Letter: National potential bogged down in porridge
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: Christopher Huhne ('How to escape from our history of failure', 18 September) is right. Inflation and exchange rate policy, by themselves, can do little to improve the UK's international competitiveness.
As an executive in both the public and private sectors, I struggled to understand how both sectors, in their different ways, could perform so far short of their potential. Someone once encapsulated the feeling as 'being stopped by the porridge'.
More recently, as a consultant, I have become aware that many organisations, large or small, public or private, employ considerable numbers of people, at all levels and positions, who are capable of much more than they are able to achieve. Very many of these people feel stressed through being prevented from doing their jobs really well, or because they cannot work to their full potential. Even extra training and qualifications may not directly help in the absence of fundamental change.
The organisational barriers that create these situations are diverse and not always obvious, but they can be successfully attacked. Unleashing the underutilised abilities of people in companies and organisations all around us is the real key to transforming the competitiveness and the health of the country.
Yours faithfully,
BRUCE TOFIELD
Kenninghall, Norfolk
20 September
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments