Oranges and carrots may be brought together in rhyme, as Stephen Rose illustrates with his choice of joke
What was your first job, and how did you get into IT?
I graduated in hotel and catering administration at Surrey University, after which I took a job as night auditor at the Munich Hilton. That involved a lot of sysadmin on a "leading-edge" IBM 36, with 22 floppy disks required for backup. After a year, I became systems manager at the Gatwick Hilton and eventually area IT manager for the UK.
Planes, trains or automobiles?
I love planes, as I usually have to deal with different cultures on arrival for either business or pleasure. I always fall asleep on trains so I try to avoid them if possible; I have visited most rail stations in West Sussex after sleeping past Three Bridges! My typical annual car mileage is 30,000 so my car - and the M25 - is a second home.
If you were teleported to another planet that could support human life, how would you try to communicate with the locals?
I would deploy the old-fashioned and these days much maligned technique of holding a face-to-face meeting.
What will be the most important trend to follow in 2015?
It will be the year when the electric car finally arrives; they will probably become a familiar sight on hard shoulders due to a shortage of charging stations.
What is your favourite joke or the one you heard most recently?
What's orange and sounds like a parrot? A carrot.
Don't ask me to comment further on that.
What never fails to make you laugh?
Monty Python: it doesn't matter how many times I hear them on DVD or more recently at the O2. There has never been anything to touch them since.
What is one thing you miss from being a kid that you no longer do or can do?
Climbing trees; I could probably still manage it but health and safety has got in the way.
What are you reading?
I have just re-read Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard and have given a copy to each person in my management team. It is a template for differentiating an organisation through excellence in customer service. I followed it up with [football club manager] Harry Rednapp's autobiography to see if I could pick up any management techniques from him.
Which is more important: a good leader, or the team as a whole?
The team is always more important than the leader, but a good leader will have a better team.
How far ahead should you plan for your future?
It's good to have a plan and goals, whether business or personal, as without them less is likely to be achieved. That said, life throws up all sorts of curve balls so it is also important to remember that even the best-made plans may have to be changed. I tend to plan one to three years ahead, and have a vague idea of eventually paying off my mortgage aged 75.
How do you try to cheer yourself up when you're feeling down?
There is nothing better to put things into perspective than a cup of tea. Always works for me.
Stephen Rose is operations director at Cyntergy Services
