Image courtesy of Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
As with all choices selecting the right take away coffee has taken on a level of complexity that was thought impossible only a few years ago. And so as I start off on my regular walk around the local park I am almost always sidetracked by what I’m going to order from my local cafe.
Now to be fair to them they don’t yet seem to be in the same league as Starbucks but there is enough to give me pause for thought. And as usual this time I managed to choose the iced coffee and after walking round the corner into a rain shower I immediately wanted the hot cappuccino.
And obviously this got me thinking about Jeremy Vine the UK BBC Radio Presenter.
According to an article in Business Insider millenials are killing certain businesses and I am glad to say that most of the ones being ‘killed’ are ones that I am cheerfully glad to see the back of. And I suspect most people of all ages will be. So here’s my take on some of what’s going on
Casual dining such as Applebees or Buffalo Wild Wings are losing out and I can understand why. No discernible taste, poor locations and a standard of service that is literally non-existent. Avoid at all costs
Beer is on the way out. Millennials prefer wine and I can confirm this is entirely fine with me. I will now be able to get a place at the bar and get served with no teenagers trying out their latest red bull concoction. Long live millenials avoiding beer
Napkins – apparently millenials prefer paper napkins to cloth napkins. I have no idea why anyone would prefer paper napkins so in this case millenials have it. I’ll carry on using the washing machine.
Breastaruant chains like Hooters. No one of any age should be seen in or around a hooters. Of any age. It’s just wrong and I am with millenials all the way here.
Millennials don’t like cereal because its hard to clear up. Well a staring point might be not to use paper napkins but I am not sure why clearing up breakfast is a particular challenge as no other meal is mentioned. Perhaps all millenials start out with good intentions about clearing up breakfast, end up with a handful of sodden paper towels and simply give up tidying up?
Golf is under pressure as millenials find better ways of spending their time. And while is it obviously not clearing up their apartments I find the fact that they are killing golf to be worthy of medals. Golf has to be the best way to ruin a walk in the country but apart from that it serves no useful purpose at all. Except perhaps keeping anyone who thinks plus fours are a good thing away from the rest of us. All power to the millenials
Motorcycles. Well who does want to dress up to dress up in tight leather and fall over as soon as it rains or you go round a corner. people who like motorcycles probably like golf and should be kept away from sensible people.
Fabric softener. I find it odd that millenials in particular are running away from fabric softener but according to Procter & Gamble’s head of global fabric care, millennials “don’t even know what the product is for.” Which is a bit odd as the clue is in the title of the product and its a bit difficult to see how a company could make it any easier to understand what it does. But again I am with the millennials here. Another round of chemicals clogging up your pores simply so your towel apparently feels a little nicer doesn’t make a lot of sense to me
Banks – nothing needs to be said. No one likes banks. They are simply horrible
Gyms. I am with millenials here. never having set foot inside a gym I can completely understand why no one else would want to.
Now I come to think of it I am a millennial after all. Just from the wrong millennium.
I admit it now that I am not the greatest fan of IT help desks.
Whether that is at work or at home I continue to wonder if the person I am speaking to has the first clue about the problem I am trying to solve. And that is of course if you can get to that person. You know how it goes when you dial the number and the first thing that happens is a recorded message saying that the call may be recorded for training purposes. Based on the number of calls I have made the training regime should be brilliant and all problems should have disappeared by now. But for some reason they still want to record the call.
Maybe it’s actually about training me? In which case can you tell me where I can get access to this training material as I am very willing to learn, if nothing else to make sure I don’t have to phone a help desk ever again.
Anyhow after you have ben advised that someone somewhere will benefit from training its time to press a series of buttons in response to being asked a series of questions. A series of questions that never seem to include anything that is relevant to the problem you have. In this case your computer won’t connect to the internet so
‘Press 1 for billings and payments
Press 2 for our latest best ever pricing on something that you have never heard of
Press 3 for voice activated data requests
Press 4 to hear the list again’
Now what?
My typical response is to disconnect and phone again, hoping against hope that a new list of buttons will have magically appeared and there might be some help at hand. Of course there never is so I invariably hit 3.
And then of course it all goes wrong because there is another list of numbers and things to connect to and each seems further away from the problem you’re trying to solve.
Of course you might eventually find a combination of buttons that connects you to a human being but I would seriously avoid doing this as you will go mad.
The human at the end of the phone will sound helpful and reasonable until you explain the problem. And then they will ask for a serial number or a code that you will swear on your ancestors graves that you have never been given or seen. All the while the phone bill and the tutting at the other end continues to grow.
After a while, and a significant increase in your blood pressure, the human will then decide that they might indeed be able to help you? Always assuming it is a human rather than a new Artificial Intelligence Bot. And here’s another link if you’re interested to the top 10 bots? Who knew there was a top 10
Anyhow back to the story. The person at the other end of the phone will then ask you to click on something. Something that you cannot see on the screen in front of you. No problem says the person at the other end of the phone. Simply click on the link in the same precise order as the morse code for ‘wow clicking on this button really doesn’t make anything happen’ and sit back and watch.
Watch nothing happen at all. And so by now you are literally like the man below.
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?
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.
As I sit here writing this one the apartment is a hive of activity. Boxes piling up all around and the sound of tape and cardboard filling the air. It’s the time that many expats in Hong Kong have experienced many times over – the sounds of relocation. And accompanying the noise are those questions, fears, concerns and the sense of dislocation. We are relocating back to the UK. My fault as my very long suffering wife remind me regularly.
But is it going home?
Out of all the questions that come up when you move back to where you come from this is probably the one that I come back to more and more and with less and less of an answer. I really don’t know how I feel about going back to the UK. Quite honestly it doesn’t feel like a country that I recognise. Gone seems to be the tolerant hard working but somewhat smug nation that I grew up in, replaced by a nation that seems to think the world owes it a living and that all foreigners are in some way bad – just for being foreign. A country where the Daily Mail has gone from being a comic for the distinctly odd to a sad reflection of broad swathes of society. A country that is currently in the throws of debating whether to remain as part of a multinational and multi cultural world or descend into being a small island that can somehow stand out and above the rest based on a distinctly rosy view of our position in the world.
We’re starting in Greenwich, somewhere I know very little about but it looks good on the tourism site and GoogleMaps.
Image courtesy of Robert Bradford at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
While there must be something good about the place I am struggling to see it and while you might then ask why on earth relocate back there the simple answer to that one is the alternative was Switzerland. As someone once said to me its a great place for the morning but you’ve done it by lunchtime.
This is the third time I’ve moved countries and possibly the most daunting. Not knowing anything about the culture of the country your moving to is part of the fun. Coming out of our front door and not having any idea of what to do, where to go and how things work is all part of the experience. I’m not sure this applies to coming back to the UK.
I write this coming to the end of my second visit to Bali – a part of Indonesia that never fails to impress me with its drive and development all wrapped up in a tenacious desire not to let go of the past. What has got the Balinese to this point they seem to be saying, is what will continue to drive us into the future.
It is not at all unusual to find offerings to the spirits or gods sitting on the pavement outside shops and offices in the towns nor to find staff in businesses lighting incense in the afternoon before returning to work. Its a practical link between the past and the future and is perhaps more prevalent here than in many places I have been around the Asia region. Or maybe being on vacation I have simply stopped and noticed.
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.
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.
There are more men on corporate boards named John, Robert, William or James than there are women on boards altogether – The Washington Post
As you will have seen from a previous post – Let’s take a stand – I am a strong supporter of inclusion. Articles like this one reinforce the need to keep trying to make a difference.
And there are many reasons why it makes sense to do so for any business. Apart from fairness alone (50% of the population are women) results improve for more balanced companies and decision-making becomes more rounded. Groupthink is avoided.
And with more women running businesses its possible they will want to deal with companies who recognize this fact. According to research undertaken across East Asia in 2013 between 38% and 47% of all SME’s businesses are owned by women. With SME’s accounting for the majority of economic output in most countries women will have an ever growing impact.
The business world has so many opportunities to reshape itself and drive better outcomes - we are only scratching at the surface of the change agenda and all the possibilities open to us. What ever happens next must embrace how we all work better together, how we are organised, the things we do and the many tools we use to make the change. Let’s make good things happen
The Burble 