The headlines are, I know, driving you inexorably toward the next brainstorming meeting for some blue-sky thinking about the corporate challenges which face us all as we grapple with the big issues of the day.

Tempting as it is to begin crafting that next innovative piece of transformational culture-changing strategic work without further delay, can I just ask you to pause and reflect upon the nuts and bolts of the thing. It won’t take a minute, I promise. I ask mainly because we are all of us otherwise in danger of forgetting the rudiments.

Mired in poor performance and bedevilled by dysfunctional teamworking, a large healthcare organisation hired in a new clinical leader to sort out the mess. Just before his official start date, the new leader met privately with his predecessor as he cleared his office. The departing incumbent fixed his successor with a gimlet eye and handed him three sealed envelopes. "It's tough at this hospital" remarked the soon-to-depart leader with monumental understatement, "and you might need these. Open them in order whenever you feel you've nowhere left to turn."

It's not the most immediate of comparisons, but a recent conversation with a regional medical director led to us discussing how best to conceptualise effective leadership as a sustainable entity. The slinky spring made a metaphorical appearance at this point and I wonder if you've ever heard this one, or might have forgotten it. It's not new but it bears repetition, and you can make as much of it as you wish, the longer you mull it over.