INTERVIEW
them the dressing room. I opened the door and it was the broom cupboard.
But you just make it up as you go along. There’s a fine line between being
arrogant and being capable. What you have to do is to be capable of what
you’re doing, and not go beyond it. If you try and do something you’re not
capable of, that’s when you really cock up. You have to find other people
to do the bits you can’t do, and one ability I have in my life is that I can
motivate people.”
He says he is easy to work for. “I’m too nice to people, so they take the
mickey out of me. I find it really hard to be harsh. But what normally
happens is that they take the mickey for a certain time, then one day I turn
and fire them. They don’t see it coming.”
He’s a shrewd observer of the male-female divide. “I would advise that
it’s better to hire women than men. Men try and compete on an ego level.
Women are much more efficient, much more willing to work alongside.”
John Giddings recognises the inevitability of greed and ambition in his
kind of business, but insists that money does not motivate him. “I used
to think I was doing my job for money until I really earned it, and then
I realised I was doing it out of pure ambition. The only good thing about
money is that it gives you the ability to do things and to be able to tell
someone that you don’t want to work with them.”
Money has made him something of an expert on the way it changes people.
“It changes your relationship with the artists. At first y