management blog

Stephen Hester, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, deserves high marks for candour. “If you asked my mother and father about my pay they would say it is too high,” he told the UK parliament’s Treasury Select Committee today.

Mr Hester’s introduction of the parent test is unlikely to put the pay consultancies out of business. But it does add something to the debate. “Take our daughters to work day” is already part of the calendar. Maybe we should consider a parents day too, for the ones who are still alive, anyway.

The management writer Charles Handy once noted that, in a sense, every day should be “take our daughters to work day”. We should always be ready to explain to close family members what it is we do at work, and why. The FT columnist John Kay prefers this sort of practical morality to any sort of imposed code of behaviour. If you would be embarrassed telling friends or family about aspects your job, the chances are you should not be doing it, he has said.

It is pretty rare for chief executives to talk about their family lives while carrying out their professional duties. I know one CEO of a major food and drink company who has said that the company’s products “have to pass the parent test as well as the market test.” But such talk is unusual.

Perhaps RBS’s Mr Hester has started something at Westminster today.