The Margin is pleased to hear that the rigor mortis which tends to affect large organisations is being alleviated in Germany by the appointment of "court jesters" nominated employees who can say what they like to whomever they like, when they like.

Encouraging "successful disobedience" is seen to be necessary to free up creativity, allowing people to recognise meaningless or counter-productive rules, according to Dr Mike Cooley who addressed a conference on training and development in Trinity College Dublin last week.

Dr Cooley said that people working with "jesters" were never sure whether comments were serious, and were thus forced into questioning taken-for-granted routines and organisational rigidity.