Good morning lovely people
No 1 daughter is a dancer (#no favourites). Her chat is about “the performance”. Miss Alina, our No 1 general manager, has chosen her word for 2025: “Performance”. Interesting differences in how each see this word applied (but both want the same outcome).
For many, the definition of performance can be “the act of presenting”. You can feel the emotion and the mindset of presenting oneself at one's best. Interesting, another definition, often used in businesses, “the act or process of performing a task or function”. Sadly the word process feels devoid of passion, almost soulless.
The last day of last year turned out to be one of the most soulful across all our venues. Hogmanay is always special, visitors come from all corners of the world to celebrate bringing in the new year “Scottish” style. This year, not having to rush out for the Bells, somehow made everyone more relaxed. The need to catch those precious seconds of the strike of midnight performance was left to one side and the energy stayed in the rooms. It was strangely extra special. All our performances changed to being in the present.
Last year I was asked to be part of the Fair Work Convention for Hospitality. At times it was extremely difficult. In the end it was of value. Having the insight into good and bad business performances I feel has helped us see some of our challenges in a different light. At times, trying to articulate the challenges we face as individuals or as a collective was difficult.
Performing tasks that are compliant, that involve our emotional intelligence and importantly have to be commercially successful is in itself almost impossible. Sharing this across a room that had Union representation, charity status, government analysis and voices of those who had experienced the poor performance of businesses, at times in their own careers, showed the conflicts that exist, intentionally or not.
Rachel Reeves’ performance as chancellor is expecting businesses to be able to perform these tasks better than ever. One that we’re seeing the consequences of across our community. I’ve never seen so many restaurant closures in such a short space of time.
My dictionary shared another definition of performance. “The continual performance of a single task reduces a man to the level of a machine”. Is this where our government wants us to go, to be robotic devolved of what makes us humans?
I love watching dance in particular. Scottish Ballet’s Nutcracker received rave reviews at the Festival Theatre. Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake will be here in April (with said daughter). Watching any ensemble dance in unison is always incredible. When perfect sympathy is met, it's celestial. This level of detail can seem mechanical in its perfection, but this is wrong. Humans are the inspiration, the perfection, not the machine.
AI is Westminster's word of the year. Are they valuing machines over humans? The Chancellor wants us all to increase our productivity. We’re all for that but not at the loss of our humanity. The creativity, artistry and the artisan skills involved in delicious hand-made food served with a smile is as far from a machine as you can get. Let's celebrate humans not computers. Nae AI to that. If we’re all forced to be machines we’ll have very little to show. My word of the year is unique. Let’s celebrate the uniqueness of us all presenting ourselves at our best. Even in our imperfect we can be peak performance too.
Keep well and keep being the best version of ourselves,
Carina
