Sinclair and the 'Sunrise' Technology: The Deconstruction of a Myth (36 page)

At a time when the company was desperately scouring the City for a saviour, Sir Clive’s position on management had become a serious embarrassment for Kinnear, Sinclair’s PR company. The approach it adopted to deal with the problem was to play on the consensus view that historically the sunrise industries have always been strong on ideas and weak on management, and that, in comparison with other companies, Sinclair’s approach to management has been relatively enlightened. Andy Knott offered a taste of this strategy in action:

Commodore was a $1 billion company by the time Tramiel acknowledged that he could no longer manage it from his back pocket. Clive’s actually done a lot more in terms of implementing management structures than Tramiel ever did. That company [Commodore] actually circulated around him completely, and if you wanted any decision on anything at all you stopped Tramiel as he walked around the building. (Interview, 22 October 1985.)

However bored he may be by the day-to-day chores of administration, the evidence of the preceding chapters should have made it abundantly clear that Clive seems temperamentally incapable of passing control of his companies to less reluctant management. In a recent interview he spoke about the collapse of the computer division. One suspects that his comments offer insights into his true feelings about his own management capabilities along with a deep-rooted mistrust of the abilities of others:

When I was running Sinclair Research it was extremely profitable, but about two years ago I handed over to someone else because then the company was expanding. During that time it wasn’t profitable. That’s why I’m reversing it and taking over running Sinclair Research myself again. It will work. (Sunday Express, 8 June 1986.)

Despite Sir Clive’s distaste for delegating managerial control, at various points in his career a commercial necessity has been elevated to an obligatory requirement enforced by the whip hand of the financial institutions. In his search for someone who will take ultimate responsibility for his companies’ commercial performance and deal with the ‘little problems’ of the employees, it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that Sinclair allows impossible expectations to govern his assessment of anyone attempting to fill such a role. It is not enough that such a person should enforce corporate strategy according to the dictates of current market trends and the capacity of the company to satisfy or anticipate such trends. Instead, Sir Clive seems to believe that such a conservative approach should be abandoned according to the dictates of his innovative vision. The problems of explaining such an approach to any but the most enlightened board is apparent in a description of the Sinclair method from long-time friend and associate Nigel Searle:

‘The Sinclair phenomenon’, says Searle, with a vividness beyond logic, ‘is to enter those races that are worth winning but that no one else even knew were going on.’ (Fortune, 8 March 1982.)

In his rendition of the NEB saga, Rodney Dale chronicles the problems facing Sinclair in his search for an acceptable managing director:

The need to find a managing director was of paramount importance. No one knew better than Sinclair the difficulty of finding someone to play managing director to his chairman ... One or two rare individuals were found, though none of them lasted very long - and not just because of personality clashes; they just weren’t rare enough. (The Sinclair Story, p. 80.)

Norman Hewett, the man who was eventually lumbered with the job of ‘playing’ managing director to Sinclair’s chairman, suggests that Sir Clive’s inability to work effectively within a management structure has its roots in a refusal to acknowledge the authority of any opinions other than his own. Hewett has this to say about Sir Clive’s interaction with the NEB-owned Radionics board:

He wouldn’t mind an exchange of views, but no way would he like it if they presumed to say that their view should prevail. He’d say, ‘Who started this company? Who developed the products? Whose brain did it come from?’ So what does the board do? (Interview, 16 October 1985.)

As we have noted elsewhere, one of the most important qualities revealed in Sir Clive’s dealings with his workforce is the loyalty he inspires among his technical staff. Hewett explains:

He’s the sort of guy who has the gift of the gab with technical people, and he can infuse them with technical interest in what he’s asking. Either the money isn’t discussed, or it’s waffled - the ‘I’ll see you all right’ sort of thing, (ibid.)

That Sinclair should enjoy the company of his technical staff and recognize that their inspiration and organization is one of his strengths is obviously an important asset. However, from a management point of view such a bias can prove disruptive when the effects of an affinity prove divisive. Once again, Norman Hewett noted the adverse effects of Sir Clive’s personal predilections on the effective management of Sinclair Radionics:

He’s not interested in production, really. I think he thinks that people who deal with production and selling are rather lower orders compared to the people who devise the ingenious device itself. Which I can understand in a way, but perhaps he shouldn’t make it so clear sometimes, (ibid.)

Sinclair, probably quite correctly, has always regarded his design engineers as the most valuable asset his companies possess. Within hi-tech industries the frontline R&D staffers tend to form themselves into an elite clique within the company, but when such an arrangement is essentially formalized by the chairman, it is inevitable that there will be problems of communication and motivation within the company as a whole. As we have seen from the QL saga, these problems were accentuated within Sinclair Research by a board that was split in almost as many directions as there were members.

Throughout the history of Sinclair Research, Sir Clive’s managerial strategy has been to isolate the individual project groups within the organization, establishing control by offering himself as the sole link with the outside world. This eccentric and somewhat despotic mode of management was fine during the boom years, but was hardly likely to have had an encouraging effect on the sources of investment that were courted when the company fell on hard times. Malcolm Wilkinson, head of the wafer-scale project, describes the state of the company prior to Bill Jeffrey’s reorganization in the autumn of 1985:

Up until six months ago [i.e. July 1985], Sinclair Research had very little [management] structure. It was run on an informal basis, very much with Clive as the catalyst. Things that were relevant from one group were communicated to another through him. We felt that we understood the potential of our project for the other products and although we had a limited interaction with other groups, we relied on Clive to recognize what was needed in other areas of the company. Obviously, the company is going through structural changes at the moment, which are formalizing the relationships between the different groups. This makes the company more traditional - there’s a more visible structure. (Interview, 15 December 1985.)

Although the changes Wilkinson refers to could be dismissed as cosmetic, there’s no doubt that Jeffrey’s restructuring enabled Sinclair Research to present a more substantial corporate image to outsiders. The management moves were clearly a central component of the business plan, which had been prepared for potential investors and creditors, and may well have tipped the balance in the negotiations that secured financing for the wafer-scale and telecom projects. So even before Alan Sugar made his dramatic intervention, Sinclair Research had managed to accomplish a corporate facelift that convincingly demonstrated that it still meant business.

One of the most conspicuous effects of the management reshuffle was that it shifted the focus of the company away from Sir Clive. Although still valuable as a figurehead, investors were no longer being asked to put their money behind Sinclair, but into a solid organization whose future lay in the technical assets its research teams had developed. For possibly the first time in its history, if there was to be a future for Sinclair Enterprises it would be determined by the commercial viability of its products rather than the charm of its chairman. But it was not to be. The arrival of the Amstrad rescue package robbed the world of the chance to see how a Sinclair company would fare under a well-structured and rigorous management. And whether Clive was actually capable of sitting back and watching passively from the wings.

In certain respects spring 1986 saw Sir Clive in better shape than he had been for years. With his corporate debts behind him and financing secured for future products, he could consider himself fortunate if less affluent. With the home-computer business out of the way, Sinclair Research was once again the kind of small-but-plucky business environment in which Sir Clive has consistently thrived and prospered. Although it may seem difficult to believe, Sinclair finally appears to have responded to his own misgivings about his managerial abilities, and seems determined to delegate the administration of the telecom and wafer-scale projects. Time alone will tell. Although his personal plans are vague, he has expressed an interest in developing a consultancy division within Sinclair Research, which would ‘
work as an ideas centre, a sort of private think-tank for corporate clients
’ (Guardian, 8 April 1986).

Reading between the lines, it seems likely that Sir Clive will be content to coast for a while, at least until the wafer-scale division is in a position to shake the world - or not, depending on the results of their endeavours. Whether he likes it or not, Sinclair may well find himself in a position where there’s little else for him to do but find himself a lab and get down to some intensive innovating. While the press predictably dubbed the sale of the computer division the end of an era, it seems unlikely that 1986 will go down in history as anything more than a brief coda in the turbulent development of the Sinclair saga.

APPENDIX - A SINCLAIR CHRONOLOGY

Since our text of necessity does not follow a strict chronological sequence, we provide here a selective overview of Sir Clive’s career, plus some related events from the computing world.

1940
Clive Marles Sinclair born to George William Carter Sinclair and Thora Edith Ella Sinclair

1957
Leaves St George’s College, Weybridge

Employed by Practical Wireless as journalist

1958
Becomes editor of Bernards Publishers Ltd

1959
Authors Practical Transistor Receivers

Becomes member of Mensa

1961
Leaves Bernards Publishers and goes freelance

Sinclair Radionics formed 25 July 1961

Joins Instrument World staff

1962
Marries Ann Trevor-Briscoe

December: Sinclair micro-amplifier ads appear at 28/6d, serviced from 69 Histon Rd, Cambridge

1963
Authors British Semiconductor Survey

April: Sinclair Slimline pocket medium wave radio kit appears at 49/6d

September: Jim Westwood joins Radionics

December: Sinclair micro-injector signal generator appears at 27/6d kit, 32/6d built

1964
January: TR5 pre-amp/0.5 watt amp appears at 59/6d built

April: Radionics moves to Duncan Terrace, Islington

August: Radionics move to Comberton, Cambridge

Announces supply delays now a thing of the past

September: Micro-6 matchbox-sized radio appears at 59/6d kit, ‘Transrista’ strap for wearing on wrist, 7/6d T R750 0.75 watt power amp appears at 39/6d kit, 45/- built

December: Sinclair X-10 pulse width modulation ‘10 watts’ amplifier designed by Cambridge Consultants Ltd appears at £5.19.6d kit, £6.19.6d built, power supply £2.14.0

1965
June: X-20 ‘20 watts’ amplifier appears at £7.19.6d kit, £9.19.6d built, power supply £4.19.6d.

December: Micro FM pocket radio appears at £5.19.6d kit

1966
January: Z12 12 watt amplifier/pre-amp appears at 89/6d built

April: Radionics moves to Newmarket Rd, Cambridge

Clive moves house to Cambridge. Chris Curry joins Radionics

May: PZ3 power supply unit appears, 79/6d built

September: Stereo 25 ‘De-luxe’ pre-amp and control unit at £9.19.6d built

October: Microvision pocket TV receiver demonstrated at Radio and TV Exhibition. Announced as ‘available early 1967 at a cost of 49 guineas’

1967
February: Sinclair Micromatic - the ‘world’s smallest radio – appears at 59/6d kit, 79/6d built

April: Micromatic kit becomes available in new ‘See for yourself’ sealed polystyrene kit pack at no extra cost

May: Sinclair Radionics turnover £100,000

October: Q14 loudspeaker available at £6.19.6d.

December: Micromatic dropped in price to 49/6d kit, 59/6d built

1968
April: Neoteric 60 amplifier launched but abandoned

October: System 2000 35-watt amplifier (29 guineas), FM tuner (25 guineas), plug-in stereo decoder (4 guineas) and loudspeaker (12 guineas) launched. Available from dealers

1969
June: IC-10 integrated circuit amplifier announced but unavailable

December: Stereo 60 pre-amp and control unit, at £9.19.6, and Z30 25-watt amplifier, at 89/6d, appear

1970
June: Z50 amplifier added to Project 60 range at 109/6d

November: Stereo FM tuner at £25 and Q16 speakers added to Project 60 range

December: Active Filter unit added to Project 60 range at £5.19.6d.

1971
February: Radionics operation moves to Enderby’s Mill, London Rd, St Ives, Huntingdonshire

May: Sinclair Radionics profits £85,000 on turnover of £563,000