It’s not often I go to the gym at 6.30 in a morning, I usually prefer midday to give me a break during work.
But today I was up early, the sun was shining and I felt great. So a workout and a swim before work seemed a good idea.

I now regret not having been at this time before. The amount you learn about what’s happening in business is really interesting.
Makes the BBC’s Today programme look positively short of news.

For instance today’s headlines from the gym are:

“Kevin’s just not pulling his weight…”
and as he’s responsible for increasing sales and as they are targeted on a team result it’s not pleasing the rest of his team. The boss won’t find out till it’s too late to meet target because if he’s so stupid that he can’t see it himself then it’s his look-out.

“The new sales push will knock the competition for six”
A company has come up with a new product and pricing structure to steal some of the competition’s major clients in September. By the time the competition has leant what’s happening it’ll be too late for them to do much.

Preparing for the future
Having listened to all this news I wondered if the boss did know about Kevin, or was he relying on monthly statistics. If he’s relying on the sales stats he will have little chance of reversing the situation before targets become impossible to be met.

More imporantly, does the competition not know that they are about to have their sales attacked? If the new product line and pricing structure is as effective and destructive as anticipated then there will be a panic and a rush to “Fix the problem” in September. In my experience this will always be a costly and time consuming exercise.

The gym’s news confirms that It’s always worth having an early warning system to identify what the future might bring and obviously the Gym at 6.30 is a place I will be going to more often.

As for my early warning system…I think the picture below shows my future

A few days ago Mark Rogers, the UK General Manager for Apple Computers, told me that for a job at Apple and above Manager level there will be around eight interviews.

Actually this came as no surprise. The energy that Apple put into selecting the right individual for their senior appointments is indicative of the energy that they put into everything they do!

However, when mentioning this to some of my business friends, they thought this process too long and protracted and would take up too much valuable time. Yet my argument would be that it’s better to expend valuable time at the start of the process and to get it right than to have to waste it later in clearing up a mess!

This latest video may help you decide

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It’s been noticed that over the past few weeks Maria has been identifying those people with real influence in the organisation. A particularly important strategy for any new hire.

So far she seems to be making an effort to engage with the Sales Director, Project Manager and Company Secretary.

The Sales Director views having the Personnel Manager on his side as being a very useful alliance as he has some changes in mind for the structure of the sales teams and he will need help and advice to implement these correctly.

Developing a network seems to be going well for Maria. There is one fly in the ointment however. She was overheard running down some members of her team to the Sales Manager saying, “I’m not sure how Christine (her assistant manager) would be much help to you, I think she’s overrated. If you need some help, come directly to me”.