdays. And even then only when there is a total eclipse of the moon.

    But I do enjoy my technology and my tools. I was the first customer in the world for Informatica’s Data Quality offering (back before it was Informatica). And I’ve coded countless Visual Basic skunkworks to do data reformatting, consolidation, reporting etc. And I do like Sharepoint and Drupal and WordPress and Unix and Linux and…..

    …  I think you get the picture. I know a few things about databases and database technology. But unfortunately not with a parchment attached to it (yet).

    Qualitarian

    it’s all about quality. Quality of outcomes for the end customer in a value chain. And quality of outcomes for the data controller, or the regulator, or society. Everything comes down to this.

    • Laws exist to regulate outcomes. Often badly
    • How we internalise and conceptualise the customer and the outcome are key to achieiving the right balance.
    • Technology is a tool to getting us there but is not a destination.
    • The economic value is the point at which things are good enough to achieve the outcome that is required… and no more… anything beyond that is a value-add luxury that we can charge premium price for.

    Now. Where’s my scrabble board?

  • An open letter to Viviane Reding

    Dear Commissioner Reding,

    I’m writing to you as an EU Citizen who is passionate about data, is use, its quality, and its protection. I’m not writing to you as the Managing Director of a company that offers Data Protection training and consulting services, but in the interests of transparency I think it best to disclose that that is my day job.

    I am writing to you about the new Data Protection Regulation. In particular I’m writing to you about the penalties contained in the current draft proposal. Frankly I think they suck. I don’t think they’ll have the effect that you think they will have. I’m basing my opinion on a number of bases:

    1. I have worked in Regulatory Operations in a Regulated industry that you are familar with, telecommunications.
    2. I’m a keen student of human psychology and economics, particularly the psychology and economics of risk and reward.Understanding this “theory of psychology” is important in the world of Information Quality.
    3. I like to observe and learn from other industries and areas of life to see what can be applied to improving quality systems for and the governance of information.
    4. I’m the parent of a toddler. This might not appear immediately relevant but, in the context of Data Protection, my immediate experiences dealing with a stubborn personality in development who is programmed to push boundaries and infuriate me with apparent disregard for the standard of behaviour expected of her all too often find their parallels in the management teams and staff of organisations I’ve worked with.

    Taking these elements together I am afraid that 5% of Global turnover will not work as a penalty. It’s a great soundbite but will, in practical terms, amount to little more. There are a few reasons for this.

    (more…)

  • My personal thoughts on the Facebook Audit

    This post was originally published on the Irish Computer Society Data Protection blog. I am republishing it here as it is my original work and I am moving my Data Protection musings into one place.

    Over on my personal blog [this one] I’ve written a short piece about my thoughts re: the Facebook Audit by the DPC.

    All in all I welcome the findings (and at 40 or so discrete findings it is not a clean bill of health by any stretch of the imagination regardless of spin and positioning) but feel that, given the breadth of potential scope for any audit and the limited resources and time available to the DPC’s office, it was inevitable that some issues could be missed.

    I am personally dismayed that the DPC did not prosecute some or all of the offences that they identified, particularly those in relation to breaches of the ePrivacy directives (where clear penalties and court precedents exist). A high profile prosecution would have made it a lot easier dealing with clients and prospective clients as it would have focussed the attention on issues.

    Also a number of unasked questions remain unanswered. For example, what is the position of Apps which process data outside the EEA? Does Facebook as a Data Controller not need to ensure that these apps (processors) are undertaking their activities in “safe countries” or under terms consistent with the Model Contracts approved by the European Commission.

    I’d like to think that this is part of a long term strategy by the DPC to develop a “poster child” for compliance (“hey, look… if Facebook can do it so can you”), whittling down issues and changing the Facebook mindset over time.

    But I am fearful that proper regulation and enforcement of Data Protection rules may be seen by the Irish Government as a barrier to enticing foreign investment in the data storage and services sectors and as such the independence of the DPC’s office may be threatened and its ability to effectively carry out its duties may be weakened.

    The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner does a sterling job with a small cohort of staff, a massive remit and scope of responsibility, and a budget that, in their 2010 Annual report was less than €1.5 million. My instinct is that they opted not to blow that budget on prosecutions and instead elected to work the network of International authorities (Canada’s OPC, various German Authorities, the FTC) to keep the pressure on to drive change rather than levy penalties.

    After all, any visit to Courts with a prosecution is a roll of the dice as to whether the judge accepts the full weight of the offences and agrees the penalties requested. The DPC could have spent quite a lot to achieve, in effect, the same result.

    However, I await with interest the findings of the rematch in July 2012. Will Facebook win gold for privacy then? Or will we see the true stamina of the Data Protection Commissioner in a legal tussle? All we can hope for is either an Olympic performance from the “New Facebook” or a Herculean stand by the DPC in defence of individual privacy.

  • Information Quality Change – the Doctor Who effect

    I’m a big science fiction fan. I make no apologies about this fact. One of my favourite science fiction characters is The Doctor, the lead character in the

    The 9th Doctor outside his Tardis
    The 9th Doctor

    BBC’s iconic series of the same name. In a genre that often falls for the easy charms of technology to drive a story, The Doctor (a 930 year old, two-hearted time travelling Time Lord from the Planet Gallifrey) invariably highlights and thrives on the Human Factor – the innate potential, ingenuity and power of the human beings (a lesser species) who he befriends, protects, and travels with.

    Over the years I’ve tried to adopt and adapt some of the principles of The Doctor’s approach to leading Information Quality and Governance change projects:

    There is nothing that can’t be solved by confectionery

    The good Doctor in a number of his incarnations (4th, 6th, 7th, and 8th as memory serves)  was renowned for, in moments of high tension, proffering some confectioneries (specifically Jelly Babies) to help lighten the mood and distract thought. They were an incredible tool that enabled him to befriend others and buy time to develop cunning plans. Doctor Who Jelly Babies (video montage)

    The key lesson is that it is often useful to have a “quirky” way to break down barriers and get conversations going. The Doctor has Jelly Babies. I’ve used various props. Kathy Hunter of DQM Group made extensive use of home baked cakes and biscuits when she was in a previous role to help open conversations.

    It’s Bigger on the Inside

    The Doctor’s space ship/time machine is a Blue Box. It is a Blue Box because the advanced circuitry that let it change appearance to blend in in different timelines got stuck on “Blue Box” on a trip to London around 1963 (the year the series was first broadcast). The thing about the Blue Box is that it is “bigger on the inside”, a fact that The various companions’s to The Doctor remark on whenever they enter the Blue Box for the first time. Bigger on the Inside (Youtube) . Invariably, The Doctor takes the surprise in his stride, often forgetting how big a shot it is to people when they see the size of his Blue Box for the first time.

    The Doctor’s Blue Box is called the TARDIS, which stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. By being able to engineer time and space The Doctor’s race, the Time Lords could build infintely large space craft that could fit into a small space (like the back of a props van on a TV show).

    What’s the parallel with Information Quality? Well, those of us who have worked in Information Quality often forget that it is a discipline that is very much “bigger on the inside”. When people look at Information Quality from the outside, they might be forgiven for thinking that it has the general dimensions of a Blue Box (so to speak) and it is only when they venture inside that they realise there’s more to it than meets the eye. If your perception of IQM is that it is Data Profiling and some Cleansing, it can be quite a shock when you uncover the Change Management challenges, the human psychology issues, and the legal and regulatory issues that can affect Information Quality strategies.

    Often we hard-core practitioners take it for granted that its is bigger on the inside, because we’re on the inside looking out.

    People First, Technology Second

    Quite apart from the long running love affair The Doctor has had with the Human Race, every adventure winds up with The Doctor being outrageously brilliant as a Time Lord, but more importantly inspiring and encouraging brilliance in his Companions and others around him. Whether it is calling in favours from old enemies (in return for some jelly babies perhaps) or rallying demoralised troops in the face of battle or unnatural enemies, The Doctor puts people first, often appearing willing to sacrifice himself to protect others.

    Technology is applied in innovative and outlandish ways to meet the objective of protecting people. Even The Doctor’s trusted sonic screwdriver is not used as a tool in its own right but as a means of enabling things to happen and for information to be gathered to support decision making.

    From an information quality management point of view it is important that we remember this lesson – the technology should not dictate the solution and, ultimately, it is people who are the brilliant and innovative sources of solutions to problems. A Data Profiler will tell you that the data looks broken. A human being will figure out the best solution (new business rule, new tools etc).

    In short, to paraphrase The Doctor: “People are FANTASTIC!!”

    Conclusion

    I’m very much of the view that we can learn a lot from arts and literature about ourselves and who we can aim to be in how we approach things. Science fiction TV programmes are no different to the works of Shakespeare in this regard. Perhaps we can achieve more sustainable successes in our Information Quality travels by learning some lessons from The Doctor:

    1. Everybody likes Jelly babies – (what is your equivalent?)
    2. Not everyone can see that this is actually Bigger on the Inside… and when they step into the world of Information Quality it can be a bit of a shock to the system.
    3. Technology doesn’t fix things. People fix things, occasionally using technology to get there. Remember that people are FANTASTIC!!

  • An open letter to Orna Mulcahy and Leaving Cert Class of 2010

    Today’s Irish Times has an article by Orna Mulcahy where she bemoans the fact that the points for college courses will be higher this autumn due to the increase in applications from mature students who have recently found themselves unemployed/between jobs/time advantaged (pick your own term).

    After more than a decade of falling points and expanding career options, all signs were that getting into a reasonably fulfilling college course would be just a matter of filling in the forms. But the great recession has put paid to that. Certain courses are no longer attractive at all, such as those leading towards a career in property or construction. The inevitable swing towards the sciences or any course that might feed into Brian Cowen’s beloved “smart economy” will increase competition for places. This year more people will sit the Leaving Cert than ever before. And now there’s talk of a wave of the newly unemployed going back to college.

    Oh. To put that another way:

    Over reliance on the benign nature of an economic model in which effectively turning up and having a pulse assured you of a foot on the entry level (at least) rungs of an asset acquisition ladder has resulted in a shock adjustment when the dynamics of that economic model change due to external factors and internal market forces.

    To me, this sounds a lot like what happened in the property bubble and crash in Ireland, when lots of people chased moderate amounts of property with apparently bottomless pots of mortgage money available from banks, resulting in prices rocketing. A lot of people over stretched themselves financially to buy a property and then found themselves in a state of shock when the arse dropped out of prices and they were left paying a gallon sized mortgage on a half-pint asset value. Which is interesting, given that she is the Property Editor of the Irish Times. (more…)

  • New Year’s Resolution

    Apologies for being away from the blog for the entire month of December.

    A new addition to the family and some related complications meant I had some alternate priorities during December. However, I’m making it a New Year’s Resolution to write at least 2 posts of value per month in 2010. Hopefully I will be able to keep up that writing cadence. I may do shorter sound-bite posts as well during each month, but I thought 2 a month was a good target. I’d have gone for 3 a month but I am hoping to be busy enough that I won’t have time for that level of writing.

    I’m starting today with a post based on some stuff in the media and a tutorial that I’m developing… there seems to have been a synchronicity of events which is serendipitous.

  • Leadership – a follow up post

    I had a great response to my post recently about leadership in information quality. Since then I’ve had the opportunity to discuss leadership and aspects of leadership with a number of people, both in person and on d’interwebs. One key trend keeps cropping up… the approach and characteristics of a particular leader may not always be appropriate to the battle at hand and a real leader knows when it is time to pass the torch to someone else.

    It was summed up for me very well by an Irish trade union leader who I spoke with last week. In his words:

    Any leader who is planning for success should really start planning for succession if they want things to be sustained 

    This is the difficult challenge of leadership. Knowing when the time is right for you to pass the baton and, equally as importantly, knowing that the people you are passing the baton too will be able to build on your leadership without appearing simply to be mere managers working solely within parameters you have defined, but instead being leaders in their own right, building on the foundations you have set to create a new vision.

    Knowing the time to move on is difficult. It requires the leader to be able to focus both on the problems of today and the challenges of tomorrow and to have sufficient self-awareness to let them judge how well their skills, experience, passion and energy will meet the expectations of tomorrow’s battles.

    And this needs to be planned with foresight to ensure you have time to develop your people and drive leaders from the bottom up in your organisation and in your team. Often this requires developing people’s confidence in themselves as much as the confidence others have in them. Inevitably it means letting them pedal the bicycle themselves to prove they can do it.

    The plan needs to cover getting the right people on your team, developing them, growing their skills and ‘battle-hardening’ them. It means having a plan to instil the same core beliefs, priorities and passion (in my case for Information Quality) into your future leaders. At the same time you must ensure that they have the ability and capability to think for themselves and build on your example effectively while ensuring continuity and consistency. Above all, to take on the mantle of leadership, and to be effective, your successor needs to have enough credentials and credibility to face down challenges while having sufficient differentiators to avoid being viewed as a puppet of the outgoing leader.

    And your last act as leader is to sell your successor to your stakeholders.

    While this is true of pretty much any organisation, in my experience it is especially true of an information quality team. Getting your IQ programme started is a challenge that requires certain types of leadership characteristics. Keeping it going and sustaining the gains you make can often require a different leadership style and approach. Knowing when to make the change is a skill in itself, and given the risk of ‘pigeon holing’ that any specialist faces in an organisation, it can often require a move out of the organisation you are in (to elsewhere in the larger business or on to pastures new).

    One noted Irish leader I have studied retired recently from a leadership role he had held for almost four decades. He had spent most of the last decade developing the people who are to replace him. They have a track record and credentials in the solutions of the past, have a passion for the issues that are pressing today, and have the vision and ability to lead on the challenges of tomorrow. They are different people to him and the style and approach of the organisation will shift somewhat, but the core elements of the vision this leader established over the last 40 years will remain in place.

    That’s leadership.