Engaged to be......
It seems that there is more pressure than ever from people and organisations that want to engage with us, in one way or another, all the time.
It is easy to see why this could be when cars, banks, hotel rooms and even beer could be seen to be more or less all the same, whatever the branding says. How else do we differentiate our product and /or our service without the relationship element?
Lucy Kelloway, who writes for the Financial Times is all for this development; she claims that certain professionals, especially those that work random hours, need to be more flexible on holiday. This means taking your smart phones, laptop and mobile internet along with your bucket and spade. She has invented a new word to go with it; we need to go on "worlidays" now, spending at least some time every day in touch with our business.
But I don't see it that way. Having just spent twenty one days in a tent somewhere in deepest France without a Blackberry or a 'to do' list, the engagement was with French people, the language, the countryside, the food and the wine.
The key thing here, for all of us, is to choose if we can, with whom, how and when we engage.
Labels: Engagement with people and organisations
Fishes and wishes
A holiday break is a great time to review one’s life, to think about the things that are working for you and the things that could be better. For many of us it is that often elusive balance between work, family, hobbies and community.
I was on a lake recently and fished hard for six hours without seeing or hearing a solitary fish. I consoled myself with the thought that next day I had been invited to fish a well stocked commercial fishery. That day was spent catching or dropping fish of all shapes, colours and sizes on every single cast for the entire visit.
On reflection I am not sure which was the least pleasant experience – having too little, or having too much.
I meet business people all the time that want to set themselves extremely ambitious Bull’s Eyes. Often it is the older ones that have this irresistible urge to turn a lifetime of hard work into a more tangible and evident symbol of success. A chap in his sixties told me “I’ve always dreamed of driving the grandchildren round town in a Rolls Royce.”
When we do not have enough it is not a good place to be. But there is often a high price to pay for having more than enough. And is it worth it?
Labels: False dreams in business
Natural causes
No matter how you or I may want to run our business, there are some natural laws that, sooner or later, whether we like it or not, simply have to be obeyed.
I was asked to work with a family business recently where the issues were not so much with the business model or the quality of the products or services. It was all to do with the feuding and rivalry between the two sisters and the brother that had inherited the business from their father. With father having passed away recently it seemed to me like the leadership of some forty staff was in freefall.
Despite being equal shareholders, one of the sisters wanted to correspond with me directly but without copying in her sibling directors. I replied to her very first email and copied the other two in. Indignantly she replied that the business wouldn’t have any problems “if the other two would just listen to me”.
The more open and honest transactions can be in business the better it is for the organisation itself and for the relationships between the people running the business.
In family businesses it may mean trying to change the habits of a lifetime but everyone will be a winner in the end.
Labels: Dealing with conflict in family businesses
