I had a long breakfast with a friend and Company Director this morning. Over the bacon and eggs we talked about some senior and unexpected departures from one of his competitors. He was identifying the opportunities these senior departures presented for his own company.

In short he categorised these as:

• Available talent might be available and useful to his own comany (possibly on a consultancy basis)
• The competitor’s clients might speculate that they might need to shop around for alternative suppliers (Just in case!)
• Loss in staff morale and as a result loss of productivity
• Gap in leadership until new leader can be appointed and begin to succeed
• Possible further departures which could increase problems
• Cost to competitor of rehiring and lead-in time for newe job holder

Too often, when senior management departs staff look to the future wondering if the business is doomed. (Even if the leader had been unpopular) and wonder if they should consider finding another job before it’s too late. My friend and I speculated that the benefits for my friend’s company could last between six and nine months and be worth many clients and an increase in sales income.

Bernard Matthews as an example
One only has to look at Bernard Matthews, the turkey company, to see how the loss of top people can benefit competitors. Last week the Chairman, Davis McCall, stepped down. Then the Chief Executive, Noel Bartram left and follows Rob Mears the Managing Director’s ealier departure.
The company employs 2200 people with a further 1000 staff in Germany and Hungary. In recent years Trading conditions have been poor for the company with bird flu and increase in costs. In addition staff morale has been hit and sales have slumped. Profits on a turnover of £341m amounted to just £2m.
With the departure of senior people it could be expected that morale and productivity will further be affected unless the latest appointment of David Joll (former CE) can secure a rumoured investment of between £20 and £30million. In which case he could end up as a hero.

A Strategy
My friend and I worked on plans until lunchtime on ways to manage possible, though unlikely, senior departures in his own company.

Stephen Harvard Davis

I often find myself talking to team managers about the differences between “Change” and “Transition”.
The reason for the discussion is that so many people assume that they are the same.

In my experience nothing could be further from the truth and very simply:
Change: Is a physical move to a new place. (This includes move of office, new way of working, dieting, learning and so on).
Transition: Are the mental stages that people move through to arrive at the new place

The definition illustrates why some team leaders find it difficult to implement change when they have other people to lead along a pathway to change. One of the major problems that contributes to change failure is that the leader works through the transition before those being led are given time to do so.

More information on transition management HERE

Having just paid my car insurance fee that, despite having nine years no claims bonus, rose once again I was delighted to hear that referral fees are to be outlawed and that The Office of Fair Trading is putting motor
insurance under the spotlight after premiums rose by
40% on average in a year.

First step in tackling dysfunctional compensation system
The Association of British Insurers – said it welcomed the announcement. As reported by the BBC, Director General Otto Thoresen
said: “We are very pleased that the government has listened to the
insurance industry’s campaign for a ban on referral fees.

“Banning referral fees is an important first step in tackling
our dysfunctional compensation system, and needs to be accompanied by a
reduction in legal costs and action to tackle whiplash if honest
customers are to benefit from these reforms.”

Change in culture and teams
Insurance companies, law firms, garages and other interested parties in the referral system merry-go-round will have to change their systems and their teams to reflect these changes.  That either means redundancy or allocation to other jobs (on the basis that the entire system doesn’t move underground).

Reduced bills
It’s interesting how there is expectation that once the system is outlawed and the teams that manage the current the system are disbanded, saving employment costs, and the huge compensation costs reduced that insurance premiums will fall.

I will await next year’s policy renewal notice with interest!