Tag: Communication

The business of trust.

Companies and businesses have a problem – Trust. Put simply there is a decline in how much trust is being placed in business by customers and society in general. And a business that isn’t trusted isn’t going to survive for long. But is trust that important?

I think so. Customers are spending more time researching the companies they buy from, and the fact that so much information is available on line, opens up a business to a lot more scrutiny than previously possible. As customers are subject to exponential levels of change they will look to anchor themselves through relationships based on trust.

Would you go to a Doctor you didn’t trust?

And businesses play a huge role in society, providing income and rewarding places to work, generating wealth and making tax payments to help governments support their chosen areas of investment. The problem is partly guilt by association. As Edelman reported there is a collapse in trust in 4 of the major institutions (Business, Government, NGOs and Media) in many countries around the world.

At the same time however, businesses face some challenges that while not specific to industry will have a large and potentially dramatic impact. The 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) is beginning to reshape what business is and what it does and how it does it.

And trust is going to be come one of the most important topics businesses will have to deal with.

Tags Business, Communication, company, Finance, future, IT, Mobile Phones, People, society, taxes, Technology, trust, women

Change Communication Leadership

Leadership – Just abandon your family?

Post author By The Burble....
Post date July 24, 2017
No Comments on Leadership – Just abandon your family?

Leadership, or getting people to change can be tough. But being dumb seems to be a whole lot easier. In this article from Business Insider (BI) you’ll find a great example of what I think we can all agree is pretty dumb leadership.

As I have argued before leadership is not something that comes from your position in an organisation although the more senior you are does tend to give you an implied authority to lead. We expect people further up the hierarchy to lead. That is surely their role. So if you’re a CEO it is expected that you lead. Not that all you can do is shout.

But from what I am seeing more and more leaders, rather than leading are simply hectoring or demanding ultimate loyalty. What I am seeing more and more is the need of some of these high level leaders to have you put them and their role in the business above everything. Above what you are working on at that moment, above your social life, your weekends and above all above your family.

And it is more and more about them and less and less about creating something together as a team.

And this makes no sense. Because what you want if you’re leading is to change something. And to change something you need people give more than they absolutely have to.

The more hectoring that goes on, the more it is about me the leader and making me feel good the less effort anyone is going to put in. I particularly like the definition from Aubrey Daniels International which talks about Discretionary Effort.

Discretionary effort is the effort people can put in over and above what they absolutely have to do. And as a leader who wants to change things you need people to put in extra effort. Change means by definition doing something that is above what people absolutely have to do.

Being a leader means having followers. And followers want to be respected by their leader for what they do and for their own lives. If it’s all about the leader then it simply isn’t leadership.

The article from BI identifies a CEO type that really needs consigning to history. I was asked what I would do in an interview if I was asked to put the CEO above everything. I would simply walk out of the interview. That is not a company that I would work for,

Let me know what examples of good and bad leadership have you seen?

Tags Business, ceo, Communication, Experience, family, Leadership

Business Change Communication Leadership People

Leaders shouldn’t be so sad….

Post author By The Burble....
Post date July 18, 2017
No Comments on Leaders shouldn’t be so sad….

We are all on a journey

I met up with a colleague in the office today who relayed to me that he’d just had dinner with someone who left the company a few months ago. Meaning it to be a positive statement my colleague regaled me with stores about how his friend was now doing all the things he didn’t have time for when working such as

seeing family
getting fit
spending time on his hobbies
enjoying watching his family grow up

And all I could think about was how sad that sounded. Sad that it was only when his friend was between jobs that he managed to find time for the rest of his life. And yet so much of what leaders seem to expect is to work all hours that exist. And this rubs off on their teams who get equally caught up in the working all hours syndrome mainly because their boss does the same.

I once worked for a leader who wanted to know what was going on continuously. He worked all hours and wanted everyone else to do the same. He demanded to know whatever was happening before anyone else. Presumably because this made him feel good. After a month of 24/7 working (at least that’s what it felt like) I picked up the phone to him and had one of the most difficult conversations I have had. I simply told him that I was not going to talk to him every hour, txt him every 15 mins and make sure he had regular emails. I let him know that I felt I was employed as a trusted officer of the company and once I had agreed with him the objectives he should trust me to get on with it.

He really didn’t like it. The silence on the phone spoke volumes

But he eventually accepted what I’d said and we then worked in the way we’d agreed and despite his nervousness it actually worked quite well.

Sometimes you need to lead your boss.

Or as I sometimes tell my colleagues – boss your superior.

Tags 24/7, Business, Communication, Experience, Leadership, Mobile Phones

Business Change Customers Leadership Service

Jeff Bezos is out to crush Blue Apron — Quartz

Post author By The Burble....
Post date July 18, 2017
No Comments on Jeff Bezos is out to crush Blue Apron — Quartz

I reposted this simply as I have a good friend who works at Blue Apron.

I have a huge amount of respect for Amazon and what it does. From a retailer of on line books that once advertised it had 1m titles to a retailer that seems to cover almost all areas of commerce through to a cloud computing company and now a fresh food store, Amazon does it and seemingly does it well. All with amazing customer service.

Most businesses will admit to prioritising certain aspects of their business based on an argument that it is impossible to do and pay for everything that is needed. While I am sure Amazon prioritises aspects of its business it is fair to say that from a customers perspective you don’t tend to see the impact of this.

And that is a sign of a good business.

Blue Apron has an Amazon problem. Two weeks before the meal-kit company debuted on the New York Stock Exchange, Amazon inked a deal to buy Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. One week after the IPO, Amazon Technologies, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, registered a trademark in the US for the phrase, “We do the prep.…

via Jeff Bezos is out to crush Blue Apron — Quartz

Tags Amazon, Blue Apron, Business, change, Communication, Leadership

Change Communication Customers Risk

I have seen the future – it doesn’t work properly

Post author By The Burble....
Post date November 28, 2016
No Comments on I have seen the future – it doesn’t work properly

Last Friday found me sitting in the office with a number of colleagues watching another corporate briefing. I say briefing rather than call as the executive team had decided to try and do the briefing through a live video conference broadcast. Now while I am the first to say that some of my colleagues have the perfect faces for radio, it was good to be able to see the team present some key facts about their business and the challenges they face. While the words were clear and powerful, being able to see the body language really made a difference. I hope they will repeat the process again.

Image courtesy of ddpavumba at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

And the best bit was that the technology didn’t work very well.

Tags Business, change, Communication, People

Communication Customers Uncategorized

Told you I don’t understand marketing

Post author By The Burble....
Post date January 3, 2016
No Comments on Told you I don’t understand marketing

Just went into a store to buy my wife a new all electric super whizzy toothbrush. As with most shops in Hong Kong they didn’t actually have what I wanted but they did in the warehouse.

Now in most countries something in the warehouse means it’s in Lithuania and if you order it now it should be with you for the next millennium.

Not In Hong Kong. No warehouse is more than 1 minute from the shop and they always have what you want. Always.

And so one minute later I was paying for the toothbrush and readying myself to face the nightmare of Sunday afternoon food shopping. But this being Hong Kong you get free stuff with your purchase.

A set of sore brushes and some toothpaste. Great. And Dettol. A bleach for cleaning toilets and floors.

Now I really know I don’t understand marketing.

Tags Business, Communication, Experience, Hong Kong

Buildings and Places Communication Customers People

Come Fly with me…

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You know you have been flying too much when you know your way around airport without knowing which country you’re actually in; unless its Heathrow which is the exception that proves the rule.

You’ve been in the air too much when you begin to recognise aircrew and can actually tell before you take off whether they are going to look after you well. But the real indication is when you get an invite from your favourite airline to a weekend launch of something.

Tags Business, Communication, Experience, Hong Kong

Change Communication

24/7 Leadership and the Burning Platforms Index

Post author By The Burble....
Post date October 24, 2015
No Comments on 24/7 Leadership and the Burning Platforms Index

illustration of fire extinguisher — Use in case of burning platform – turn this on the leader

Leaders don’t set things on fire.

I am struggling. I have been looking at so much research about leadership and leaders and so much news and information about the topic that I find it remarkable that there still doesn’t seem to be a definition of leadership or what a leader actually is.

What I do know is that there is a fervour amongst leadership devotees that their particular brand of leadership is the best (for which read) the only one. And anyone who has an alternative view of leadership is simply wrong. I have seen friendlier debates between the US and Iran.

Tags Business, change, Communication, Leader, Leadership, organisation, People

Self Driving Cars

Students – I might have guessed

Post author By The Burble....
Post date October 21, 2015
No Comments on Students – I might have guessed

In all the noise and excitement (not least for this blogger) around self driving vehicles one thing that is pretty clear is that how people have fun (for which read the increasing chance of a seriously spectacular crash) in cars is going to change. At the very least we will have to find ways of e enjoying ourselves that don’t involve simply driving them.

And of course students have managed to find the way. From Stanford comes this great article about a new fun thing to do with self driving cars. Although what else you can do in this car while its in action is going to require some thinking through.

Tags Business, car, change, Communication, driverless car, Risk, United States

Change Communication People

When to be More or Less Diplomatic

Post author By The Burble....
Post date September 16, 2015
No Comments on When to be More or Less Diplomatic

Hopefully he title has piqued your interest and so I would like to introduce an old colleague and friend of mine Colin Gautrey. Colin has been one of those individuals who I probably talk to less than once a year and yet who’s advice and support I value a huge amount. His focus is on Influence a topic that is one of the most important for anyone to understand. Being able to influence others, in a business or personal environment is one of the key skills that we all need to learn.

So please read on and see what you think. I spend almost all my days influencing people in 8 countries in Asia to do different things in different ways. Its probably the only way to really make things happen in any organization of more than 2 people. As Colin says

‘When you have to engage with someone, and you have a difficult message to deliver, a decision needs to be made about how direct and assertive you can be. Put another way, you need to decide how tactful and diplomatic you have to be to avoid causing offense.

Source: When to be More or Less Diplomatic‘

Tags Business, change, Colin Gautrey, Communication, People, Risk