In a previous existence, as it now seems, I would not infrequently find myself seated at boardroom tables in close conclave with CEOs and their cohorts as we debated the corporate images of their companies. With my features composed into what I hoped was a serious and attentive expression—nodding slowly with lips pursed was one of my favorites—I would make copious notes of my clients’ sage remarks (or appeared to; in reality it was mostly scribble). Many’s the time, toward the end of such conferences, that I would find myself about to break into mighty yawns. God only knows how I managed to abort them. Thoughts of the consultancy fees helped, I suppose; one careless, chasmal dropping of the jaw and I would have been ushered into commercial oblivion, blacklisted from every boardroom in the country.
Inevitably, at some point in the discussions, the words would crop up. The CEO or the sales director or, most probably, the finance director would say, “The thing we have to bear in mind, Garland, in all this vast expenditure on corporate identity, is our ultimate responsibility, our overriding responsibility, to our shareholders. Hope you’ve got that firmly in your mental conceptualization at this point in time, hmm?” Such strictures might well be accompanied by surreptitious glances at those parts of my appearance—long hair, lack of tie, trousers uncreased, wrong color of shirt, unpolished shoes—which might give rise to suspicions of incipient irresponsibility and which I would be well advised to attend to before the next meeting. In the meantime, my immediate response was a very slow nod, a very judicious pursing of the lips, and a very visible note, “over-rdg. resp. to sh’holders,” underlined twice.
If I had comported myself properly during some of these boardroom colloquia and was decently attired, I might be invited afterward to lengthy lunches at ritzy restaurants. When much alcohol had loosened their tongues, some of the directors became a bit more revelatory on the subject of overriding responsibility to shareholders. During just such an occasion, when we had reached the brandy stage, one director said to me, “Thing about our bloody shareholders is, as long as they’re assured of a reasonable return and have their chance to sound off a bit at the annual general meeting, we can get them to agree to anything we want to do. More brandy?” I’d heard politicians say much the same about voters and elections and was reminded about someone’s definition of democracy as “a form of government in which you say what you like and do what you’re told.”
After I’d been incautious enough in 1964 to publish a rather provocative manifesto with the title “First Things First,” which cast aspersions at certain commercial practices, the sales director of one of my client companies at that time invited me to lunch, just the two of us. “Well, Ken,” he said, “you’re putting yourself about a bit, laddie, appearing on television and proclaiming manifestos. All good fun, of course, but I wonder if you’re not being a bit, ah, irresponsible, if I may say so. Do hope this won’t frighten off some of your clients, know what I mean?” I did indeed know what he meant. Fortunately, none of my client companies saw fit to sever relations—except his, that is.
I suppose that all the rest of them were only too well aware of my opinions on these matters and thought to themselves, “Oh, that’s Ken for you; every now and then he likes to sound off. Pay no attention and it’ll wear off, like whooping cough.” The most unpredictable reaction came from my bank manager, whom I had to confront the day after I had declaimed “First Things First” on a primetime TV chat show, wearing a leather jacket and an incendiary expression. I had to ask him for a large loan and assumed I must have blown it; but quite the reverse. “Saw you on television last night,” he said, with uncustomary cordiality. “Very impressive performance, if I may say so. I look forward to seeing more of you on the box. Now, about this loan: shouldn’t be any difficulty at all, old chap. How much d’you want?”
Now, glad as I was to have the unexpected offer of a loan, I was rather miffed that the bank manager regarded my televised declaration as a “performance,” rather as though I were the equivalent of a stand-up comedian. A more apt simile might be that of a court jester: licensed to be irresponsible. Not a role I had anticipated but one into which I appeared to have been thrust, though it never for one moment applied to anything I did as a graphic designer (the truth being that I continued to work in exactly the same way after “First Things First” as I had done before).
So there we have it. “Responsibility” means consorting with captains of industry in order to take appropriate action while conning the shareholders into letting it through on the nod. “Irresponsibility” means sounding off in public about anything you don’t happen to like about The Way Things Are.
Taking one thing with another, I think I’m going to opt for irresponsibility. After all, at my time of life, what have I got to lose?