Why BA is in trouble

Those of you who listened in to my webinar last week with transformational life coach and feng shui guru Marie Claire Carlyle will know that your surroundings have a huge impact on your life, and as it is for individuals, so it is for business.

So I was interested to read about BA's huge losses announced this week.

I remember reading a feng shui article on British Airways new Waterside head office shortly after they moved there. BA did get a feng shui consultant in to look at the building but only AFTER the architects had planned the main design.

If you have ever been to the building you will know that there is a river running through it. This might sound like a novel idea, and generally water features are good feng shui, but a river running through your building is a feng shui disaster. As is building a house over an underground stream or even having significant waste pipes running underneath your property.

There's also a large lake behind the building; water is good but it is destabilising running behind; it is much better to have a meandering river or lake in front of your property with the flow running towards your front door (not away).

Those of you who don't believe in feng shui may well pooh pooh all this but it is interesting that since moving to Waterside BA has fallen apart with disaster after disaster, now culminating in multi million losses which threaten the company with liquidation.

Low cost solution Willie Walsh, get rid of the river - and replace it with a pathway of golden bricks.

Have a lovely week!


Rachel

Terminal Disaster

Mr Badger was at British Airways' Head Office yesterday morning, hearing their CEO Willie Walsh tell the assembled staff how successful the opening of Terminal 5 had been... How sorry I felt for their Operations Director to later be filmed nervously for the 6pm TV news programmes apologising for all the logistical nightmares that subsequently unfolded. Heads will no doubt be rolling today.

From it's glory years of the 1980's, BA has had a real string of disasters in recent years, and they can all be traced back to the moment they moved into their new HQ at Waterside. If you've ever been there you will know there is a river running through the centre of the building, which is absolutely disastrous feng shui. This has been widely reported and commented on in all the feng shui publications since - yet nothing has been done to remedy it.

I had a similar experience at the M&S Baker Street Headquarters back in c2000.

Their entire business had just unravelled due to terrible trading in the late '90s and arriving at their offices I immediately noticed that they had not just a three door alignment but a five door alignment - main doors opening into internal doors, leading to turnstiles, then another doorway, a long corridor and a window at the end of it. This is hideously bad feng shui, and I felt so strongly about it after my meeting I actually wrote to the buyer and said they should get it checked out.

Next time I visited they'd re-arranged the reception in a much more auspicious way and already the company's fortunes had improved. I haven't seen their new offices though but hopefully they will have received proper advice this time around.

Yes I am sure 'anonymous' will shortly be posting to say this is a load of poppycock, but over the years I've experienced enough of my own 'feng shui' disasters to believe that there really is something in all this. Red Letter Days' first office in North Finchley had brilliant feng shui and the company grew and grew and eventually took over virtually the entire building. We then moved to our Muswell Hill offices (right next door to the sad and ill-fated Alexandra Palace), and literally overnight everything started to unravel. (We also had a 'three door' combination but it was in the common parts of the building, so difficult to remedy).

Similarly I moved house in November 2002 and my entire life completely changed during the following three years - whatever I tried business wise turned to dust and finances started to go down the toilet (although relationships blossomed, and I had two wonderful babies and also got married while living there).

I am sure you will have experienced this - some houses/offices have a great energy and life is wonderful, then you move and everything goes wrong.

So if I were Willie Walsh I would immediately be switching off that river and filling in the channel with a pavement of gold - and then watch as the fortunes of the company transform.