On the journey
If any one of your team doesn’t want to be on the flight path towards the Bull’s Eye, then it is best for all concerned if they get off. Successful organisations are trying to ignite the passion, harness the commitment and spread the enthusiasm of everyone on the payroll. Of course it’s a tall order but then so is the excellence that we all have to be aspiring towards. This is how we differentiate ourselves from everyone else.
I was talking with a sous chef in a London restaurant recently. Essentially the gist of what he was saying is that he wanted it to be like it was twenty years ago. “We invented dishes to order then. It was fun, it was spontaneous. Now I feel like I am on a production line.”
Then there is the talented stylist I met whilst conducting a Staff Survey that is building his empire so blatantly, but who has not the slightest interest in developing the skill, knowledge or attitude of his team of ten.
Another business lady, closer to home, who has been feuding with her Managing Director for four years said, “Well of course I want the Sales Director’s job but my three children have to come first.”
Four years indeed. What kind of slack is there in a business that can incinerate so much time, energy and ultimately, money?Labels: be on the journey or get off
Great expectations
Developing the personal brand of the Managing Director in alignment with the Bull’s Eye for their organisation is always something to be encouraged, but you can pay a price.
In an executive group forum we were discussing what makes each and every one of us special. What particular talent is it that each leader uses to bring most benefit to their business. The Managing Director of an extremely successful brewery, for example, said that he has visited all six hundred customers personally, “because our Bull’s Eye statement of excellence says we always try to offer outstanding personal service”.
Yet another, who retails both online and offline, cited the quality of her analysis and critical decision making ability. “Analysis first, people second” she said.
However another client who has been very successful in becoming the figurehead of his business went on to say “I sometimes find it hard enough to live up to my own expectations of myself, let alone other peoples”. We were talking about both the local and the national high profile he has created for himself and for his business and he added, “I get asked to do so many things that are of absolutely no value to my business and I just can’t fit them all in”.
And at the Abergavenny Food Fair yesterday I watched celebrity chef Cyrus Todiwala being followed round by a BBC camera crew pretty much all day long.
So ‘know what you want’ is still the key to getting both your business and your personal life in alignment.
Labels: know what you want to get business an personal life in alignment
Mind the gap
So many organisations have a void between what the directors are hoping to achieve and what the managers are capable of, or are able to achieve. This gives rise to frustration and stress for all concerned.
The opportunity to join everything up or put the jigsaw pieces together is one not to be missed, but it usually takes a trusted outsider to do it. The reason this sort of thing happens is not hard to find. It is simply the fact that time and circumstance are changing every minute of every day of every week for all of us, no matter whether we work in the public, the private or the not for profit sectors.
This means that our original position on the business, the one we set out in a business plan last month or the one we spoke about at the company away day in the Spring, is out of date.
We can only see our business from the inside out, but very often time and circumstance impact our business from the outside in.
Business Plans and Away Days are OK things to have but the real driver of the business is the Monthly (Weekly?) Senior Team meeting where a professional chair determines three things:
1) What are we going to do?
2) Who will take responsibility for doing it?
3) When will it be done by?
The bullet point Action Plan from these meetings is the starting point for each months meeting. This is the dynamic, exciting, live part of your operation.
Do it like this and you will soon see where the gaps are in your business.Labels: exciting, How to find the dynamic, live part of your business operation
The addiction
The business can be, is or may become an addiction for anyone. However, many of us are capable of more than just one addiction. Maybe they go hand in hand.
There is a leader near here that almost lives for his horses – it is the race meeting above all else that excites every fibre in his body. A lady CEO has the most amazing collection of dolls from around the world – everywhere she goes it is essential to buy one. Someone else always brings very expensive dark chocolate to the Board meetings which she is unable to share.
Tobacco is an easy one and so is our liking for too much sweet or convenience food. Erratic travel, impromptu meetings and variable hotels make it easy to justify our habits, to ourselves at least. Another leader secretly nurtures the day when he could be by the sea where he could sail the ocean waves every single day. A CEO based in Gloucester watches a Premiership football match every weekend, alternating between two grounds each week in the North West, 150 miles away.
Everything is created twice. First we imagine it, then next we do it. So addictions are interesting because of the amount of dreaming time, thinking time and mental energy they absorb every day of every week of our lives. Try asking a real ale fanatic his favourite tipple or a Classic FM devotee her favourite composer. You will see the face change, the eyes light up, we give our addiction away in a split second.
One thing is for sure. If we decide to drop an addiction for whatever reason, it will leave a hole or a vacuum in our life. There will suddenly be more time, more energy and usually more money, to spend elsewhere.
If you share your addiction with a partner at home, like a couple of bottles of wine every night for example, then it will be a joint challenge.
Or maybe it will be a joint opportunity.Labels: Our addiction to spending time energy and money
