I had a facinating discussion yesterday with a business friend on my observation that “Business teams are working hard at staying still”.

Teams standing still to survive
I suggested to him that, in the current economic climate, a majority of business teams had stopped evolving and developing new ideas. It seems that many businesses are afraid of the future and of spending money that may be needed for some unsepecified reason. The result is that teams have stopped evolving new ideas, improvements in process and new projects. They are standing still in the hope of surviving.

The problem is that doing nothing is NOT a survival strategy. Let me give the example that I gave my friend. The fewest number of business bankruptcies within the EU seems to be in Greece, Portugal and Spain. Countries where innovation and development and new business is at an all time low. The reason is that few businesses are being opened, fewer initiatives being created and a stagnation in entrepreneurial activity.

In Sweden and Norway, on the other hand, business failure is as high as ever…but then the number of businesses being opened and business success is also high. The proportion of success, however, vastly outsrips the failures. In the Uk the business teams that I’m working with have an energy that is developing new ideas, bringing in greater results and profits.

Formula for acceleration
It strikes me that the formula for mass and acceleration is applicable here: That being F=mA (F=Mass X acceleartion called a newton).
Replace F(Mass) For T (Team) and multiply it with ideas, innovation and experimentation and you can only end up with acceleration

I think that most people in the UK would have once prided themselves on the lack of corruption in the UK and the high level of business ethics. But have we been too naive in our beliefs.

Given the opportunity
Have the Leveson enquiry uncovering alleged payments to the police by journalists, journalists hacking phones, members of the legislature (MP’s and Lords) being convicted and imprisoned for fiddling their expenses and so on uncovered a reality in the UK that a lot of people, given the opportunity, will be on the fiddle?

Fear of being caught
Does this also encourage people to take the attitude “If they can do it…so can I”?
If people are given the opportunity “to pay cash to avoid paying VAT” do most accept?
Given too much change by a shopkeeper, do most give it back or think it’s their good luck.
In other words is corruption infectious or are most people not corrupt because of the fear of getting caught and if that fear recedes then people are likely to be more corrupt?
 

“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?

I’ve recently answered a question on what brings a product to life.

I disagreed with some people who thought that the answer was when the “money owing for the product clears in the bank account and exceeds the
liabilities that were created in the process of production”

I thought these answers were too simplistic and actually don’t describe “coming to life”. It could mean that a £1 profit meant the product had come to life and for me that’s not a good description. What I think describes a product coming to life is when it starts to “excite” the producers and purchasers. It’s only through an emotional state can a product actually have an “exciting life”.

Let me give you some examples.

a) In her recent Royal engagements The Duchess of Cambridge has worn coats from last years fashions and the shops have been inundated by people wanting to buy the same coats and shoes and have gone into new production to fulfil demand.

b) Apple creates a loyalty for its products and makes visiting the store exciting, energetic

c) Abercrombie and Fitch have an opposite product to the rest of the high street. The stores are dark, you can’t see the product clearly, it’s unbelievably expensive (in UK if not in USA) and yet kids crowd in, desperate to have a photo taken with half naked models where their muscles are highlighted by clever downward lighting and spray tanning to accentuate the bumps. The products are bought because it’s “Cool fashion”. It’s an exciting product.

The other thing about the examples above is that the product isn’t just what’s bought!
It’s the experience, the emotion of ownership and belonging to a group of other owners.

Products that don’t build this into the product mix may have a “Birth” but they’re likely to have a short life 

Yesterday I had a meeting with a friend who was concerned that his sales department was in conflict with other departments in the business. Marketing, accounts and It were all finding the attitude of the sales team problematical and verging on the bullying.
“The sales team has had so much money and resource pumped into them” complained my friend who was at a loss to understand or accept that they needed more or how this had resulted in conflict between the sales team, accounts, marketing and IT!

Over extended limb
This situation is not unusual where a specific part of a business becomes an “over extended limb” and eats up more money, resource and focus than the rest of the company. Exactly the same thing happens in counties that allow one industry or faction to become dominant. (Think of banking in the UK which has become such a dominant part the country’s GDP that it’s seen as too powerful, too demanding and increasingly unpopular).

Essential to the well being of the business
Having an over extended limb in an organisation will inevitably result in conflict. This is because as one part of the business is starved of funds it will blame the other for squandering resources. The over extended limb will justify it’s existence as being “essential to the well being of the business” and will blame other parts of the business for “lack of support”, “failing to understand the realities of the situation” and changes to the status-quo  will “harm the business”.

Results in casualties
The results of such infighting is that it distracts attention onto the mission critical results the business needs. Turning around this conflict takes time and in my experience always results in casualties where good talent leaves the business.

The way to avoid conflict is to avoid over-extended limbs

It’s not often that I blog twice in one day but I’ve been motivated by two pieces of news today. The first came from the BBC who predict that 1 in 4 children will grow up in poverty within the next ten years. The second piece of doom and gloom news was reported in Management Today that said “More doom and Gloom as BCC cuts UK growth forecast”.

The end of the world is nigh!
The world seems to be talking itself closer to the precipice faster than the village idiot saying that the end of the world is nigh! Quite frankly I’m tired of listening to doom and gloom merchants. Now I understand that good news doesn’t sell newspapers or advertising space on TV but can’t we have some success reported. There’s so much out there!

Successes
Such as the hugely successful and multiple award winning Riverbanks Clinic. Only recently established but already one of the UK’s leading Aesthetic Medicine Clinics and run by a brilliant team of dedicated professionals.

That Selfridges was voted the “Best Department Store in the World” at the Global Department Store Summit in New York in 2010

Lebara, the mobile phone company, that won the UK Customer Service award at the Mobile News Awards 2011

there’s so much good news to talk about do you know any other business success?
If so, let’s start to publicise them.

After only five months of regularly using video on my blog over 2000 views. The most popular have been those on asking and answering interview questions for sales jobs. Perhaps in the current financial climate that’s not surprising but it has encouraged me to upload more videos on recruiting and managing sales teams.

Most viewers come from The UK, USA, Canada, Kuwait, Australia and I hope that everyone will continue to find them useful.

I have watched with some amusement the mess that the UK’s coalition Government have found themselves in over their announcements to “Housing benefit” changes. We’ve been told that this will be capped at £400 per week. It reminds me of the situation that many business leaders and executives in a new job find themselves when introducing a “Quick win”. The reason is that to often “Quick wins” fail to deliver the expected results.

Let’s consider the UK’s proposal to cap housing benefit to reflect average earnings. On the surface it would seem sensible and would certainly reduce costs. But the (hopefully exaggerated) image of hundreds of thousands of families and children, particularly in London, being made homeless and trudging up the the road with their belongings as they are forced out of their homes to find cheaper accommodation has generated claims of “Social cleansing” from Mayor Boris Johnson and concern from many MPs.

Too often  a new team leader or senior executive in a business will introduce a “quick win” because they understand that they have little time to prove themselves and want to demonstrate that they are “hitting the ground running”. It’s also seen as a useful tool to create a positive reputation for being a forward thinker or innovator.

The change that’s generally selected has often worked for the individual in the past. However, what the new leader fails to consider is the new team, new culture and new management style. In communicating the “quick win” great emphasis will be placed on instant results (saving money) without analysis of the long-term consequences in other departments of areas of the business.

This often causes a storm of protest, the executive is wrong footed and either has to revise their plans with the consequence of “loss of face” and reputation or stick to their guns and be accused of being unfeeling, autocratic or worse. The problem is that a “Reputation” has been made and it’s a negative one and that reputation is often difficult to change.

I judge that we can expect some “Good news” from the coalition Government within the next few days

This is an answer I made to a question on Linkedin today about the failure of leaders to sack under- performing people. I thought it worthwhile also posting my answer onto my blog so that more of my network could read it.

I believer that business is going through a revolution.

In past credit squeezes firms and Governments would shed talent to reduce costs (the UK Government is about to do this again by reducing civil service personnel by up to 25%). The result was that essential knowledge and skills were lost and recovery took longer as a result.
So, this time round, firms have attempted to retain their talent, even those less productive, as leaders hope for a quick upturn. The problem is that the upturn is slow in the west.

Further problems are that with coming food inflation and possible grain shortages, extended insecurity as the credit crunch continues and Government policy that increases tax whilst reduces spending businesses are now being forced to start to look to their staff costs. This means that some of the “good” people will be shed as well as the “bad” and that the trend is to hire part-time employees.

I suspect that the result is that the “business revolution” will generate a significant percentage of the working population having a number of part-time jobs as opposed to a single full time position. (including professional firms such as lawyers, accountants and financiers)

There is security in this position for employees who may be “shed or fired” in that income is not reliant on one employer and totally and immediately lost on redundancy whilst the employer has a capability of expanding and contracting a workforce more easily.

So, in my opinion, it’s not “under-performers being hired or fired” it’s that we may be witnessing a change in the way employment may work in the future.

With the UK Government saying that the public sector cuts are likely to “affect the way people live in the UK for years to come” it’s not surprising that job security has risen to the the top of people’s concerns.

The problem is that too often people feel helpless about the situation. After all, it’s the boss and company performance that dictate job security and too often an employee feels unable to affect either.

The advice that I am giving to friends is to develop their network. It is after all, through a network of contacts that most people find their next job. Having a strong network is essential if you are to get the help yopu need when things go “pear shaped”.

However, a network is not just a list of names in one’s address book. It’s the engagement and trust that’s built up that is important.