Interview with Christopher took place in his office. He didn't expect two people. Immediately it seems to me that he is looking forward and is very much in his element. I've recently discovered that he is to be retiring and I am beginning to wonder if he is looking for a legacy. I am more tense than normal due to the potential pitfalls. That said, I always find the lead up to an interview to be stressful.
Interview itself seems to go fine. There is a lot of construction noise from outside and I am a little concerned about Christopher deciding to hold the Beyer but Bambo doesn't flag any problems.
I'm a little worried about spending too long spinning my wheels in the early part of the interview but then again I find that I have the EHE in mind. Getting Christopher to actually talk about the history provides much better source material than me simply writing about it.
He is happy to give opinions but several times I catch him reigning himself in when it comes to talking about TQ. I also try a very gentle probe about race/gender issues and so on. I'm pretty sure he knows where I would like it to go but he skirts around the subject and focuses on "economic selection factors."
I find Christopher is keen to take control of the interview and go where he wants to with it and the project remit feels as though it hampers me. Left to my own accord I would accenuate some of the jokier sections (e.g. Science fiction weekends) and then use that as a way to get at less guarded responses. However I feel an obligation to stick to topics which have been agreed by the team and to not use my own (admittedly rather) jokey style. The TQ newsletter debacle is still on my mind. The end result of this is a very cautious interview.
I'm not dissatisfied with it but I get the impression that Christopher would give more with a different approach. After the interview finished I asked him about what he expected to be asked and he immediately went on a talk about management philosophy and organisational structure of TQ. He was clearly very keen to talk about his "devolved" philosophy. Without naming names he also hints about how difficult it is to manage many of the senior staff. I do get the feeling that he likes this and there is a feel of a family that has grown old together and bickers quite pleasantly.
Christopher does volunteer that he wants to do a follow-up just before I ask him about it. I think he has a lot more he wants to talk about.