In the course of our many encounters with people at all levels in English companies large and small, from shop-floor and front-line workers to managing directors and chairmen, we found that the most successful people – those most likely to be promoted or given plum jobs, that is – were not the most competent, or the most hard-working, or the most ‘businesslike’ or ‘professional’, but tended to have other, less tangible, qualities, particularly the self-deprecating humour exhibited by our biscuit chief.
