Will Wellworths be the new Microsoft or Virgin? For those of you that haven't read the story , an innovative and adventorous ex Woolworths store manager has raised enough money through consortium funding to reopen the Woolies store in Dorset as Wellworths. This is a great story, Claire Robertson (remember that name as she could soon be mentioned in the same breath as Gates and Branson) worked her way up from Saturday girl to store manager and is now employing 22 former employees in the new venture.
I bet when Woolworths were considering their future and wasting a fortune on expensive turnaround consultants they didn't give Claire a 2nd, 3rd or even a milliointh thought! What a shame, I would have put money on her having anwers for many of the chains problems.
The real shame is that thousands of businesses are in the same boat, the financial crisis is hurting their business and the traditional response is to reduce cost and get rid of people. When it comes to removing people from a business there is no real logic to it. Managers, apparently, make their decisions based on "legitimate" business criteria? The reality is far from the truth the decision is most likely made on salary, service function etc, the really scary factor and the one no one will admit is that many decisions are made on feeling! Like it or not these decisions are made by people not machines and peoples decision making process will be influenced by feeling.
The danger of the traditional approach to downsizing is that is takes no account of either the value of each individual in terms of their human capital value (how much they have cost to develop and how much they contribute) or their "real" and often unseen influence in the organisation or how innovative they are. There are some fantastic tools out there that can do all three. The real tragedy is that if these tools were used for performance improvement as opposed to survival there would be no need to down size in the first place.
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
Friday, 6 March 2009
Who do THEY think you are?
I had an interesting chat with my Mother in law this week. A good friend of hers has a son who is very senior in a major UK company. As he would be a great be a great contact for my Leadership coaching and Innovation development business I asked for an introduction. After a bit of an awkward silence she said that she was not comfortable as she didn't know what I did? I was amazed, I assumed that after 16 years she would have some idea (beyond plumber, shelf fixer upper, taxi driver and son in law).
I guess the key point is you are whatever people think you are not what you believe you are.
This is really important in all aspects of our lives non more so than our professional lives in the current climate.
I have experienced that sense of frustration when clients have told me how hard it was to find a leadership consultant, exec coach, innovation consultant etc. for a major project!
OK deep breath, calm "Why didn't you ask me"-- Embarassed silence "Oh, I didn't think of you! I thought you just did training!"
The reality is that only you can manage what others think of you. If it is important to you personally or professionally YOU have to take responsibilty for what others think of you.
This often involves a raised awareness of how dress, what you say, how you say it and how you behave. There are dozens of ways to manage these things, far too many to go into in a blog, but perhaps the simplest place to start is to ask questions (the right ones of course).
Who have you put into a box that might be too small for them?
I guess the key point is you are whatever people think you are not what you believe you are.
This is really important in all aspects of our lives non more so than our professional lives in the current climate.
- Your boss is going to make decisions about your furure based on what S/HE thinks of you!
- Your current clients will only offer you new business if THEY think you can do it.
- Your network will only recommend you to others if THEY know what you are.
I have experienced that sense of frustration when clients have told me how hard it was to find a leadership consultant, exec coach, innovation consultant etc. for a major project!
OK deep breath, calm "Why didn't you ask me"-- Embarassed silence "Oh, I didn't think of you! I thought you just did training!"
The reality is that only you can manage what others think of you. If it is important to you personally or professionally YOU have to take responsibilty for what others think of you.
This often involves a raised awareness of how dress, what you say, how you say it and how you behave. There are dozens of ways to manage these things, far too many to go into in a blog, but perhaps the simplest place to start is to ask questions (the right ones of course).
Who have you put into a box that might be too small for them?
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Alcohol should we regulate or educate?
I took part in a discussion this morning in BBC radio Berkshire about the problem (percieved or real) of teenage alcohol abuse. It has always been there, I have memories of beer binges, fags and strong mints in our den. This soon gave way to house parties and party sevens (that will age me no doubt).
This weekend friends held a teenage disco for their 14 year old daughter. Out of nearly 60 teenagers one managed to sneak a bottle of vodka in and got slightly over refreshed and one other was acting drunk but was clearly acting for the sake of cool (or should that be Kewl?).
Two from 60 would not appear to be a problem (both boys), or am I deluding myself because it was a nice middle class party?
I do consider myself blessed that both my teenage girls have have healthy views on smoking and drinking despite my less than exemplary role modelling. Thank god they could never have known me as a teen!
There is an argument that the availability and cost of alcohol is a critical factor in teenage alcohol abuse and that increasing cost and decreasing availabilty is the answer. I am not sure, prohibition in the States did little more than drive alcohol underground, fuel gandland profit and power and take tax out of the ecomomy.
Surely education is the key. If the majority of society clearly understand the risks and make sensible choices then there isn't a significant problem. Of course there will always be those that make the choice to abuse or develop problems, but if they are an educated minority the cost will be much lower (financialy and socially) than trying to regulate our way out of a problem.
So should we educate or legislate?
As a coach I have to come down on the side of education and personal responsibilty. People make the best choices they can given there knowledge, understanding and circumstance. The choices some people make may seem bizarre, criminal or insane to the the rest of us, but then we might have a very different set of criteria to make our choices from!
This weekend friends held a teenage disco for their 14 year old daughter. Out of nearly 60 teenagers one managed to sneak a bottle of vodka in and got slightly over refreshed and one other was acting drunk but was clearly acting for the sake of cool (or should that be Kewl?).
Two from 60 would not appear to be a problem (both boys), or am I deluding myself because it was a nice middle class party?
I do consider myself blessed that both my teenage girls have have healthy views on smoking and drinking despite my less than exemplary role modelling. Thank god they could never have known me as a teen!
There is an argument that the availability and cost of alcohol is a critical factor in teenage alcohol abuse and that increasing cost and decreasing availabilty is the answer. I am not sure, prohibition in the States did little more than drive alcohol underground, fuel gandland profit and power and take tax out of the ecomomy.
Surely education is the key. If the majority of society clearly understand the risks and make sensible choices then there isn't a significant problem. Of course there will always be those that make the choice to abuse or develop problems, but if they are an educated minority the cost will be much lower (financialy and socially) than trying to regulate our way out of a problem.
So should we educate or legislate?
As a coach I have to come down on the side of education and personal responsibilty. People make the best choices they can given there knowledge, understanding and circumstance. The choices some people make may seem bizarre, criminal or insane to the the rest of us, but then we might have a very different set of criteria to make our choices from!
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
The importance of the right pitch. Less is more
I had a great day on Monday with a group of people who have come together to pool their expertise to inspire teams to ever greater performance.
http://www.winningteams.co.uk/index.html
I am a great reflector, and what struck me was that we all had so much to say about what we do that we lost the message in the words!
We are overloaded with information, blogs, newletters, twitter, social networking sites, email et-al.
Whether you are selling yourself at a job interview, a product or your own company you have such a small window of opportunity before your audience switches off.
How many are still with me? Not as many as started because I have not promised anything so have broken the rules already!
If you do need to grab attention read on because I am going to show you in less than a minute how to make your point within a minute.
It only takes 6 elements, so if you keep each to less than 10 seconds you've said everything you have to in less than a minute.
1. Who your are.
2. Who your message is for. (target audience)
3. What they /want/need/fear.(statement of compelling reason to buy)
4. What you are talking about. (product name category or label)
5. How it helps.(statement of key benefits)
6. Your differentiator. (primary competitive alternative)
There is obviouly far more to conveying a compelling message than words alone, some would say that words account for only 7% of the message that you convey. That being the case then you should choose your words carefully and adapt them to suit the listener!
http://www.winningteams.co.uk/index.html
I am a great reflector, and what struck me was that we all had so much to say about what we do that we lost the message in the words!
We are overloaded with information, blogs, newletters, twitter, social networking sites, email et-al.
Whether you are selling yourself at a job interview, a product or your own company you have such a small window of opportunity before your audience switches off.
How many are still with me? Not as many as started because I have not promised anything so have broken the rules already!
If you do need to grab attention read on because I am going to show you in less than a minute how to make your point within a minute.
It only takes 6 elements, so if you keep each to less than 10 seconds you've said everything you have to in less than a minute.
1. Who your are.
2. Who your message is for. (target audience)
3. What they /want/need/fear.(statement of compelling reason to buy)
4. What you are talking about. (product name category or label)
5. How it helps.(statement of key benefits)
6. Your differentiator. (primary competitive alternative)
There is obviouly far more to conveying a compelling message than words alone, some would say that words account for only 7% of the message that you convey. That being the case then you should choose your words carefully and adapt them to suit the listener!
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