Therapy does not have to take the form of conversation. It may involve painting a house, building good transportation, inviting fresh and useful businesses to a region. In the little New England town where I live there is a small group of businesspeople who are concerned about the future of the region and do everything they can to provide attractive buildings and a good economy for all. They work hard to keep the international chain stores at a distance from the town center, so that they don’t quash local initiatives. They bury cables and raise money for improvements. They keep up the beautiful old buildings and demand strict codes for new ones. They are the town’s therapists, and they take their calling seriously. I talk to these people, who have skills that I lack. I encourage them and try to give them some philosophical underpinning for their good work. I’m their therapist.

“I knew I wanted to sign with him. Here was a man who never once mentioned money. To me, that was a real businessman. It wasn’t that I didn’t need money, because I did. But to this day, money doesn’t drive me. Money isn’t what pushes me to do this or that. It’s always been about something deeper. For me, it was about dignity, about pride, about the respect I freely gave to others and expected back in return. I may have been a young girl from a rural area, but my parents taught me to value myself, to never think of myself as less than anyone else, regardless of my background or circumstances.

When I joined the board in 1991, ‘the Halifax’ was the largest mortgage lender in the world. Its head office was still in the modest Yorkshire town of Halifax (which it now dominated), and most of the people who worked there had been born and brought up locally. The organisation – like the Marks & Spencer of that time – was a powerful illustration of how strong systems and culture can enable otherwise unremarkable people to do remarkable things. The contrast with Oxford University, which relied on the services of remarkable people but as an organisation was remarkable only for its ineptitude, was striking. I could not help noticing that even the most junior teller in the Halifax would use the pronoun ‘we’ in talking about the organisation, while in Oxford even the vice-chancellor would talk about ‘the University’ as though it were an organisation over which he had little real influence – which was perhaps true.

He couldn’t see how it made any difference to Tesco’s grand plans if he gave his presentation on Friday instead of tomorrow. But his manager insisted. It was irritating to be subject to someone else’s arbitrariness. It was just a culture of performative zeal. McKinseyites were supposed to be the shock troops of capitalism, sacrificing themselves to smash through problems. James was supposed to be eagerly hurling himself into the fray. But he couldn’t quite get himself geed up.

Roland grimaced. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah.” And then, “You know, I appreciate it. Million quid… yeah, great. Always useful. And I know Scotland’s a small country. But really, this stuff isn’t cheap. Oil and gas in Aberdeen is turning over billions. They probably spend a million quid a year on taxis. I think you really want to be thinking more like ten million, to make it worthwhile. It’s not a pizza-delivery app we’re building here.” The advisers were taken aback, as if they’d taken a chipolata to a dick-waving contest. Roland was delighted with himself.