“I began doing everything by myself, drawing without knowing how to draw, designing without knowing how to design, directing without knowing how to direct. It was all very experimental at the time, based on trial and error.”

Those quotes could have been from the same person but in fact they come from people in two different continents and relate to projects that couldn’t be more different. The former was a comment by one of the founders of the Great Western Society that now runs the Didcot Railway Centre. As teenagers in the 1960s, four friends set out to buy a small steam engine to preserve it from being scrapped as British Railways moved over to diesel. With the optimism of youth they embarked on a project that most would have considered impossible, that then grew into something much, much bigger.

The second quote was from the founder of the Brazilian swimwear company, Salinas, and referred to the period when as a teenager,  she started making bikinis at home for the local market. Salinas has now grown to be a global brand favoured by many A-list celebrities  - probably something that may have been considered impossible if it was considered at all. (Full article on the BBC business website.)

If all you see is obstacles you’ll never get anywhere. If you see opportunities there is a slight possibility that the impossible may be possible.

When this building was at the planning stage, why didn’t someone take a look at the reason that they end up with a full waiting room. I can think of two reasons only:

1. The doctors don’t start their surgeries on time. Not hard to fix!
2. Consultations take longer than the allocated time. OK, so make the slots 12 minutes say, rather than ten. Or leave a catch up ‘blank’ appointment every so often.

These simple expedients could have saved a huge investment in unnecessary waiting space and reduced the frustration of appointment times having no relationship with the actual time of the consultation. Surely this is a classic case of devising a solution before/without considering the problem and its causes. A missed opportunity.

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.

Understanding the people with whom we are hoping to do business is vital. Of course, that applies equally whether they reside at home or abroad.

Sadly it is something that many of us learn late on in life (and some never do). In sport, business or life in general, apart from the super confident (deluded?) most of us are all too aware of our shortcomings and need to be reminded of our strengths and abilities.

I’m going to bore you with a little history! This is the 300th post since this blog started in its original guise as The Watercooler. Some of the early posts were written by friends before I stopped nagging them and took full responsibility for what appears in print. However, my wandering mind first started dumping its thought in written form on the 26th April 2006 when Random Ramblings first appeared on my original website. Then, with the advent of my second website, RR became a monthly emailed newsletter. With this, my third website iteration, I started the Watercooler blog and for some while ran RR as a separate entity. But it seemed a bit unfair to inflict quite so much waffle on the world and so a few months back I merged the streams so now the monthly emailed Ramble is a collation of what appears in the blog, with a some mild editing.

Anyone who writes as much as I have over the years is either very creative or they nick ideas from elesewhere. I fall into the latter category. One of my key influencers is Seth Godin. I was rather taken with an eclectic list of a dozen pieces of advice Seth published recently. My favourites are:

1. Borrow money to buy things that go up in value, but never to get something that decays over time. (If only the world had taken note!)
2. It’s almost never necessary to use a semicolon. (He’s completely wrong on this!!!)
3. Backup your hard drive. (Well reminded.)
4. Taking your dog for a walk is usually better than whatever alternative use of your time you were considering. (Hmm, no dog.)

And just to finish off, here are three thoughts I’ve borrowed from elsewhere:

1. A pessimist is never disappointed. (Eddie Kiely, a work colleague from many years back.)
2. Smile – it confuses people. (Scott Adams – American humourist.)
3. Strategies are okayed in boardrooms that even a child would say are bound to fail. The problem is there is never a child in the boardroom. (Victor Palmieri, US corporate turnaround specialist.)

Happy Christmas!

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!

I was watching some of the Masters tennis from the Royal Albert Hall at the weekend. John McEnroe was playing Henri Leconte. The commentator made the point that they had very similar ability but McEnroe had the belief. He won 17 Grand Slam titles including seven singles. Leconte’s highlights were a doubles title, a runner-up and two singles semi-final places. McEnroe thought that he could and so he did.

An even more dramatic demonstration of mind power is snake bites. Apparently many people who die after being bitten by a snake do so from fear, not snake venom. You see, a snake does not automatically inject venom when it bites, it is a selective process depending on the snake’s intentions.

I believe that the difference between very successful entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, Alan Sugar and Duncan Bannatyne and the rest of us is that they believed they could. We are more cautious. We fear failure; what people might think. Is it time to think of just ONE thing we’d like to do but have been held back by caution? How about putting fear aside and doing it now? If you like, a sort of Old Year’s Resolution.

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.

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.