IF you don't admit to being wrong, and you are responsible for advancing essential commitments of your organisation, things get worse.

People find new policy you have introduced difficult to believe in, understand and implement.

You cannot change direction without admitting failure, so you have to continue in the direction you started out on, and hope you can pull it through.

You should be able to do so because you believe that you know best, even though you have no hands-on experience at ground level in the area of activity you manage.

You have well-paid consultants, who are well-versed in the latest thinking, advising you, and they must be right, so you have to make it work.

If you don't, it would appear to be your fault, unless you can find others to blame.

With finance available, you need to recruit more qualified people to carry the new policy out.

This means more training and motivation of the trainers, meetings, action plans, targets. People space, furniture, provision of benefits.

In short, you make it a priority for funding, and nobody can say you didn't want it to happen and do everything you could to make it happen.

When asked about the seriousness of the situation, you answer: "I recognise that this is a problem area, and that is exactly why I have put X millions of pounds into it, to do this that and the other, and you will start to see a difference next year, or the year after."

Does this sound familiar, and can you answer the riddle about throwing money at problems of our own making and digging deeper holes in the process?

Ask Gerry Robinson.

George Appleby, Leighton Croft, Clifton, York.