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This article attempts to give the western consultant travelling to South‐east Asia an idea of what to expect, of what will and what will not work in terms of consultancy practice.

Focusing on the need for transformational leaders in organisations, animal metaphors are used to identify three sorts of leaders commonly found – sharks (who like to win at all costs), carp (who keep a low, passive profile) and dolphins (who are proactive, learn from setbacks and use “breakthrough thinking” to solve problems). Dolphin thinking is seen to be in short supply but urgently needed in a world of constant change and uncertainty. Some promising signs of dolphin thinking amongst leaders are identified in the total quality, mentoring and TEC movements. Human resource specialists are challenged to help to increase the supply of dolphin thinking through encouraging more open attitudes to recruitment and through generating a learning orientation in their directors, in their organisations and in themselves. Examples of innovative approaches to leadership are explored and David Kearns, Chairman of Xerox, is used as an illustration of a successful transformational leader.

I want to start with some statements about the context for management development which I expect to be relatively uncontentious, before I move on to the proposition which will contain the core of what I want to say. Such statements would not have been made years ago, but it seems to me that the context of management development is now recognised, not only by the adventurers of management development but by those who now have adopted early adventures as conventional wisdom, as being that:

Media coverage of police activities is substantial and makes for “eye‐catching” headlines. Most people in the UK will remember the riots of 1981 and how policemen battled against overwhelming odds. Equally, the story of the young, brave policeman who attempts, and is injured in the process, to arrest treacherous villains, induces waves of sympathy from a probably, very middle‐class public. Best of all, are the stories of corrupted policemen who, detected and apprehended, generate in us all that slight feeling of insecurity which makes for excellent gossip.

Correspondents drew attention in the last issue of the B.F.J. to disparities in legal procedure for offences of a similar nature under the Food and Drugs Act, 1955. These will have been apparent from the reading of reports of legal proceedings contained in the columns of this Journal. While many authorities lay charges under Section 2 of the Act for foreign matter found in food, others risk their cases under Section 8, notwithstanding the difficulty of proof under this section. As Dr. Eric Wood pointed out in his letter, the presence of animal excreta (sterilized by the baking process, for example) does not necessarily render food unfit for human food and reported cases on appeal tend to support this. When some year's ago it was held (in a civil claim, it is true) that Trichinella spiralis in pork, which would be subsequently cooked, did not render it unfit to be sold for food, we asked in editorial comment how long it would be before some similar kind of interpretation began to creep into food and drugs law.

Australia and Tasmania have together an area of three million square miles—taking round figures—40 per cent. lying within the tropic. Soil and climate render the continent capable of producing every kind of tropical, sub‐tropical and temperate fruit in abundance and full advantage has been taken of this fact. It has been said that Canada is the “wood yard” of the Empire, of Australia it may with equal truth be said that it is the orchard of the Empire. The three members of the Empire south of the equator all grow heavy fruit crops. New Zealand does not can its fruits. South Africa has a growing industry in fruit canning and exporting, but the Union is still a long way behind the Commonwealth in this respect. Nor is the capacity of the Commonwealth to produce sheep and oxen expressed ultimately in terms of mutton and beef less than its power in fruit production. Meat preserving began in 1846 in New South Wales, and tinned Australian mutton found a market in this country. Freezing and cold storage methods were developed so that in the early 'eighties frozen mutton and beef from Australia made its appearance on the British market. Frozen beef, however, is less liked over here than is chilled beef, so that Argentina is a serious and successful competitor with Australia on the British market in this respect, and it will continue to be so until the researches into the problem of how to transport beef, that has been chilled and not frozen, over a long distance and to land it in good condition on the English market has been satisfactorily solved by means of the investigations that are now taking place both in this country and in Australia. The total quantity of canned meat exported from Australia in 1930–1 amounted to 4½ million lbs., which is only a very small proportion of the meat that is exported in the frozen state.

There has long been a fascination about what Chief Executives do. It is well recognised that they have considerable influence and power and live what most people assume are fast and exciting lives. Their decisions influence the lives of most of us as today the majority of people work in some form of organisation.

The Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator is an extremely useful tool that can be used for career counselling, placement, quality circle teams, team development, and self‐understanding during career assessment. Experience derived from its use within such companies as Fine Fare Limited, Honeywell Control Systems Limited, Hewlett‐Packard Limited and also the EITB (Bristol office) shows that it is not a panacea for every organisation but it does allow positive development of individual strengths within teams. Organisations' usage of psychological instruments demonstrates acceptance of the value of people as a resource.