Simple management

Words: 425
Reading Time: 1 min. 25 sec.s

What actions yield the best financial results when dealing with an economic downturn?

That’s something we would all like to know – always assuming that an economic downturn calls for actions different to those at any other time.

Bruce Tulgan of RainmakerThinking, Inc.® reports finding that cost cutting, innovation and increased supervision were the three strategies that yielded the strongest financial results in 2009.

Well, that’s wonderful! If that’s all we have to do to get great financial results then all our problems are solved. Or are they?

Bruce’s results are drawn from a survey of more than 1,000 managers selected from participants in RainmakerThinking, Inc.’s ® intensive two-day management seminars.

Managers that implemented these actions were found to be the most likely to report that their bottom line financial results (at the level closest to the manager’s control) in 2009 were “good,” “very good,” “better than expected,” or “much better than expected.”

There seems to be a number of weaknesses here:
1) The survey was only of managers, not of workers or financial analysts;
2) All those managers had been trained by RainmakerThinking, Inc.®;
3) Other actions taken by managers who were not participants in RainmakerThinking were not examined;
4) The assessments of financial results were entirely subjective; none were quantified;
5) Corporate benefits or detriments other than financial ones were not looked at;
6) The organization conducting the survey had a direct interest in its outcome.

Besides which, cost cutting and innovation should be high priorities in any company, irrespective of the state of the economy. Had these managers helped create the crisis in their companies by their lack of effectiveness when times were better?

And managers reported that it was their supervision that made a difference – not actions and dedication by a neglected workforce concerned about continued employment that would have happened anyway, without the managers.

No surprises there then. It’s the usual error – we always think we have had a disproportionate effect (hubris) when it’s everybody else that has made the major difference. The higher the individual is in the organization or social grouping, the more marked is this effect as a general rule.

Business suggestions:
1) Start from a position of scepticism;
2) Beware of too much simplification;
3) Ask, “Who says?”;
4) How much interest has the researcher in the outcome of the research;
5) Check for what’s missing;
6) What else could have caused this?
7) Look for a control group comparison;
8) Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler (Einstein);
9) Nobody has all the answers;

10) Bosses need the workers; the reverse is not always true.

The truth about teams

Words: 447
Reading Time: 1 min. 29 sec.s

There is a lot of confused thinking about getting the best from teams. A good case in point is Duncan Brodie (http://goalsandachievements.com) who says:

“To get the best from a team you clearly have to bring out the best in each individual and get them all playing to their strengths.”

Only to say, just a few lines further on:

“The truth is that team success is largely down to a group of people who are committed to a common purpose and are willing to work collectively and support each other to get the result they desire.”

Setting aside whether you agree with either of these points, both cannot be true at the same time.

Bringing out the best in each individual is just a likely to give you a group of individuals, each pulling in a different direction, rather than a team.

Having a group of people committed to a common purpose and willing to work collectively to get the result they desire will give you a team, but will not necessarily bring out the best in each individual; that may need to be sacrificed to the common good.

Superior teams are most likely when the members share a common aspiration for the team rather than themselves and the team makes use of each individual’s strengths. That does not mean having the best individuals, since they may not place the team above themselves. It does involve each team member identifying moment to moment how the team as a whole can best deliver.

Sport is often chosen as an analogy for business, but business is rarely like that. Business is not about delivering at your peak for 48 minutes, 90 minutes, 20 overs or 5 days. It is about effective, appropriate effort delivered under all circumstances for months and years.

Business suggestions:
1) Be clear about the outcomes;
2) Be clear about how you will know if and when you have them;
3) Get buy-in from all members of the team;
4) No stigma should attach to not buying-in and being properly excluded;
5) No-one fails in a team, everyone takes responsibility;
6) Teams do not work automatically, they need work themselves;
7) Changing team members changes the whole team, earlier phases will need revisiting;
8) Ball-carriers and supporters change over time; make sure everyone knows who is who;
9) You need both ball-carriers and supports to succeed;
10) You cannot lead a team; either you are part of it, or you are not. Who leads at any one time will change with where the team has got to;
11) When the job is done celebrate the success and disband the team;
12) Different jobs need different teams.

Look before you leap

Words: 350
Reading Time: 1 minute 10 seconds

Imposing financial penalties if patients are readmitted as an emergency within 30 days of being discharged is the latest wheeze from new Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, part of a Government anxious to impress.

His heart might be in the right place, but his head is reported missing.

That’s the problem when we are driven to do things that we think look good, without taking the time to examine the possible consequences from all sides. In my view there is an obligation on all novices to learn a little about their new role before changing anything – at least three months.

Not doing so can so easily lead on to unintended consequences. In this case:

Planned Outcome: no patients will be discharged until they are fully ready.

Likely Outcome: hospitals will find every conceivable reason not readmit until day 31, resulting in more patients suffering and a decline in timely, responsive treatment.

Nice one, Andrew!

To be charitable to Mr. Lansley: what brainless cretin from Central Office came up with this one?

In any walk of life you will deter the actions you penalize effectively. Those working in the NHS are as self-interested as any of us. Indeed, parts of the NHS are still run more in the interests of staff than of patients – witness the issue of ‘appointment’ times without consultation.

How can it be an appointment if only one party has taken part in the decision? But I digress.

The reverse of the penalization medal is that you encourage all actions – however deleterious – that you do not punish. It’s this aspect that opens the gates to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

A few suggestions for businesses:
1) Penalties only dictate what NOT to do, rather than promoting the specific actions you want. Start with the end in mind.
2) Start earlier in the chain of causation – like shortening in-patient time to speed up admissions – before attempting to stem the outcomes.
3) Just because your mate has jumped off a cliff (this policy originates with the Obama administration) does not mean you have to follow either his lead, or that of the crowd, blindly.

Lessons from the Life of Plants

Words: 830. Reading time 2 minutes 46 seconds

At this time of year most of the plants in my garden are working hard to produce the seeds of future flowers. Nature has them all focused on just one thing – reproduction: leaving enough of themselves to ensure that future generations survive.

And to us thinking, sentient human beings nature appears to be profligate.

The humble dandelion produces between 54 and 172 seeds per head and a single dandelion can produce more than 2000 seeds. Some estimates suggest that annually dandelions produce more than 240 million seeds per acre.

A typical sunflower will have between 260 and 800 seeds per flower head, depending on the growing conditions and a typical geranium will have about 5 seeds per flower and between 40 and 100 flowers per plant.

So, how come we are not knee-deep in dandelions, sunflowers and geraniums? Because seeds are like our ideas, efforts, experiments, trials and initiatives – some are successful; many are not.

If you are not seeing failure, you are not trying hard enough
Obviously a certain proportion of the seeds will not survive the journey from parent plant to place of germination. Many will be broken, burnt, waterlogged, eaten, aged or decayed along the way.

Some seeds may not even be viable (have life in them) to begin with. This is why many plants invest a lot of energy into seed production - to produce many, so multiplying the chances for the few.

And we would do well to recognize that success to failure ratio in Mother Nature and be aware that we could do a lot worse than imitate some of her ways.

Just because we plan, develop a strategy, set SMART goals and visualize our outcomes does not mean that we will always succeed all of the time. As Dwight Eisenhower pointed out: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

Nature's manual for maximizing outcomes

Nature adopts a variety of strategies to improve the chances of successful germination. How many of these could we adapt to foster our own dreams and desires?

1. Plants have evolved -in most cases- methods of dispersing their seeds. This means transporting them to a place away from their parent, ensuring that some of them will find suitable conditions for growth elsewhere, where there is less chance of competing with their siblings for space (finding new markets).

2. Some seeds and seed-like fruits are carried by ocean currents. Such seeds are of the kind that can float for a long period without absorbing sea water and establish themselves finally in tidal mud or on beaches (waiting for favourable economic conditions to materialize).

3. Animals and birds disperse seeds, too. We often see them in late summer and early autumn with numerous seed-like fruits adhering to their hides or feathers (using a surrogate sales force and word-of-mouth marketing).

4. A variable proportion of seeds of many kinds of plants resist prompt germination. One example is the uneven ripening and shedding of the fruits of some grasses, such as the giant foxtail (test new ideas in series, rather than in parallel).

5. Many legumes, such as the clovers, produce a variable proportion of seeds with impermeable seed coats, which may resist germination for long periods (give ideas time to mature and develop, rather than getting carried away, releasing them before they are fully worked out).

6. Some species produce pods in which one segment remains indehiscent—closed—and the seed within it remains dormant for a long time, as in cocklebur (Xanthium), for example (where an idea has scope for variations and enhancements, start with the basic model instead of diluting the market and, possibly, increasing start-up costs).

Gardeners and nurserymen also give nature a hand by selecting for certain characteristics and using only seeds from plants that are seen to be disease and virus free. They also save only from straight varieties, in other words not from any hybrid varieties that have been crossed with other material.

The initiates we elect to trial should be similarly selected.

The story of Brython the Bean

The great thing about cultivating your own seed (ideas) is that you can actually improve your selection with a little bit of thought to what you are doing. The late Brython Stenner from Glamorgan, South Wales, even though only a keen amateur, quickly became a legend in his own life time. His thinking was that you should select only the strongest, healthiest plants, those that consistently produced the longest and most filled pods along the row. Does that sound obvious? It does now.

Because of one amateur’s dedication, the 'Stenner Strain’ bean is the only bean that is consistently winning on the show benches today. They not only look good, they taste good as well.

So, even with careful preparation and nurturing, be prepared for less than 100% germination with all your schemes.

Do not be hugely surprised if some things take longer to come to fruition than others.

And, as Robert Louis Stevenson remarked, “Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”

Lessons in Staying Positive – #9

Words: 702. Reading time: 2 minutes 21 seconds.

Tough times are regulated neither by the state of the economy, nor by the state of society. For an individual, tough times can occur on a much more personal level, such as injury, illness or lay-off, irrespective of the wider context. And while not actively sought by most, tough times can still be turned to advantage when they do show up – as an opportunity to recalibrate.

It strikes me that in tough times we need to separate the essentials from the clutter in our lives. In this setting clutter includes doing too many things, doing things for insufficient reasons and doing less productive things while more productive ways of investing our time are neglected; that’s besides the physical clutter of too much stuff we don’t need and stuff we do need being buried beneath a mess of other stuff.

Tough times give us the chance to be more resourceful, even though we often have fewer resources. We can learn to “live” off less - use fewer resources to live an even richer life.

Exactly what makes for a richer life turn on our beliefs and values. Getting clear on those is at the forefront of making the shift necessary under tough times. What really matters to us? What qualities do we want to have? By what principles would we be happy to live our lives? Who do we love? What do we love doing? The answer will be different for each of us, but that is no reason not to ask the questions.

If we want to make real change then there is a tough question for tough times: “What am I willing to change right now?” This is not another wish list, it’s an action point. It’s not something that might be nice to do in the future; it’s absolutely essential to the process of changing the present and it’s something that we can start work on this minute.

For the transformation to fully take hold might take a while. As the saying goes “Rome was not built in a day”. But it was built, which means that someone had to start by laying one brick on top of another.

We may not even know what the final edifice will look like. It is unlikely that the Roman builders started with a master plan. And even if they did, it is doubtful that what eventually emerged conformed to the initial set of drawings. But they did being and they adapted as they went along. And as any schoolboy will tell you, the rest is history – literally.

To help us get started we can begin talking frankly about the dangers and challenges we see facing us. We can start an honest dialogue that involves authentic give and take about tough topics, rather than engaging solely in social gossip that keeps real issues safely at arm's length.

We can seek greater clarity by asking people to explain what they mean, rather than just assuming we know. We can ask what sources they're using to get their information, check those for ourselves and compare them to others we learn about.

Once people get a taste of honest, good-natured, substantive discussion that doesn't come with an agenda, they tend to find it addictive especially when you don't do all the talking and none of the listening. Good listening leads to good ideas, especially when they come from those who are doing the heavy lifting.

When our world appears to be unravelling the healthiest and most restorative response is an open mind, honest curiosity and bold action. Embrace the unknown. That way, we can make permanent uncertainty a sustainable way of life.

From the dialogue a decision will emerge. That’s the whole point. And once a decision is made, we commit and go for it. If we never commit, all we will ever do is change course. Continual second guess is not allowed.

In time, if we have to change course, then we have to change course. Yet, the secret rule is that when the time for a decision arrives, then we decide quickly and, once the decision is made, we change our mind slowly – not the other way round. That just adds to the uncertainty.

Lessons in Staying Positive – #8

Words: 959. Reading time: 3 minutes 12 seconds.

Our feelings are contagious. For example, if you are feeling down and disappointed then that feeling is likely to be transmitted subconsciously to those who interact with you.

Some individuals may believe that if they speak in a bright, cheery voice and act in an upbeat manner then that will effectively conceal what else is going on. It rarely does.

Even if the person concerned exactly modulates her voice to the precise pitch and timbre she uses normally when she is actually feeling bright and cheerful, her true inner feelings are almost certain to “leak” into some of the other ways we express ourselves.

These will include facial expressions, verbal dexterity and variety, breathing patterns, eye accessing cues, blink rate, gestures and body language. And it is likely to be the motions of the person’s further extremities, such as feet and fingers that give the game away.

The multiple ways we humans use simultaneously to express ourselves makes whole-body, consistent make-believe a daunting task.

And the longer, deeper and more frequent the interaction, the more likely it is that subconscious transmission will take place. Put simply, the longer pretence is maintained, the more effort it takes.

By the same token, if you are truly feeling buoyant and optimistic then the people you are communicating with will pick up on it. If you have a really good state people will think “I like this person” and be drawn to you.

We are more comfortable with people we like and it is easier to like someone who is happy, just as a warm, sunny day in May is more elevating than a cold, wet Wednesday in November.

We are also more comfortable with people who we think are like us, or who we would like to be like. Given a choice, most people would elect to be happy and most would hesitate to describe themselves as sad, miserable or cheerless. That’s not going to win them any friends.

That happiness is catching is confirmed by a study that followed a whole community of people for 20 years. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, followed more than 4,700 people living in Framingham, Massachusetts from 1983 to 2003. Researchers found that the effect of one happy person could ripple through three degrees of separation. The researchers liken the pattern of happiness transmission to the spread of a virus: those with the most number of happy contacts are the mostly likely to catch the happy bug.

“Happiness is like a stampede,” said [co-author] Nicholas Christakis… “Whether you’re happy depends not just on your own actions and behaviours and thoughts, but on those of people you don’t even know”

In this study certain social relationships were more effective at spreading happiness; the good mood of a next-door neighbour was more contagious than that of a live-in spouse. Friends of the same gender were the most likely source of good cheer.

A temporal element was also detected: the effects of a happy encounter could linger for as long as a year before fading.

One important dimension of such “contagion” has been rightly emphasised by Shigehiro Oishi, a University of Virginia psychologist who studies the causes and consequences well-being. He has said:

"Although we are connected with friends and family members who live far away via cell-phone and the Internet, these results indicate that there is nothing like a face-to-face interaction. We are told to get connected by cell-phone companies, but in order to get connected you really have to live close by and interact face to face.”

Technology is evolving a lot faster than the human animal.

But how can something like happiness be contagious? Some researchers think one of the most likely mechanisms is empathetic mimicry. Psychologists have shown that people unconsciously copy the facial expressions, manner of speech, posture, body language and other behaviours of those around them.

Through a kind of neural feedback, they experience the emotions associated with the particular behaviour they are mimicking.

Barbara Wild and colleagues at the University of Tubingen, Germany, found that the stronger the facial expression, the stronger the emotion experienced by the observer. She believes this process is hardwired, since it acts so rapidly and automatically.

Others suggest it works through the action of mirror neurons, a type of brain cell thought to fire both when we perform an action and when we watch someone else doing it, though it is not clear whether the mimicking would cause the neurons to fire or whether their firing would trigger the mimicry.

What is clear is that unconscious imitation allows people to "feel a pale reflection of their companions' actual emotions" and even "feel themselves into the emotional lives of others", says Elaine Hatfield, of the University of Hawaii.

There is plenty of evidence for emotional contagion outside the lab. In 2000, Peter Totterdell at the University of Sheffield found a significant association between the happiness of professional cricketers during a match and the average happiness of their teammates, regardless of other factors such as whether the match was going in the team's favour.

Other studies have found that waiters who offer service with a smile are rewarded with bigger tips.

In NLP this is called being in uptime. Make sure your head, your heart and your happiness are all on the same plain before launching into any key activity, particularly where it involves face-to-face contact. If not, then postponing to a better time - or making a phone call instead - might be the better strategy.

In business giving your clients, the people you are communicating with, the sense of having your “unconditional positive regard”; that you are there for them and with them; that they have your undivided attention, is the foundation on which good rapport is based.

Imparting happiness with the deal is a big bonus worth having.

Knowing Is Not Enough

Words: 561 Reading time: 1 minute 52 seconds

It isn’t what we know that determines the outcome; it’s what we do with what we know.

Example 1
Prior to “Operation Market Garden” in September 1944 the senior Allied commanders knew that the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions were located on the corridor that the Allies planned to use for their narrow-front thrust. This made achieving the objective highly unlikely.

More than 16,800 Allied troops were killed, wounded or captured in a fruitless effort that was essentially targeted at assuaging a bruised ego.

Example 2
In December of the same year the Germans launched a tactically brilliant offensive through the Ardennes, inflicting heavy losses on inexperienced Allied troops.

Just like Market Garden 'It was not intelligence (evaluated information of the enemy) that failed. The failure was the commanders and certain G-2's, who did not act on the intelligence they had,' according to one of Patton's subordinates.

Although both of these failures to listen came close together, they are by no means unique. Similar failures had preceded them in earlier times and others have followed in later times.

Example 3
The North Vietnamese Easter Offensive of 1972 was similar and as one author has pointed out "Though the location, numbers and types of forces were not the same, the command assumptions, the weather and the use and misuse of intelligence had almost the same catastrophic effects in both clashes.... "

Example 4
Ten years later, in the South Atlantic, the Falklands war may have been avoidable. In any event it was undoubtedly made more costly and riskier by the intelligence failure that preceded it. British officials were unresponsive to warnings that diplomacy had failed and invasion was imminent.

Example 5
In 2003 it was Iraq. As the White House has acknowledged, intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs did not drive its decision to go to war.

The intelligence on Iraq was there. It did not get things wrong and thereby mislead policymakers. Once again the leaders were insensitive to information that suggested that the course of action on which they were embarked was likely to lead to disaster.

These examples are drawn from the military sphere simply because mistakes there tend to more visible and better documented than failures in business. But similar failures in business abound. Failures where the enterprise does not give sufficient weight either to facts within its purview, or relevant facts easily revealed.

Many people, let alone businesses, are uneasy acknowledging that many of the conventions and principles they operate on are unwritten, unspoken and unconscious. Psychologists estimate that 95% of the things we say and do each day are done on “autopilot”, that is automatically, unthinkingly and routinely.

And the very familiarity of such actions mean they go unrecognised and unquestioned long after they cease to be either safe or appropriate. Thus it is that we wake up one day to find ourselves in an awful mess without realising quite how we got there.

The tragedy is that working with either a business coach, or an NLP Practitioner for even a short period of time will begin to raise awareness of the subconscious paradigms we are running and what the implications might be.

Make just one New Year’s Resolution – start working on raising your awareness of yourself and your business so that you can improve your chances of recognising the warning signs before it is too late.

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.

All Change

You may have come across the phrase “if you always do what you have always done, you’ll always get what you have always got.” Notable speakers who have used it in the past include Penny Phang, Anthony Robbins, Jim Rohn, Chris Widener and Zig Ziglar.

I have even used it myself.

Newsflash from my banking clients: that’s (another) coaching myth.

In the past this little mantra has been used to challenge those clients who were stuck in a rut of working hard in a particular way with little success, but unable to come up with another approach.

In those circumstances pointing out the illogicality of continuing in a fruitless pursuit made sense.

But what of those whose strategy has a history of success, but who face more recent set-backs? Wouldn’t they want to keep doing what they have been doing in order to duplicate previous favourable results?

Certainly they will. However, circumstances have changed. Now they need to change too, in order to match the changed situation.

Once the environment shifts, then so must the approach you use. Doing what you once did will not give the previous outcome.

That much is obvious, so what’s the problem?

Every moment of every day every one of us has to make three choices, whether we are aware of it, or not:

1. We have to choose where to direct our attention;
2. We have to choose how to interpret the event or object that has our attention, and
3. We have to choose what action to take as a result of choices 1 and 2.

The peculiar thing is that many people (not you, of course) do not consciously make those choices, because they do not even realise there is a choice to be made.

The consequence is that such people, instead of consciously selecting an action, merely react instead.

They take no responsibility for what goes on in their heads and the subsequent outcomes. “Other people” are being difficult and “the world” is against them. Their behaviour is entirely derived from habit, conditioning and untested suppositions.

Increasingly, as the world moves on, those habits, that conditioning and their suppositions are no longer appropriate. It follows that the results such people achieve become less and less satisfactory.

The results we get depend on the choices we make we make, either consciously from applied thought, or unthinkingly from the subconscious.

It pays to remain aware of our choices; it maximises our chances of selecting an appropriate action that matches the present circumstances.

At the height of the banking boom a highly successful broker drove his brand new, top the range Ferrari down Wall Street and pulled into the kerb to show it off to his friends. As he opened the door to get out the door was suddenly and completely ripped off by a passing truck.

The broker was outraged. He cursed the trucker. He screamed about the cost of the car. He yelled that the body repairers would never get it to look as good as it did new. He wailed about all the expensive extras that he had had fitted.

A New York cop pulled in behind the Ferrari with his strobe lights flashing. He told the broker to calm down. The car was no more than an expensive toy. And did the broker even realise that the truck had torn off half his arm when it passed? At that moment he was bleeding profusely over the sidewalk.

“My God!” the broker shrieked, “My Rolex!”

Migrating Your Business

Faced with the plans, goals, targets and objectives necessary to migrate our business, from where it is to where we want it to be, it is easy to become overwhelmed. Indeed, it is so easy to become overwhelmed that some people actually end up doing nothing at all, paralysed by those daunting challenges.

Of course, such people are not totally inactive, far from it. They give the appearance of being the busiest people in the office as they collect mounds of data and reams of analysis about all the challenges they face.

However, there is no outcome, for they never reach a conclusion. All that activity is merely a smokescreen, a security blanket, a substitute for the action they should be taking, but never get round to.

When faced with overwhelm one remedy is to take a lesson from the animal kingdom. Since autumn is approaching the goose sense used during their annual migrations is a lesson as powerful as horse sense.

When you see a flock of geese heading south for the winter, you will notice they fly in a characteristic "V" formation. That way, as each bird flaps its wings, it creates uplift for the bird immediately following. The "V" formation adds at least 71 percent greater flying range, for the flock as a whole, than if each bird flew alone.

Who else do you know that is heading in the same general direction as you? What opportunities exist to draw on their experience and leadership? How can you and your firm use their “slipstream” to help ease the hard work sometimes needed in order to make any headway? Would you really like at least 71 percent greater flying range?

However, do not expect such assistance to be entirely altruistic.

When the lead goose gets tired you can expect it to rotate back into the following flock while another goose flies point. Depending on circumstances, resources and the skills required sometimes that goose will be you. That’s because it makes sense to take turns doing demanding jobs.

You will also hear the geese behind honking to encourage those up front. Note that the honking is there for encouragement, not criticism. When you honk from behind – figuratively speaking – what is your intent? And is that intention realised?

Finally, when a goose gets sick or is wounded by gunshot, and falls out of the formation, two other geese fall out with the injured bird and follow it down to lend help and protection. They stay with the fallen goose until it is able to fly again, or until it dies; and only then do they launch out on their own, or with another formation to catch up with their own group.

How many businesses have the corporate sense to offer mutual support in the face of economic ills, market malaise and the continual sniping from Government and financial institutions? And is yours one of them?

Perhaps the humble goose is not quite so silly after all.

The wisdom of making mistakes

We all make mistakes. And fear of making mistakes too often keeps us frozen in indecision and inaction. However, it is rarely the mistake itself that is the real problem. More often it is the consequence we expect, the outcome from the mistake that blocks our moving forward.

That fear is misplaced for four main reasons:

Our fears may be groundless or, at least, exaggerated. Fear is only felt in relation to potential future events. Nobody fears the past since it is already known and experienced. However, potential events are not real events. They may never happen as we anticipate and we cannot know how they will happen until we take action. How often has some dreaded eventuality turned out to be not so bad after all?

Mistakes may be more apparent than real. What we judge to be a mistake in the short term can eventually emerge as a breakthrough. History is replete with such events. Artificial sweeteners, X-rays, microwave ovens and vulcanized rubber are just a few of the inventions that owe their existence to chance.

We learn from our mistakes. It has been said that success teaches us very little, whereas failure carries valuable lessons. Our failures cause us to pause, take stock, work out what went awry and then modify our approach. Success is often taken for granted. We pat ourselves on the back, congratulate ourselves for being so smart and move on. We rarely stop to work out what elements came together to deliver such a great result.

Indecision and inaction is itself a decision – hence the expression ‘damned if you do, and damned if you don’t’. With a decision made and action take you have intention and a degree of control. With indecision and inaction one is subject to the variable winds of fate and fortune, and the decisions and actions of others, never know where one is likely to end up.

Then there are those mistakes that only appear to be foolish, but conceal a deeper wisdom:

One day a beggar appeared in the marketplace. Whenever people showed him both a large note and a smaller note he always chose the small one.

Eventually, a generous man who was tired of seeing everyone laugh at the beggar quietly went over to him and explained that when people offered him two notes, he should choose the larger one. Then he would have more money, and people would not think him a fool.

"You are surely right", replied the beggar. "But if I always choose the larger note, people would stop offering me money, in order to prove that I am a greater fool than they are. And then I would no longer receive enough for my food. There is nothing wrong with appearing to be a fool, if what you are doing is in fact intelligent."

Preparation

"It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared" (Whitney Moore Young Jr.). As the economy shifts under us, moving from one phase to the next, some preparation for what might be ahead will promote our chances of capturing the opportunities that will be there for the taking.

We may be sure that opportunities will exist, whatever the circumstances.

If house prices continue to fall there will be bargains available to those willing and able to take advantage of them.

If oil prices continue to rise then oil reserves, previously uneconomic, will become worth drilling and refining.

If food shortages spread, then more land will be brought into cultivation, farmers will prosper and agricultural land values will increase.

It’s an open secret: in good time and in bad opportunity consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different. Preparation consists of dreaming what might be and devising contingencies to deal with that situation should it arise.

Most situations will not actually occur. Those that do will not be exactly as we planned. Nevertheless, the fact that we have been thinking ahead makes us better prepared, sooner than those that have just waited to see what turns up before they react, if they ever do.

In business we often find ourselves wrestling with current demands and misadventures. Our days are spent fire fighting, leaving no time to worry about tomorrow. However, this approach, while apparently sensible and seductive, will mean we continue to fight those fires day after day. Being busy will be no protection when the roof caves in.

With the future in mind it is often easier to spot opportunities as they arise. Without that mental preparation the chance goes unremarked. We are familiar with this phenomenon from our own experience. Having bought a new car we immediately notice how many other similar cars there are on the road. Before making the purchase we were totally unaware.

By way of illustration:

Sarah has just left the house after a blazing row with her husband. She was taking a quiet walk to calm down when she notices an unusual funeral procession coming along the road towards her. At the front is a large black hearse and 20 yards behind this is a second black hearse. A solitary woman is walking behind the second hearse with a large, well-groomed Rottweiler dog on a lead. Behind the woman are 50 other women walking single file.

Sarah is very curious and goes over to the woman with the dog and says, “I’m sorry about your loss.”

“Thank you,” says the woman, “you’re very kind.”

“I know it’s a bad time to ask,” says Sarah, “but whose funeral is this?”

“It’s my husband's funeral,” replies the woman.

“So what happened to him?” asks Sarah.

The woman replies, “My dog attacked and killed him.”

“And who is in the second hearse?” asks Sarah.

The woman answers, “My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my husband when the dog turned on her.”

A poignant and thoughtful moment of silence passes between the two women.

“Can I borrow the dog?” asks Sarah.

“Go to the back of the line,” replies the woman.

Mining Facts and Missing the Point

Despite appearances bad decisions are rarely made because people don’t have all the facts. In the political sphere the Treasury will have been fully aware of the impact on taxpayers of abandoning the 10% tax band. The Treasury may even have alerted Ministers. Nevertheless, although the facts were noted, plainly they were not given sufficient weight.

In the run-up to the present ‘Credit Crunch’ the financial institutions were fully aware of what they were doing and, one hopes, so were the regulators. But merely knowing the facts proved insufficient. Clearly, they did not understand the facts and the whole unstable structure was allowed to plough on into the crash barriers.

The Burmese Government will be well informed about the consequences of Cyclone Nargis and how badly their population has been affected. However, here facts are equally useless because they are being ignored.

Business is subject to the same purblindness when it comes to facts. Too often when plans go awry Governments call for Royal Commissions or Parliamentary Committees; business calls for internal audits or additional research. More facts will not help them regain the perspective they have lost.

When facts have failed to register, the continued pursuit of yet more facts painfully echoes Dickens’ Thomas Gradgrind in ‘Hard Times’. Gradgrind worships facts and figures. He puts his faith in abstract theories rather than direct observation of real people and real needs. The asymmetrical approach to human life of early industrial England, the denial of some of the basic needs of human beings, is being repeated in what some are pleased to call our post-industrial age. The structure of the economy may have changed. Too many of the attitudes live on. The cost in human happiness is great.

In Dickens’ Coketown, the needs of the factories dominate everything else. The factory hands work long hours in oppressive conditions, and they live in cramped houses. Their lives are monotonous; every day is exactly like every other day, just as all the houses and streets look alike. In Coketown, there is a strict uniformity in everything. The workers have little time off to relax and enjoy themselves. Does that sound familiar?

Employees and those running their own businesses will recognise the close parallels. Today we still struggle with long hours, astronomic housing costs, poor diets and an existence where evenings and weekends are nothing more than the exercise yard of our own imprisonment.

Each business, each day, has the opportunity to step back and take a clear-eyed view of the workplace we have built for ourselves. If it is not as we would wish it, then we can change. If you think it isn’t as easy as that then you will be setting yourself up to fail as a self-fulfilling outcome. Give real change a try. Take action. You may surprise yourself.

Why Me?

Once upon a distant time in the here and now a seeker journeyed through the furthest regions of the earth to find a teacher rumoured to know the secrets to happiness, success, and well-being. When the seeker arrived at the teacher's mountain-top retreat, he eagerly awaited his audience with the reclusive teacher. Finally, his moment came.

"Why have you come?" the teacher asked.

The seeker proceeded to list problem after problem he was facing in his life. After listening patiently, the teacher sighed.

"I am afraid I cannot help you with your problems."

"Why not?" asked the puzzled and disappointed seeker.

"Because the gods have decreed that we all carry fifty-one problems with us at all times. Even if I could help you solve the problems you tell me of, they would only be replaced with fifty-one more."

The teacher paused to allow the full significance of the idea to sink in.

"I may, however," the teacher continued, "be able to help you with your 52nd problem."

"What's that?" asked the seeker.

"Your 52nd problem," replied the teacher, "Is that you think you should not have the first 51 problems."

The 52nd problem is not confined to our fabled seeker. I think most people in business would welcome fewer problems. Many would go further and wish there were no problems. Wouldn’t that be beautiful?

Probably not: man is a solution seeking animal and when problems become too few, or of insufficient size, then he (or she) will manufacture some challenge to fill the vacuum. If not, then the market will do it for him. If your sector was problem-free and life truly was a cushy number, then other firms would push their way in seeking this Sylvania for themselves. The problems would multiply and the natural balance would be restored.

Problems are essentially opportunities in disguise. How well you cope with them will determine how well you do in business and in life. Problems are not something from which we should flee. Rather they are things we should embrace.

A leader faced with an almighty challenge is afforded reward and recognition when that challenge is eventually overcome. A leader handed an easy life reaps no honour; success is expected. For him there is only the yawning chasm represented by muffing an easy shot and failing to capture what everyone else saw as a gift.

It is an entirely different proposition to have a sufficiency of problems, yet be tempted into making even more for yourself. This is particularly attractive when the problems you do have are chronic and familiar. In such circumstances either the problem fades into the background and is hardly noticed, or there is seen to be little kudos in dealing it. If collecting cash has always taken 90 days at your firm there may be little enthusiasm for reducing it to 30 days. There may even be some opposition to disturbing the status quo and ‘upsetting’ certain clients.

Whatever you circumstances where problems are concerned – too few, enough, or too many – the basic approach is the same: rather than engaging in the self-pity of “Why me?” pick the one problem whose solution, or easement, would have the biggest impact on your business. When that one is solved, or temporarily stalled, work on the problem with the next biggest impact. Have no more than six problems, ranked in order of impact, on your list at any one time.

This is not a new idea. It was first put into practice by Charles Schwab, President of Bethlehem Steel in the 1900’s. The idea is simple, but don’t let that deceive you. There are still plenty of opportunities for distractions. The real achievement is in recognising the potential diversions and resolutely refusing to get sidetracked.

Your Credibility is Fragile

The spectre of a major employer saying one thing and doing another rises again as Shell prepares to cut 3,200 jobs.

In the past Shell have explicitly recognised how important their employees are to the continued success of the enterprise. In May 1997 Cor Herkstroter, President of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, delivered a speech highlighting the need to “safeguard the interests of shareholders, our staff and others who work with us around the world”.

He went on to declare “our most important asset is our people.”

One wonders why a company would consciously and deliberately choose to dispose of such a key resource.

Any professional stands or falls, not by their technical proficiency, but by their credibility. If the President of a company states publicly and unequivocally that, “we are linked by our shared values - integrity, honesty and respect for people - and our belief in the importance of trust, team working, professionalism and pride in what we do,” then all stakeholders, including the employees, are being invited to accept it as a fact.

It serves nobody, least of all the business community in general, to have those values cynically cast aside in pursuit of ephemeral profits.

Important assets and core values persist over time. Cor Herkstroter recognised that too: “I believe that one of the Group's greatest strengths has been our ability to take the long view - even when this has been unfashionable.”

May 1997 was over ten years ago. Things do move on. But these were not passing sentiments of the moment for Shell. The Shell Report 2001, a detailed and glossy exercise in CSR, affirmed: “our achievements depend on the efforts of Shell people all around the world. Their expectations drive our commitments.”

The section boldly headed ‘Business Principles’ continued the theme with the assertion that “It is recognised that commercial success depends on the full commitment of all employees.”

Credibility is hard to accrue and easily damaged. Not having credibility is tough, but professionals can earn it, painstakingly, over a period of time. However, having once had it and then lost it puts the professional in a much worse position. The loss tends to be permanent as staff, suppliers and customers adopt the understandable habit of taking everything you say with an appropriate amount of salt. As Alfred Adler recognised: “Life happens at the level of events, not of words,” or, as the Chinese have it: ‘Talk doesn't cook rice’.

One can point to the performance of Shell over the years and argue whether it represents success or failure and whether that gives them commercial credibility. That is not the point. Shell have shed staff before this latest proposed trance, yet there is no way of knowing what the outcome would have been had they refrained from offloading people. However, if one accepts their own evaluation of the basis of their success, their staff are clearly and plainly a crucial ingredient. Therefore it follows – as night follows day – that sacrificing any of this valuable resource has to be detrimental to their outcomes.

Shifting those staff to outsource partners does not secure for Shell the same benefits it once had. The staff in question will be expected to identify with the interests of their new employer, not Shell. There will no longer be that “full commitment” to Shell that it once published and promulgated as a determinant of commercial success. Sorry boys, you really cannot have your cake and eat it.

While I believe that people are an indispensable part of any organisation’s success – simply because without people there is no functioning organisation – it is not necessary for you to share that view. What is essential is to survey your past declarations, examine your own values, assess what will deliver success and act in accordance with those tenets at all times. As a professional your principles are not expensive, they’re priceless.

“If your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.” ~Henry J. Kaiser