Today is National Poetry Day and its theme is Heroes and Heroines. It’s difficult to be a hero or a heroine in business. Not many people have the courage to lift their voice above the corporate crowd chanting the well-worn mantras of accepted opinion. Despite all that’s written in business journals about the ‘benefits of embracing risk’ it doesn’t take very long for people to work out that in most businesses risk-taking can rip holes in your reputation that it may take years to mend.

At The Value Engineers we are keen on the elephant in the living room analogy. You may be familiar with it… A guest walks into a friend’s living room to see an elephant sitting in the corner. He thinks it extremely odd but none of the other guests seem to think it’s out of the ordinary so he doesn’t mention it. Every time he visits his friend’s house, he sees the elephant but nobody ever mentions it and so eventually it becomes part of the furniture for him too.

Businesses always have elephants in their living room. Only the brave mention them. Customers can see them too – and, unhindered by corporate convention – are more than happy to point them out. Being newcomers to companies, we can often see them too and like to mention them but it doesn’t always make us popular. The bravest people are the employees who ‘out’ the elephant – and improve their business’ offer, operations or environment by insisting that the elephant should leave the building. Today on National Poetry Day, we salute the heroic elephant-outers in businesses everywhere…and here is a short ode in their honour.

The Elephant in the Living Room

The elephant in the living room
Was pretty fed up
No one seemed to hear a blinking word he said
So he just sat trunkulently in the corner
And wished he was in Africa instead