A 'Must Have' for HR Personnel - and Credit Managers

Hand writing analysis has always had the potential to be a very useful business tool - particularly for HR personnel - but the cost of hiring a trained analyst is prohibitive. Way beyond the means, in fact, of most companies looking to use it - and certainly out of the reach of any SME.

It is possible, though, for anyone prepared to invest in a book and spend some time mastering the basics of handwriting analysis to learn to DIY - as I found out for myself when someone very kindly gave my wife a book entitled Unlocking the Secrets hidden in Handwriting.

A couple of hours spent with the book in one hand and a pile of old Christmas cards in the other proved to me that hand writing analysis can be a remarkably accurate technique even in the hands of an absolute novice.

So it wasn't too long before it occurred to me that HR personnel might not be the only people who could benefit from a few fruitful and entertaining hours spent with a copy of the pleasant and informative little book that my wife has agreed (albeit not very willingly!) is 'ours' rather than just 'hers'.

Like everyone else who has ever worked in credit, letters, documents - and in particular new account opening forms - are part of my daily working life. Many of them are hand-written. All of them are signed...

Every French Cloud has a Silver Lining - for Britain

If you live for a very long time, Governments and wars come and go, and skirts go up, or down, or disappear altogether, and you tend to believe you've seen everything, and that nothing that anyone can do can come as any kind of a surprise.

I can't say that anything that M. Hollande has done has caused me any great surprise - but he has certainly proved to me that I have not yet seen everything, because I have never before seen any Government alienate so large and so vital a part of its electorate quite so rapidly and so effectively.

Businesses in the UK, and SMEs in particular, certainly have a great deal to complain of, but I think I have to point out that businesses have to be allowed to exist and trade in the first place if they are to have anything to complain about.

There is no Federation of Small Businesses in France. There is no Forum of Private Business either. In fact small business in France has no voice, no help, and no encouragement - and I suspect that Lakshmi Mittal is presently feeling that business in general is not encouraged in France, and that his investment in people might be better appreciated elsewhere. And I don't suppose that he is alone with his thoughts.

We do not have a perfect Government in Britain. We never have had one. We probably never will have one. But we've never had a Government (however awful) that has failed, at bottom, to understand that business is what makes the wheels go round - or has been at all reluctant to grease the wheels.

It wouldn't surprise me were Britain not to benefit from the policies of M. Hollande. Not what he intended, I'm sure - but no bad thing for Britain.

M. Montebourg Has Had Second Thoughts ...

... but the Genie is out of the bottle.

On Monday, Arnaud Montebourg, the French Minister for Industrial Recovery, stated that Arcelor Mittal was no longer welcome in France, and accused the steelmaker of "lying" and "disrespecting" the country.

M. Montebourg has since decided that Arcelor Mittal might be welcome in France after all, and French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici has spent some time today trying to bury a truly colossal blunder under a welter of would-be soothing phrases.

Unfortunately, M. Moscovici's description of the possible nationalisation of Arcelor Mittal's Florange Plant as a 'temporary mechanism' is unlikely to prove very soothing to any profitable (and therefore potentially vulnerable) foreign owned business operating in France.

Unfortunately, too, I feel sure that M. Moscovici's assurances - given in Paris to an audience of US and British investors - that his Government has no intention of returning to 'an older way of thinking' or carrying out massive, general, and permanent nationalisations was received with a large degree of politely unspoken but deeply felt scepticism.

The BBC's correspondent in France has reported that business leaders there have expressed concern that the government's rhetoric is undermining confidence in French industry. They might well. It's one thing to let the Genie out of the bottle, but it's quite another thing to try and put it back.

In the meantime, I do sincerely hope and trust that someone had the good sense to apologise for M. Montebourg's intemperate and unjustifiably personal remarks when Mr. Mittal met with M. Hollande today.