Lessons in Staying Positive – #2

Words: 276. Reading time: 1 minute 4 seconds.

If you think businesses are struggling, take a look at Tesco: Group sales grew by 11.7% in the 13 weeks to 22nd November.

If you think Tesco’s is alone take a look at Primark: total sales grew by 21% in the year to Sept 13 and profits grew by 17%.

Not bad for an economy that is supposedly suffering badly and a sector that is said to be suffering more than most.

The argument that they have prospered because they are both at the ‘economy’ end of the spectrum is belied by the demise of Woolworth’s. Clearly, piling it high and selling it cheap is no guarantee of survival.

In a similar vein the media, even Governments, would have you believe that banks all over the world are in dire straits and that none of it is due to a gross neglect of duty by the regulators.

Take a look at the Lebanese banks. They are stronger than ever. That’s partly due to the way they conduct business, partly due to strict regulation. Well now, if they can do it, where were the UK Treasury and the US Securities Commission?

And that’s the second lesson: particularise rather than generalise. Generalising is marked by sweeping expressions that allow for no exceptions, such as:

· Everyone & No one
· Everywhere & Nowhere
· Everything & Nothing
· Always & Never
· Best & Worst

Who thinks they have heard reports recently that the FTSE 100 had its worst day ever? And who is aware that the FTSE 100 only started in 1984? Less than 25 years of comparatives doesn’t tell you very much, does it?

Even the FT30 index, which is the oldest continuous index in the UK and one of the oldest in the world, only began on July 1 1935.

Life survived and flourished even though a cataclysmic event wiped out the dinosaurs. The same is true today. Events that are wholly positive or wholly negative are rare events indeed.

Being First

Words: 467. Reading time: 1 min 34 secs.

The story is a familiar one. Some lost and weary traveller asks a friendly yokel the way to some distant location and is advised that it would be better if he did not start from here.

As we weigh up what resolutions we could make for 2009 I would offer the same wise counsel as that helpful country bumpkin – don’t start from here.

Typically, when we imagine doing something different, we start with some preconditions. We say, “When I have the resources, then I could do X and be Y”. For example, we say “If I had a diet that worked, then I could slim down and be a size 10”, or “If I had the time, then I could start writing and be a poet.”

These preconditions not only provide us with a handy excuse if we fail, they also start us off in exactly the wrong place – where we are now.

By following the ‘have – do – be’ route they focus on what we lack; the hard bit.

Only when that’s in place is there implied permission to look at behaviour [do].

Only when behaviour has changed can we tackle beliefs [be].

While this approach can and does work for some people, it is the more difficult approach to change. It looks to sheer willpower to put the first two elements in place before tackling the major roadblock to such actions – our beliefs.

Willpower has its uses, but it is a product of the conscious mind. It calls for considerable effort and is essentially a short-lived, power surge. If the conscious mind does not find resonance in the subconscious mind, then it’s no contest. The subconscious prevails every time.

Therefore, to put long-term changes in place, be they minor or major, we would be better advised to start with our beliefs about what we are being. If your desire is to be a poet then take on the mantle of a poet, think and act like a poet, live as if you are a poet.

In being a poet you will do those things that poets do.

In being a size 10 you will do those things that size 10 people do.

And in the being and the doing you will create those things you have to have.

The poet will stop watching TV, get up earlier and work throughout the weekends on producing verse.

The size 10 will experiment with the food and exercise combinations needed to fit into that dress size.

Use the power surge of your willpower to modify the environment in which your changed persona will operate – the food in the cupboards, the social calendar for the size 10, the alarm clock and the study layout for the poet.

From there the change, driven from the inside, will naturally feel at home.

Lessons in Staying Positive – #1

I was recently asked to deliver a talk entitled “Staying Positive In Difficult Times”. I accepted the invitation, but I changed the title.

The words we use are important. They reflect our thinking just as much as our thinking reflects our words. If times were difficult I would not want to stay in them, positive or otherwise. Nor would I want to stay positive under them, about them or while they last, although I might choose to stay positive through them.

I am equally twitchy at airports and railway stations where I am invited get on the train, or on the plane. No thanks! I’d much rather get in than get on!

And why would I wish to stay positive only in difficult times? Wouldn’t staying positive serve me just as well, whatever way “so-called” times turn out? If your outlook truly serves you well, it should do so whatever the circumstances. And if times were difficult would I want to stay?

The fact is the phrase “staying positive in difficult times” is a complete oxymoron and that’s lesson one: watch your language and do away with labels.

For someone who is positive times are neither difficult nor easy; times are neither happy nor sad; times are neither good nor bad. Times just are; they have no innate character that is true for everybody, everywhere, every when.

Times are what you make of them. It is quite possible for times to be both good and bad at the same time. Don’t take my word for it. Dickens said it most famously in the very first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Isn’t that just like now?

10.5 Routes to Innovation

I listened recently to an interesting presentation with the title: "Soft Landings: Don't hunker down in a recession - differentiate yourself". It was delivered by someone with the title ‘Innovation Director’ and the basic message was to set your business apart from the crowd by coming up with an innovative product or service.

While I gained the distinct impression of good management skills in relation to the processes that follow the original idea, there was little on offer about how to come up with the original idea in the first place. The two main suggestions were

a) brainstorming among fellow workers and colleagues, and
b) talking to people outside the business, e.g. customers, suppliers, universities.

Both sound perfectly valid options for a business already of some size, but small and micro businesses are rarely able to make available either the time, or the resources needed.

The sole entrepreneur, faced with a blank sheet of paper and a demand to “be innovative”, does not know how. In such circumstances “new” and “original” seem beyond them. The path of least resistance is to work harder, faster, cheaper and do more of what they already know.

However, all is not lost. There are ways that a small business can begin to stimulate thought and a fresh approach without spending quantities of time and money they don’t have. And your new ideas will be yours for free until you act on them.

It is very possible that this could be the time you make some kind of shift in a way that enables you to make a massive leap forward starting right now, all dependent on your willingness to look.

It can be much easier than you think to throw all the known rules out of the window for a while. You can get them back later if you choose and when and how you wish. For the time being explore the endless possibilities on many different levels.

Most people get hampered by thinking about what can't be done and who they are not. Rather, as you relax, think of what you could do and what you could become. There are always far more options that you could allow for as you begin to feel good about the future.

Here are some quick and easy ways passed those roadblocks of the conscious mind:

1) Start with what you do – what the client buys – not the label you apply to your job.

2) Without constraints or limitations, suggest other ways it could be done – when, where, how, who and why.

3) Whatever you do – what’s like it a) in the same sector, b) in adjacent sectors c) in unrelated sectors?

4) How could you deliver the same product, or service you do now into different sectors?

5) Go dictionary dipping: close your eyes, open a dictionary, place your finger on the page, take a look. What word did you point to? Pretend it has something to do with your business. How would you apply it?

6) Go Yellow Pages dipping using a similar technique. Whatever trade or service it comes up with – could you do that? How would you diversify into that sector? And how would you integrate your current business?

7) What hobbies do you, your family and friends enjoy. How do they apply to your business? In what ways could you use them to provide something that would differentiate you?

8) How is X like Y? How is accounting like a tree? How are electrical services like the moon? Find as many similarities as you can. Start with ten.

9) Benchmark the competition. What are they already doing that you could copy easily? And think as widely as possible. When it is a question of discretionary spending a package holiday could find itself in competition with a new car for the money.

10) Look at other diversified businesses. What strange combinations are there and in what ways do they work to support each other? Retailers offering insurance is one. Electrical retailers, e.g. Dixons, have offered product insurance on the goods they sell and made huge margins doing so. Tesco offers car insurance and sells it on the strength of its own brand name. What could you do?

10.5) Finally and perhaps most telling, true innovation may not be necessary. In any field of endeavour 80% of the money is earned by 20% of the players. What they do differently is but a tiny improvement on the competition, but the competition is generally so poor anyway that a small difference is all they need.

To help you stay where you are and to mine the “acres of diamonds” that are already there see David Winch’s article ‘Succeeding in spite of yourself’.

Change and Uncertainty

It is a common misconception that people fear change. On the contrary, people are change.

People change all the time – from the colour of their hair to the clothes they wear; from the book they are reading to the job they are doing. Even the cells in our bodies change – our blood is completely changed every 30 days.

It is not change that people fear, it is the uncertainty associated with change.

Faced with uncertainty your possible responses go beyond the simple alternatives of flight or fight. Psychologists now also recognise freeze (extreme vigilance while immobile), fright (“playing dead”) and faint. I have observed there’s a fifth – flap – and a sixth – flatulence.

Flap is extremely common in the business world and just as evident in Government. Earlier writers characterised it as “seagull management” based on the tendency of senior personnel to fly in, foul everything up and fly off again – leaving the troops on the ground to clear up the resultant mess as best they can.

Flatulence refers to the long-winded, bombastic, pompous and pretentious displays evinced most often by Ministers in reaction to a crisis. This adds greatly to the public spectacle, but does little to seriously address the root of any problem.

Think of Gordon Brown’s ‘saving the world’ as being equivalent to a local moggie making itself more impressive and threatening by raising its fur and arching its back, thus increasing its apparent size and power.

Mistakenly assigning your feelings of concern or resistance about change to simple fear could cause you to miss more meaningful information – like:
i) your unhappiness with the way the change is happening;
ii) your lack of concrete information about the way the change will affect you; or
iii) your dissatisfaction with a lack of genuine opportunities for your voice to be heard in the change process.

When contemplating the changes you face it’s worth recalling that:

* Change is part of everyday life; it’s part of the endless cycle of birth, growth and demise. You are part of that process, so make the most of it.

* You are not alone. Others will have been in the same boat in the past, some will be in the self-same boat you are and others will join the boat later. Share the problems and form a crew.

* When you know what piece of meaningful information is missing, you’ll know what to do.

* One person’s threat is another person’s opportunity. To quote an old adage – when life serves you lemons, make lemonade.

* The inspiration to live a life you’ll love will carry you long after the adrenaline burst from fearing a life you’ll hate has burned out.

We are often admonished not to be fearful; we should “pull ourselves together” we shouldn’t “be so negative” even though worry, fear, concern and trepidation are really useful signals that something may be happening and we need to pay attention.

If we harbour genuine fears then that is how we feel and that is what we have to work with. “Shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” are simply distractions. Going past the fear itself to the situation that evokes that feeling and finding which elements are important to us there is the best way to capture the value in fear’s early warning system.

That’s putting fear to its best possible use. To do the opposite – becoming exclusively focused on our own preservation, rather than notice what is going on – is to devalue the message.

By way of illustration, there’s a simple story to remind us about the value of focus.

A small plane is flying high over the Scottish mountains, when it develops engine trouble. There are five people on board: the pilot, Steve Redgrave, Gordon Brown, the Dali Lama, and a new-age hippie. The cockpit door opens, and the pilot bursts into the compartment.

"People," he begins, "I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that we're about to crash. The good news is that there are four parachutes, and I have one of them!" With that, the pilot throws open the door and jumps from the plane.

Steve Redgrave is on his feet as quick as flash. "People," he says, "I am the world's greatest athlete. The world needs great athletes. I think the world's greatest athlete should have a parachute!" With these words, he grabs one of the remaining parachutes, and hurtles through the door and into the night.

Gordon Brown rises and says, "People, I am the world's smartest and most serious politician. This is a serious situation and the world needs a smart politician like me. I think the world's smartest politician should have a parachute, too." He grabs a pack, and out he jumps.

The Dali Lama and the hippie look at one another. Finally, the Dali Lama speaks.

"Young lady," he says, "I have lived a satisfying life and have known the bliss of True Enlightenment. You have your life ahead of you; you take a parachute, and I will go down with the plane."

As cool as a cucumber, the hippie smiles slowly and says, "Hey, don't worry, dude. The world's smartest politician just jumped out wearing my rucksack."

The magic is not in the mushrooms, it’s in paying attention to what is going on around you.

"Fears are educated into us and can, if we wish, be educated out." – Karl A. Menninger.