Legislation Harms Bus Travellers

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Jan 162012
 

Most businesses would say that there is too much legislation relating to employment. I’m sure that unions would say it’s necessary to protect employees’ rights. But does the legislation do more harm than good? For a start small businesses in particular are likely to go down the outsourcing route rather than taking on employees, and who can blame them? However, there’s another point. If you require legislation to keep you in a job, surely it can’t be a happy situation. Wouldn’t you be better off moving somewhere else? Just a day or two ago a headmistress was explaining how she had moved on one in six of her staff and saying that the conversations with them had been helpful to them to see that teaching wasn’t the right career choice for them.

Many years ago I had a guy working for me who just wasn’t cutting the mustard. We were puzzled by this but conversations with him and having him psychometrically tested revealed that he was the proverbial wrong shaped peg for the hole.  We got him moved to a more appropriate role. He was happier, we were happier and the company benefited from him being in a role where he was able to make a full contribution.

In his book, ‘From Good to Great’, Professor Jim Collins reports on very extensive research into how some companies outperformed their competitors over many years. One of the key factors was, as Collins puts it, having the right people on the bus and sitting in the right seats. This is possible only if there is flexibility to move people around or off that particular bus. Once we have a job that is reasonably secure and well paid, I suggest that most of us are reluctant to leave even if we don’t enjoy it. But this is helpful to no one. Allowing businesses to remove easily someone from the bus allows that person the opportunity to find the right employment for them … or gives them a necessary wake up call that they need to work harder in their next employment if that was the reason they’ve been ejected from the bus.

Is it right to deny someone the opportunity to move to a job that is better suited to them – that they will enjoy more? And why is it in anyone’s interest to protect lazy employees? Of course, there is another side to this. If employers communicate fully with their staff and involve them in all that’s going on, employees are more likely to feel committed to a business and what it is trying to achieve. An open and honest conversation in both directions will make it easier to ensure that people are on the right buses and buses have the right people on them.

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Geography Lesson

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Dec 132011
 

Kazakhstan. Where? Oh yes, isn’t it one of the ‘Stans‘ that used to be part of the USSR? Backward sort of place somewhere in Asia?

Believe it or not, there was a supplement on Kazakhstan in last Saturday’s Telegraph. I was about to consign it to the recycling when a headline caught my attention. Peace and Prosperity: A 20 Year History. In the relatively short time since it gained independence from Moscow, there has been an astonishing development of the economy with a prevailing climate of tolerance in this multi-ethnic country.

I have an interest in geography, history, world politics and business but I had no idea whatsoever about this amazing success story. This got my mind leaping in several directions:

Many of our businesses are falling over themselves to get established in the accepted developing economies of China, India and one or two other countries. Are they missing a trick by being unaware of the potential in countries such as Kazakhstan?

By following the herd are businesses missing opportunities to develop and establish themselves in markets and market sectors that aren’t on their radar?

Kazakhstan is using its geographic location to be a crossroads or meeting point between East and West, North and South. It is actively avoiding ‘taking sides’ and talking with all sorts of unlikely bedfellows. Could businesses become crossroads and meeting points in a metaphorical sense?

It strikes me that there are several lessons that we can learn and potentially apply in a creative way with our businesses.

By the way, Kazakhstan is keen to develop its tourist industry if you fancy a fact-finding holiday!

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Just Get On With It!

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Dec 062011
 

“No, just get on with it. I’ve sat through too many. Boring as hell.” So said TV football pundit Mark Lawrenson when asked if he was looking forward to the so-called cultural activities that preceded the draw for the 2012 European championships. I feel the same at the start of Strictly Come Dancing when Bruce Forsyth bumbles on for an eternity. Just get on with it!

I can think of examples of businesses not getting on with it. Sales brochures. Full of flowery prose. Just get on with it. All I want is facts. Facts that will help me decide whether the product will do what I want. Sales presentations. Forget the background details of your company. Just give me the facts about your products or services. If I want to know more I’ll ask. I could go on but I think you’ve got the message. Just get on with it.

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Heavy!

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Dec 022011
 

Yesterday as I was about to leave Basepoint Business Centre in Bromsgrove I was given a branded keyring that includes a disc that will operate the lock on supermarket trolleys. I am struck by how heavy it is. It has a quality feel about it. It started me thinking about heavy. A heavy pen feels much nicer to use than something that is light and plasticy. It has a quality feel. What is it about heavy that communicates quality? Possibly because heavy is often allied with solid and therefore feels well made. You don’t usually feel the weight of a car door  but the sound it makes when it closes shouts solid (and heavy), or not, as the case may be.

OK, so heavy is good. Well, not necessarily. The maker of that car will have worked hard to reduce weight to improve performance and fuel economy. Makers of very expensive performance cars may well use exotic materials such as carbon-fibre to reduce weight. Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner makes extensive use of carbon composites to reduce weight.

So light or heavy is good, depending on the application in question. But solid is always good. Except when you want something flexible!

There is a saying amongst engineers that if it looks right it probably is right. I think the same can be said about feel. Our brains have a way of working out what looks and feels right. What looks ‘quality’. Although this doesn’t always work. Try walking on a glass floor and see whether it feels right! Glass floors aside, the image portrayed by our business and our products can be influenced by feel. Hand over a business card that feels solid and we will immediately be perceived as being a higher quality business that if we use cheap and flimsy cards. They just don’t feel right. They’re not heavy.

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Passionate Presentations

 3 Responses »
Nov 092011
 

I’ve ranted about PowerPoint presentations before. A good few other folk bang on about them as well. But the message still isn’t getting through to many presenters. PowerPoint is the most effective tool ever invented to kill a performance stone dead. Note the use of the word ‘performance’. I have seen communication defined as ‘the transfer of emotion’. So just think about your next presentation. How will you transfer the emotion, the passion you have for your subject, to the audience? By the way, if you aren’t passionate about your subject, why are you going to talk about it? Get someone else to do it. Or just don’t bother.

What are you trying to achieve? Are you selling something? A product, service or an idea? Perhaps you are trying to recruit people to your cause. Or trying to persuade the Dragons in their den to invest in your business. Or perhaps you want to tell people about your solo voyage around the world. Whatever it is, surely you want to excite them not send them to sleep? Of course, if you are trying to sell something or are seeking investment or permission to do something, it is likely that you’ll want to present some facts. But these should be to help the audience to rationalize their decision. Facts alone won’t be sufficient. Or if they are, why do you need to make the presentation?

OK, so we need to put on a passionate performance that arouses the emotions of the listeners so that they are persuaded to our point of view in their hearts and we are going to appeal to their heads with a few powerfully presented facts. That is, the really, really important facts; the ones that will make them sit up and take notice.

There are five times more bacteria on the average desk than on the average toilet seat.

There, I bet that got your attention … especially if you happened to be eating your sandwiches off your desk at the time!

The reason for this startling fact is that we tend to clean our toilets rather more frequently than our desks. So it would be a great one-liner for someone pitching for an office cleaning contract. Just imagine two companies pitching for the business. One has dozens of PowerPoint slides and goes on for ages about how they started in a garden shed and now have a multi-branch operation in half a dozen towns around the West Midlands … and on and on. Are you asleep yet? The other business says nothing but puts up one slide with that single sentence. And then waits for the questions to start. Which do you think is more likely to get the business, all other aspects being equal?

I hope you noted that the presenter said nothing when the slide went up. It is a reasonable bet the audience will be able to read it, so let them do so. Never, ever read what is on a slide. If you want to talk, put up images that are relevant to what you are saying, that add to the impact or the understanding of your point.

You are trying to make an impact, to communicate your passion for what you do. Keep it simple and allow the emotion to come through.

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