High powered business negotiations

Brad and I have spent today and yesterday with Emily Wemily and her lovely man. I really love the weekends we spent with our two special friends and we always have such a nice time. It tends to consist of a lovely assortment of eating yummy food, talking, laughing and plenty of general silliness. Whenever we arrange one of these weekends Emily and I always like to pretend beforehand that it will be a fantastic opportunity to "have indepth business meetings" and "do some brainstorming". I think we just like the sound of saying this really and it makes us feel important. The reality is that we have never yet actually done any of these things during our weekends together. However agreeing this in advance makes us feel highly professional and so without fail I will arrive with my work bag full of files, notebooks, and carefully sharpened pencils. The fact that I have never yet even got as far as unzipping the bag does not dampen the enthusiasm for this decision in any way.

Actually the truth is that we do chat about ideas, make plans for the campaign, discuss ongoing projects, etc but it just isn't in a form that most people would instantly recognise as a business meeting. This may be because to an outsider it appears that most of the time is spent playing with Daisy (my dog), eating food and dozing. But that's what is such fun about what we do and also, I believe, why it works so well. An "Em'n'Em" style work process goes something like this:

Sunday:

1. Arrive at Emily's house. Dispense virtual hugs to each other and blow plenty of kisses across the room.

2. Have a cup tea and a slice of pink cake with obligatory sweetie bobbles

3. Sit for an hour admiring Daisy (my dog) and discuss such essential matters as the fluffiness of her nose or squidgyness of her paws.

4. Debate whether it is normal for a child to eat a dictionary, four glue sticks and a swimming float

5. Time for us both to have a sleep

6. Panic when phone rings at 8pm in case it is Harefield calling Em for transplant (sadly not)

7. Eat gorgeous supper whilst gossiping and putting the world to rights

8. Eat delicious fruit pie and custard whilst debating the value of the mince pie as a quintessential part of the festive yuletide culture in Britiain in the 21st centuary.

9. Sleep

Monday:

1. Arrive at Emily's in time to consume mid-morning rations of chocolate croissants and tea

2. Discuss organ donation issues, research on internet, debate ways of taking campaign forward

3. Get exceptionally over-impressed with ourselves for our productivity and decide that we are both worn out so decide to continue the high level discussions in a horizontal position with our eyes shut and without speaking (some may call this sleeping but they are so ill-informed...)

4. Eat lunch

5. Debate what a potato galette is

6. Drink tea and eat more cake whilst looking through photos

7. Leave dispensing profuse quantities of virtual hugs and kisses

Now I think that this method of working is actually highly productive whilst being very employee friendly so I think that Em and I should become the founders of a radical new style of management theory. We will call it the "Pink and Sparkly Management Technique" and will advise all managing directors to ensure the following working conditions:

- Continuous supply of pink cake and cups of tea

- Allow employees to snooze whenever and wherever they choose

- Ensure a small and cute dog in every workplace to provide cuddles on demand, regular employee exercise (via squeeky ball playing) and general counselling skills

- Encourage employees to congratulate themselves at every opportunity and award themselves self-made gold stars for even the tiniest amounts of productivity and upon thinking of every new idea

Hmmm, actually think Em and I should publish a new management guru stylee book called "Who moved my pink iced cake?" It can become the management bible of the 21st century and will be sure to make us a million. Wow, I'm exhausted from such a great idea. Time I joined Emily in another snooze......