I am still of course in love with Ricardo Semler, author of Maverick! and The Seven-Day Weekend, not because I think that they are the greatest books in the world but because I came across Semler at probably one of the most exciting times in my career. I had been out to the US the previous year with a cross-section of crews from BPC Colchester to look at QuadGraphic, who at the time were ripping up the status quo on how to run a web offset plant. The crews rule! Absolute show time!

I had recently joined David Mitchell at Astron and was also running the Human Resources post-graduate programme at the local college. We had about 30 bright hopefuls on the course representing about every sector you could think of; we were on the doorstep of Tesco's HQ, the pharmaceuticals, oil, finance, through to the plant pot manufacturer. Everyone was onto the magic formula – either this is how you do it; or how do you do it!

Mission statements by the bucket full, enough KPIs to sink the Titanic, the really scary thing was that most people still talked about HR as a way of manipulating people to meet the business aims rather than capturing the imagination and latent talent of the whole team to actually create the business direction.

Semler gave me hope that I wasn't mad as a hatter. There really is a place for Opportunistic Optimism. Shoot CEOs who are really finance directors in disguise; find him or her something to do other than dig up the potatoes to see if they are growing; hand boxes of matches to your arsonists; burn the bundles of bureaucracy that are only there to put external auditors off the scent of what is really going on; treat with no mercy all those who think that constructive criticism starts one level below them in the hierarchy; and have referred to a psychiatrist those managers who take two days to decide how much budget to allocate to the Christmas party.

Semler's messages force you to challenge your own dysfunctional world: would I want to work here if I was an X, Y, or Z; what do I get out of this other than a pay packet; why do I believe that me and my best friends on the board – hand picked never to question my judgement – have superior intellect and business acumen to the other thousand employees put together on every single issue from the future value of the pound to the best strapping tape to put on a parcel.

Lynette, the youngest arsonist in our business and organiser of the Christmas party, has just walked in as I write this and told me we are going to spend £60 a head to go to the Milton Keynes Bowl for our Christmas party. I am now practising those deep-breathing techniques taught to you by midwives. Still they have turned a break-even business into something very special, so expect to feel a few labour pains along the way. Thanks to Ricardo! It’s good to challenge the status quo!