Anger
When the directors of a business cannot seem to agree on the
Bull’s Eye for their business, the single most common reason is a lack of trust
between them.
The finance director was red with rage as she denounced her
colleague, director of marketing, in front of me, for half baked ideas. “You
bring projects to the table that might sound interesting, but you have nothing
on paper, nothing on projected sales and PBT, nothing on cash flow
implications.”
Silent, open, hostility.
Then Amanda spat her reply “And if it was left to you and
your ability to have any new ideas at all, we wouldn’t even have a business.
You are just a bean counter!”
When you share your tacit knowledge with a colleague, however
this happens, it will always result in business reward.
Even if this means a parting of the ways.
One night stand
Some leaders are excellent
at relating to some people in some situations but not good with others. How can
this be? Surely we are either good at engaging with people or not?
MD Mandy was in
trouble with her own people. Despite running a successful and growing business,
the staff survey feedback talked about remoteness, inability to focus and being
distracted from core business. Yet if this was true how come the same person
had grown the business so well from a standing start?
I had experienced
several instances of the same thing in various organisations recently so what
is it all about? Part of the answer is that it is one thing to sell your
product and service to a whole succession of customers or clients. It's a kind
of formula we can all learn: we can turn on the charm, give it charisma overload
and win the order, time and time again.
But try the same
approach with colleagues and staff, the same people that you have known and
seen day after day, week after week, maybe for years, and it simply doesn't
work.
In addition, there
are some colleagues and staff that you instinctively and intuitively like and
respect. There will be others where it feels like hard work every day, every
time you have a transaction with them.
So if you are
struggling to relate to some of the business people in your life, ask yourself
whether you are doing all the work that is required for a committed
relationship between two people.
Or are you simply
going through the motions of a one night stand?
The Line
The older I get and the more clients I work with, the less I
think I understand about any of them. There is a kind of invisible line between
every client / supplier relationship, especially on the service side of things.
A solicitor client was rehearsing a talk he is giving soon
about commercial property. The purpose of the presentation is to help members
of the audience prepare and deal with some of the mechanics of the transaction
so that they can avoid unnecessary fees. “But surely,” I said, “there are people
who do not want to deal with title deeds, due diligence and banks? They just
want the result.” “You are missing the point.” he replied.
Yesterday another client surprised me with the strength of the
criticism she levelled at their company accountant.
She said “This bloke wants to flog me all sorts of add on packages that will
help me manage my business better. I don’t want all that. I told him to go and
manage his own business better.”
And this invisible line moves all the time. I got a call
from someone I haven’t worked with for ten years this week and she told me exactly
what she wanted. I said that there are better people out there for this than me.
She just replied, “Tim, you are the man; we have not considered anyone else.”
One could argue that the product side of business is largely
transactional, but there is no doubt that the service side of things, between
the right people, can be transformational.
With each and every client you just have to try and know
where the line is.........
Development points
The most
powerful way to achieve performance improvement in organizations is to clarify
exactly how the leaders intend to improve themselves both individually and
collectively.
Of course
this can be personal and sometimes painful for all concerned.
Three
summers ago we had our last family holiday with our two teenagers. As the years
had passed they had both become more and more assertive, not to say rebellious
about their parent’s choice of holiday destination. By the time the boy was 17
and the girl 18 dialogue had more or less broken down. So we chose to spend a
week in Bruges.
Neither
child knew much about Bruges and it was only when we were on the platform
waiting to catch the Eurostar out of London that they started to find out more.
Gradually their comments became more and more scornful as we tried to assuage
them with promises of delights and excitements to come. But it was no use and
it got even worse as the Eurostar sped off in one direction whilst we were left
on a wet platform to take the suburban train further into Belgium.
Something had
to be done. I invited the other three to say just one thing each about my demeanour
and or behaviour that they thought I could improve in the interests of their
individual and collective health and temper. Now they all thought that this was
a good game. They entered into it, including partner Sharon, with what can only
be described as ‘enthusiastic gusto’ and I had to restrict their comments to just
one each. They were just starting to enjoy themselves a little more when I
advised that the game was not over, but that we now needed to turn our
attention to each of them in turn.
The
exercise resulted in an atmosphere of mutual openness, trust and tolerance that
had seemed unlikely beforehand.
Three years
on and our daughter is in Thailand having a wonderful time with two girlfriends.
They are all strong characters and Ursula texted me from the departure lounge
to say that they had just played “that game.......”
It works in Boardrooms
too.
Hay
All leaders
must take time out to simply forget the business for a while whether they want
to or not.
There were lots
of ways to deflect the mind in Herefordshire this week. We chose the Hay
Festival of literature and the arts. After the glorious weather recently we
were all decked out in sandals and tea shirts, but unbeknown to us office types
the last 36 hours had seen a change in the weather.
Despite the
Kilvert Hotel proclaiming 'enjoy the sun' the town was waterlogged and 15
degrees C colder than when they put the sign out. People wielding umbrellas
were a constant threat and those that were only half wet by the time we caught
the Hopper to the pavilion, need not have bothered because the enthusiastic
volunteer bus drivers found the deepest puddles with which to drench us all as
we waited to board.
Some
consolation in the pavilion may have been the thought that there were some
pretty famous people about. The fact that I had bought tickets for Ian McEwan
the writer when I thought we were seeing Ian McKellen the actor failed to
dampen spirits. But queuing to get to the event involved nipping smartly
between adjoining tents; the people in front did it but then unaccountably
stopped, leaving me stranded between them and the group behind. My reward, as
the wind gusted, was a short, sharp, shock of icy water that raced down from
neck to toe.
After the event
it was smartly to the Hopper stop to get back to Hay in time for a bevvy.
Wheezing, freezing and sneezing I was first on and grabbed the front seat. But
this is the spot where the following passengers look up the bus to see where
they might sit so, as they purposefully flourished their umbrellas in and out,
they showered a wretched, sodden figure cowering behind the door trying to
reawaken frozen limbs.
Back home now and I didn’t think about work at all, you
could try it yourself, since there are seven days left.
