Sorry folks. Fewer Crawford thoughts than usual gushing forth these days.

Demand for Diplomatic Training for senior government officials and international organisations is accelerating nicely in popularity, requiring me to start working on preparing a number of different courses such as Networking with Impact, Speechwriting, Crisis Management and so on. Being as I am something of a neurotic perfectionist, this takes a lot of time.

Still, the final product on the day is invariably sharp, "different" and interesting. Plus – most importantly – memorable.

Which is fine as far as it goes. Whether it makes a scrap of difference or not depends upon the organisation concerned. In some cases the training is simply all about ticking boxes, with no effort made to use the new skills learned on our courses as a multiplier for best practice across the organisation concerned. Too bad.

In particular, it baffles me that senior parts of the European Union establishment in Brussels bewail the inability of "the system" to serve up clear, simple and energetic prose. Yet the answer to their problem lies in their own hands.

First, they need to start engaging in a friendly way with the civil servants below them, explaining to them what sort of work served up from below is most useful at the very top. That is hardly done.

Second, they need to identify a few examples of outstanding written work of different sorts (briefs, reports, recommendations etc) and post them on the DG Intranet so that everyone can see exactly how to do a good job. There appears to be resistance to this, since it might seem "judgemental "to praised some work but not other work.

Sigh.

If any Foreign Ministries or International Organisations out there want some of  ADRg Ambassadors terrific training for their senior people, given not by weedy trainers or academic experts but rather by people who learned the hard way on their way to the top, this is where to go. The same goes for businesses and corporations aiming to operate on a sophisticated level. The networking and communication skills used by top diplomats are applicable just as well in the private sector.

You’ve had the rest. Now have the best.