I was having a discussion with a friend last night about the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympics and how business is going to cope with the distruption to travel in London and the time off taken by staff. However soon the discussion moved to what happens when it’s all over

However, I wonder what happens after the party’s over?
Once the Jubilee and the Olympics are over will there be a sense of anti-climax.
Will people feel less enthusiastic at work as winter comes and economic troubles hit us again?
Or will one of the legacies be that a “Feel good factor” will last though the winter?

The challenge for business leaders
The challenge could be to assess the possible legacy on our team and how to keep the team motivated once the fun has ended.
It’s a challenge that managers should start to think about now.

“Is there a world leadership crisis?” was the question posed to me yesterday by someone in the group I was speaking to yesterday.

Lack of political leadership
I had been talking about business team leadership and the question opened up a flood of thoughts that I’d had myself about leadership. In the recent past the world seems to have been led by rather uncharismatic political leaders. A few years ago we had great hopes for President Obamah but due to his problems with Congress his light seems to have faded. The European Community seems to have few politicians who understand or even identify with the people they are leading and their handling of the current debt crisis is leaving many exasperated. Popular revolutions replace dictators with “much the same as before”.

Business leadership not much better
But is business also suffering from a leadership crisis?
Bankers, all over the world, are as popular as a bad smell in a confined space, Journalists, in the UK, are viewed by many people as having little or no moral scruples, business leaders of all shades seen as feathering their own nests with undeserved salary increases and bonuses whilst their workers are laid off and have their salaries cut.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that there seems to be a universal lack of leadership.

Influenced by headlines
In reality, however, it’s always easy to become influenced the “Headlines”. In doing so we can ignore the huge numbers of people beavering away and producing small successes that move a business team forward. In the past few weeks I’ve met dozens of small business leaders that are managing to keep their business teams motivated, enthusiastic for the future and actually growing their business results.

That’s not to say there aren’t difficulties. Youth unemployment is a huge problem, the value of retirement annuities a disaster for many and industries laid bare a tragedy. Yet walk up any street and you notice so many business start-ups. Open up any magazine and you can see new and innovative products. Go into millions of businesses and you can find great team leaders.
I wonder if we can persuade some of these leaders to run for government?

Yesterday I had an interesting meeting with my good friend Warren Cass, the founder of Business Scene, discussing what type of speakers audiences were wanting to hear at networking events and business conferences.

My contribution, as a business speaker, was that I’ve noticed that audiences have changed what they are wanting to hear from the stage. I’ve detected that audiences are no longer willing to listen to the motivational speaker
encouraging the audience to “Do it like I did” or the “How to
improve…” talk or even worse the “I’ve written a book you’ll love to
buy” talk. Instead they are wanting information that’ll help them, and their business teams, survive and even prosper in the future and through these difficult times.

The future of speaker’s keynotes
I predict that the during 2012 people will be wanting to hear speakers offer an opinion on what the future holds, practical tips on how to survive the economic downturn and how teams can be made more efficient and profitable. That’s not to say that people want to be bored to death or filled with statistics, they won’t put up with that either! The talks will have to be entertaining, energetic and full of information. An interesting time for the future of the conference speaker and for those booking them for their audiences.

How to motivate the sales team to achieve target is a topic that keeps sales managers awake at night. Yesterday a group of sales managers in my network talked about retaining and motivating salespeople at one of our regular meetings.

Their insomnia was the thought of their top sales people leaving the team. In the past huge rewards could be given to top salespeople but in these times throwing money at saslespeople to retain their loyaly is more difficult and in any event in the long run it will fail as, one day, all the best salespeople will leave.

A lot of suggestions were made and the group asked if I could put some of the ideas on film for the one absent member of the group. Having made the first I think it’s worth sharing with everyone in my network and, if popular, then I’ll create a series on salesteams.

Motivating A Sales Team For The Long Haul

I’m not a fan of Lord Sugar but one has to admire his ability to generate controversy. His article in the Daily Telegraph where he says that networking events are a waste of time and only profit the organisers has certainly stirred up a hornets nest of comment within my network.

Lord Sugar wrote:
“I am sick and tired of hearing people asking what to do, going to networking meetings and seminars expecting to glean some gems of wisdom. These events are money-making exercises and benefit one party and one party only: the organiser.

As usual he’s has managed to polarise opinion with networking organisers, thinking he’s talking nonsense and others who think that he’s right. For my part I feel both have a valid opinion. For my part and, this is where I agree with Sugar, I avoid networking groups that give a piss poor product, and unfortunately there are too many of them!

Too often people are invited to a networking meeting without any idea of who else is attending and with no one to manage introductions. Time is wasted listening to sponsors and the organiser promoting their own business and when the speaker does satnd up it’s an anticlimax of mediocrity. However a well run event will always stand out from the crowd.

The rest of Sugar’s article talks about being self-reliant and in this I hope that his fee for writing the article was huge because it’s had the desired affect of generating discussion.

 Managing top talent so that they are engaged and remain with a business is a problem. Yesterday I found myself in a long discussion with with a friend who is concerned that he might lose some of his best talent.

1. The first thing that we could both agree on in that true talent is in short supply and is worth keeping at all costs and even when it leaves is worth maintaining contact in case one can attract it back!
2. Too many talented people become dissolusioned after having their expectations dashed with broken promises of personal learning, clear career path or making a contribution.
3. Often talent will be suffocated in large organisations and will prefer ambiguity and uncertainty because it fuels their thought processes and will therefore gravitate towards small business or even self-employment.

Motivating talent is difficult when they seem to be always ahead of the maingroup, with too many ideas and too little time and feeling that they are having to maintain their energy levels in the face of others who are lazy and have no vision.

After our discussion my friend came to two conclusions. The first was that talent is often complex and therefore needs to be understood and managed on an individual basis. Secondly that appropriate learning and stimulus programmes need to be in place in order to keep the talent engaged.

If you would like to hear more of our conclusions them please email me: stephen@assimilating-talent.com

Over the past few weeks I’ve been talking to some sales managers over the type of questions to ask prospective salespeople. The questions on motivation were interesting because most candidates won’t be entirely truthful when asked “What motivates you?”

Motivation interview questions for Sales people