Interesting to read Sean Trainor’s post this morning about the Civil Service People Survey; the largest employee engagement study ever conducted in the UK, covering over half a million civil servants across 95 departments and agencies.

The bit that caught my eye was

However only

· half of staff are involved in decision making

· one third believe their opinions count

· one quarter believe change is managed well and is for the better

This would be such an opportunity to have a serious attempt to introduce social tools and reverse some of those stats but the scary thing is we are much more likely to see the blunt instrument of hacking staff numbers and more rather than less management initiatives.

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While walking around Köln recently, discussing my reactions to visiting the massive cathedral there and my antipathy towards organised religion, my companion Thomas Koch said “maybe we need a new religion”.

The church and its myths predominated for centuries until Darwin, Freud and the carnage of the first world war trenches knocked a big whole in those assumptions. People weren’t ready for the vacuum left by the undermining of those stories though so the totalitarian regimes of Fascism and Communism filled the gap. When those myths too fell apart we were left with the myth of capitalism and the market and isn’t this beginning to look decidedly suspect since the collapse of the banking industry? Even watching the farce of the old them and us story of the right and left politics running out of steam in the UK general election is like watching another big story die.

So what do we have next? What sense making frameworks would best suit our current state of evolution? What would form the basis of our new religion? What stories will help us make sense of the world we find ourselves in? I am wary of replacing one ideology with another and my inclinations are anarchic rather than ideological but maybe we do need a new framework within which to make decisions. Maybe we need loads of them. Maybe we need individual ones! Maybe we don’t need big stories anymore? Maybe we can play out the universal themes of being human on a more human scale with our own stories well told?

David Weinberger once wrote that by blogging we were “writing ourselves into existence”. This is where I believe our future sense making lies. In the collective and shared stories we are beginning to learn to tell using the tools made available to us by the web. This is not some overarching ideological story or some rigid dogmatism securing the influence of a small group over the crowd. This is collective sense making happening on the fly and at a rate that has never been seen before in mankind’s history. We are just learning how to do it and just beginning to grasp how immensely powerful it can be. Isn’t it exciting?

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When:
Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 5:30 PM (GMT)

Where:
The Guoman Tower Bridge hotel
St Katharine’s Way
E1W 1LD London
United Kingdom

Hosted By:
Erudyte Ltd

Erudyte Ltd is proud to bring to our clients, Rainmakers who have had hands on experience as being leaders, delivered on their goals and now share a vision to create a better world.

Our Rainmakers are driven by a deep passion towards making a measurable, significant and permanent difference in the world and are therefore people who have all made things happen – people who have brought an edge of demonstrable value into an organisational environment.

They do this by imparting their knowledge through popular methods such as speaking, consulting, training and one to ones or a seamless programme working alongside existing training schedules, consulting processes or conference events.

Rainmakers will take you and your organisation
to the edge – beyond the boundaries!

Register for this event now at :
http://rainmakerwednesday240210-rss.eventbrite.com

Event Details:

A Rainmakers dialogue
How to Get Great Performance in a Recession
(Intermediate and Advanced level)

The Business Scene and Economy are changing rapidly.
Corporates increasingly struggle to keep customers and staff engaged.

The Discussion will consider:

 

• What will the business environment look and behave like in the future?
• How can corporates and individuals grow and thrive in this brave new world?
• The Economy – Where do we go from here?
• Bonus Culture – Good, Banned or Evil?
• Interim Management and Part Time Workers – What’s next?
• The New Economy – Freeze, Flee or Fight?

The audience will also have a chance to ask their own questions on the night too.

 

 

“The global financial storm has produced a global shift in awareness, not only have the rules changed – future sustainable business will need to understand that there is a new value equation out there – value 2.0 if you wish – achieving great performance will depend on truly understanding how to deliver and support this value.”

- Gary Sage February 2010

 

You should attend if you need to:

• Develop high-potential employees
• Grow future senior managers/leaders?
• Retain and engage key staff?
• Reduce costs yet maintain high value?
• Build critical business relationships?
• Understand where business and markets will be in 3-5 years?

Management is vitally important in a time of recession. Indeed, the recession is making the development of your business and your talented people more critical.  Staff turnover remains high in the UK, despite the contraction in the number of people out of work and the face of business is rapidly changing as the way we do business is evolving.
 
As part of your strategic business practice and also management, development and leadership programmes, naturally you will already be examining the ideas about ‘How to Get Great Performance’.  

No doubt you have discovered, the rules have changed.  If this is the case, are you now ready to go to the next stages and learn about how to get great performance in a recession at both INTERMEDIATE and ADVANCED level?
 
You could have a happier, more cohesive, more effective leadership team to help you exploit and grow through the recession rather than be damaged by it.  Isn’t it worth a few hours of your time to find out how?
 
Thought Leaders:
Rainmaker – Gary Sage of SageHagan.
Gary Sage is a ‘Super Skiller’.  He is a gifted consultant and Communications Coach whose personal clients span the globe.  Gary has coached and conducted seminars and workshops on five continents to thousands of people and successfully taken his unique methodology into organisations from as diverse a background of; international banks to luxury goods manufacturers to multinational computer companies, to sole traders.
 
Rainmaker – Gordon Lovell-Read of Orgmentor.
Gordon is an experienced C-level executive with an outstanding track record of leading, and delivering, change in global companies. A recognised transformation expert and leadership guru, he can often be found engaged where individuals or organizations need to intercept, or outpace, significant market trends through fundamental shifts in strategy, thinking and behaviours. Having been involved in integrating over thirty corporate acquisitions, he is particularly well versed in the challenges and opportunities around cultural diversity and the building of shared service functions to drive out synergies.

Cost: Is to cover room hire as all profit will be going to the charity: ActionAid 

All prices listed above.

 

Next step – book now: Places are limited so click the button now. Additional donations gratefully received.

 

                                                                                                     Registered Charity No 274467

 

For more details about Erudyte and Rainmakers Company, go to www.rainmakerscompany.com

Supporters of this event:

 

 

When:
Wednesday, February 24, 2010 from 5:30 PM – 10:00 PM (GMT)

Where:
The Guoman Tower Bridge Hotel
St Katharine’s Way,
London E1W 1LD
United Kingdom

The Business Scene and Economy are changing rapidly.
Corporates increasingly struggle to keep customers and staff engaged.
The Discussion will consider:

• What will the business environment look and behave like in the future?
• How can corporates and individuals grow and thrive in this brave new world?
• The Economy – Where do we go from here?
• Bonus Culture – Good, Banned or Evil?
• Interim Management and Part Time Workers – What’s next?
• The New Economy – Freeze, Flee or Fight?

The audience will also have a chance to ask their own questions on the night too.

“The global financial storm has produced a global shift in awareness, not only have the rules changed – future sustainable business will need to understand that there is a new value equation out there – value 2.0 if you wish – achieving great performance will depend on truly understanding how to deliver and support this value.” – Gary Sage February 2010

You should attend if you need to:

• Develop high-potential employees
• Grow future senior managers/leaders?
• Retain and engage key staff?
• Reduce costs yet maintain high value?
• Build critical business relationships?
• Understand where business and markets will be in 3-5 years?

Management is vitally important in a time of recession. Indeed, the recession is making the development of your business and your talented people more critical.  Staff turnover remains high in the UK, despite the contraction in the number of people out of work and the face of business is rapidly changing as the way we do business is evolving.

As part of your strategic business practice and also management, development and leadership programmes, naturally you will already be examining the ideas about ‘How to Get Great Performance’.

No doubt you have discovered, the rules have changed.  If this is the case, are you now ready to go to the next stages and learn about how to get great performance in a recession at both INTERMEDIATE and ADVANCED level?

You could have a happier, more cohesive, more effective leadership team to help you exploit and grow through the recession rather than be damaged by it.  Isn’t it worth a few hours of your time to find out how?

Thought Leaders:
Rainmaker – Gary Sage of SageHagan.
Gary Sage is a ‘Super Skiller’.  He is a gifted consultant and Communications Coach whose personal clients span the globe.  Gary has coached and conducted seminars and workshops on five continents to thousands of people and successfully taken his unique methodology into organisations from as diverse a background of; international banks to luxury goods manufacturers to multinational computer companies, to sole traders.

Rainmaker – Gordon Lovell-Read of Orgmentor.
Gordon is an experienced C-level executive with an outstanding track record of leading, and delivering, change in global companies. A recognised transformation expert and leadership guru, he can often be found engaged where individuals or organizations need to intercept, or outpace, significant market trends through fundamental shifts in strategy, thinking and behaviours. Having been involved in integrating over thirty corporate acquisitions, he is particularly well versed in the challenges and opportunities around cultural diversity and the building of shared service functions to drive out synergies.

Cost: Is to cover room hire as all profit will be going to the charity: ActionAid

All prices listed above exclude VAT.

Next step – book now: Places are limited so click the button now. Additional donations gratefully received.

Registered Charity No 274467

Hosted By:
Erudyte Ltd

Erudyte Ltd is proud to bring to our clients, Rainmakers who have had hands on experience as being leaders, delivered on their goals and now share a vision to create a better world.

Our Rainmakers are driven by a deep passion towards making a measurable, significant and permanent difference in the world and are therefore people who have all made things happen – people who have brought an edge of demonstrable value into an organisational environment.

They do this by imparting their knowledge through popular methods such as speaking, consulting, training and one to ones or a seamless programme working alongside existing training schedules, consulting processes or conference events.

Rainmakers will take you and your organisation
to the edge – beyond the boundaries!

We’ve had a bit if an interesting time at the office lately.  All of us have had news that knocked us back on our heels a bit and was, I have to say, a bit challenging.  Out of this came a desire to “Make a Difference” and in my case leave a bit if a legacy and in theirs make a difference to those they can so easily identify with.

Some of our rainmaker speakers have been pushing the idea of “Philanthropic Capitalism” and “Making a Difference” whilst improving both personal and business performance and so we decided to get with the programme and do something positive for everybody.

We are starting to generate money for charity and in time may even get as far as setting up a foundation but for now raising money for the less fortunate is on the agenda.

We realised that post Haiti and other disasters, whilst there is medical help and help to rebuild basic infrastructures, there is little or no help for the inhabitants to rebuild and restart their businesses or in many cases find new business to do to replace that destroyed by the disaster.  We are going to do something positive about that – we know about speakers, rainmakers and events so that’s what we will use to generate funds.

Our initial Event will benefit ‘Action Aid’ as we realise that the thing is to get the funds flowing even if we need to improve targeting later.

The inaugural event will be held in the evening in the City of London, and will feature a discussion between two of our Rainmakers – Gary Sage and Gordon Lovell-Read.

Given that modern businesses, in the UK at least, find themselves in a difficult and challenging strategic environment at present, and might like a different view of what is possible our Rainmakers, Gary and Gordon, will be hosting the Event:

How to get Great Performance in a Recession – A Rainmakers Dialogue

(Intermediate and Advanced Level!)

 They will be discussing themes such as

The Economy – Where do We go from Here?

Bonus Culture – Good, Banned or Evil?

Interim Management and Part Time workers – What’s next?

The New Economy – Freeze, Flee or Fight?

 

The audience will also be invited to submit questions

 The event will run from about 18:00 to 21:00 on a Wednesday evening at a venue in the City with an opportunity to Network before the speakers

 If you want to be in on the start of something useful and benefit from some incredible experience go to www.events.rainmakerscompany.com and book now

As I write this, the economic outlook for the UK (and Europe) is looking precarious to say the least. Although we are not currently in a recession, market conditions are tough with a credit squeeze, rocketing fuel and power prices, falling house prices and statements from the Bank of England and many leading retailers that trading conditions are worsening. The press would have us believe that a recession is just around the corner. I’m not sure I buy this, but regardless, leadership is becoming more important than ever.

So how do we lead in these situations? For me there are 6 points to consider:

1. Have Vision
   This is important at the best of times, but at the worst, it become critical. Articulating your vision to your employees allows them to perform in an atmosphere of confidence. If they feel that you know where the company is going and that they are involved in this journey, they will be more inclined to roll their sleeves up, to give you the discretionary effort which can be the difference between success and failure. Keep them abreast of developments, good and bad. Make them feel a valued member of your team. Get this right and they will walk through the proverbial brick wall for you.
2. Understand Your Shortcomings
   This is in both yourself and your team. In good times, we tend not to think about our own weaknesses. In bad, they can really hurt you. Now is a good time to work out what your people need to do to improve their skill sets with coaching and/or training courses. Brainstorming meetings with employees you rate can kick start innovation.
3. Nurture Your Employees
   Your top performers are less affected by market downturns than others because they are the most mobile and confident. To hang on to them they must feel part of your team. Get creative in how you make them feel like this: increase their professional development, think about their reward structure etc etc. However don’t neglect everyone else. If they perceive the top dogs getting more than they do, it will quickly breed resentment which can undo all the good work you’ve done elsewhere.
4. Empower People
   This is about trusting your team. Delegate to them and allow them to make strategic changes without asking permission if they think it is in the best interests of the firm. In bad times, speed of decision-making is crucial.
5. Don’t Cut the Marketing Budget
   This is one of my biggest concerns with clients as they don’t seem to see the obvious flaw in this logic. In order to survive, you need to sell. When the market it poor, your sales drop. So you need to find new sales channels. How can you do this if you cut the marketing budget? I’ve always felt that there is a strong argument to be made for actually increasing the marketing budget in a slump. But one thing you must do is “sweat” your budget. Get the most “bang for buck” by putting pressure on your PR company, advertising agency etc. This can easily be sweetened by paying them a performance related bonus – a real “win win” in this market.
6. Be Brave, Be Creative
   When the going gets tough, you need to look at every aspect of your business including things which you hold dear. Nothing can be sacrosanct. Remember this is about survival so everything can and must change if it helps in this regard. If it doesn’t help, think about whether it is actually necessary at all. If it adds to your costs, kill it. A healthy does of realism makes it much easier to be brave – and creative!

You will note that I have hardly mentioned costs in the list above. Indeed several of the points will increase your cost base in the short run (training, coaching etc.). Many companies won’t have a lot of cost they can strip out as they have outsourced in the past and can use the Internet for much of their workflow. Ironically cutting costs can bring about the very recession we fear. If I cut costs, my suppliers get squeezed so they cut costs which in turn squeezes their suppliers. And so it goes on. This takes liquidity out of the marketplace and it is liquidity, not interest rates, which determines how people feel. If your mortgage rate goes up, but you have money in your pocket, you don’t feel too bad. But remove the cash element and you quickly feel upset.

Being a leader in times of trouble is what seperates the successful from the failures. It is hard to do emotionally as you won’t get much time just to be, but it will pay off believe me.

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A great business leader, Sir John Harvey-Jones, died last month. For those who are not aware, he was a leading light in the UK business community since the early 1980’s when he rose to public prominence as the chairman of ICI, which he guided to be one of the most successful companies in the UK if not the world.

But to most people in the UK he is best remembered as the star of the “Troubleshooter” television series where he visited (and later revisited) a series of companies that were in trouble and advised them how to turn themselves around.

The programmes were particularly important for me, although I didn’t realise it at the time, because it was the first time that I’d seen mentoring in action. I didn’t (and still don’t) agree with the way that Sir John mentored. He told the owners what they should do and several of them hated it (Morgan Cars being a very good example), whereas I prefer to keep asking questions until my clients arrive at the solution so that they “own” it and will therefore put it into action.

So I owe Sir John a huge debt. I have some friends who knew him and describe him as a very generous man, and my big regret is that I never met him.

So rest in peace Sir John. And thank you.

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I was chatting recently with Dermot Hill of Intramezzo who posed this question. Given my experience as a Chairman and my love of this role, it set me thinking. Note that I’m going to use the word “Chairman” in a non-gender specific context in this article.

Companies appoint a Chairman for a variety of reasons. If they are about to float, or are seeking external investment, they may pick someone who is acceptable to the “money men” and who has contacts in that arena rather than going for someone who can add real value to the companies proposition. But I suspect the most common reason is that they think they should have one.

So why do people aspire to become Chairmen? For many, it is just another source of income along with their other directorships and consultancy – a lucrative way to fill time once they have left the comfort of the corporate world. Given the changes in company law on both sides of the Atlantic in the aftermath of Enron and Worldcom et al, I wonder how much life is left in these roles. But for others, and I believe this is a growing number, it is about getting stuck in and really helping a company (and it’s founders/shareholders) to achieve their dreams. I personally get much more satisfaction from the “Ah ha” moments now that I am a Chairman than I ever did when I was running my own companies.

To be an effective Chairman there needs to be a clearly defined role, and one which is well understood by all. It is not just about turning up once or twice a month to chair a Board Meeting, important as this task is. For me, a large part is about mentoring and getting the Executive to perform at its best. It can be really difficult for a Director or senior manager to ask for help in case this is perceived as a sign of weakness. Consequently they can get bogged down in their role trying to solve this and other problems rather than have and use their time to think and plan for the future. A skilled Chairman will recognise this situation and will offer a discreet sounding board for the Director to make use of. This is not about showing off, or demonstrating how clever/successful/brilliant the Chairman is – phrases beginning with “In my last company …” or similar must never pass their lips. It is about listening and questioning, not telling or instructing. Mentoring can also help the Chairman really understand the strengths and weaknesses of the team/Board and so help them perform to the best of their abilities if necessary by playing Devil’s Advocate and constantly challenging (constructively) all the plans and strategies being put forward. And because of this, an open style of communication is crucial.

Another important role of the Chairman is networking and putting their network at the disposal of the Company. Normally this will have a quasi-sales bias but of equal value is the trouble-shooting element – knowing the right person to bring in to solve a particular problem.

But by far the most crucial role is to be a support for the CEO/MD. It is their job to run the company not the Chairman’s so the Chairman should do everything possible to help them to do this. And without stealing the CEO’s limelight. For this reason, it is not a good idea for the Chairman to be the ex-CEO! One of the things that officer training in the military teaches you is that when praise is being handed out, always deflect it on to those under your command, but when criticism is given be a large umbrella and protect your team. As a commander, it is your fault when things go wrong even if you were not the actual culprit. So it is within a corporation. Protect your CEO and the Board at all times.

So should a Chairman be Executive or Non-Executive? I would argue that it must always be the latter otherwise the Chairman and the CEO are in direct competition. This was graphically illustrated a few years ago with BAe, the UK arms company, where the Chairman and CEO had a very public falling out to the detriment of the share price.

So what makes an effective Chairman? You will know if you have one because everyone will be aware what value they have added to the Company. Having someone who is a good listener, has a good network and does not want, or need, to take plaudits is a good start.

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Maybe it is just me, but shortly after posting about how pygmies are taking over the world, I had 2 really bad experiences of customer service from the same company.

There is a well-known budget hotel chain here in the UK called Travelodge. I have used its various hotels frequently in the last year or so. Normally my stay is a fairly painless experience – it’s a budget chain so you get what you pay for, but the rooms are pretty comfortable so I’m happy. I tend to arrive at my destinations late so I nearly always get the night porters when I check in. Without exception these people have been courteous and kind. But the behaviour of the management in these 2 recent incidents defies believe.

On the first occasion, I was told, apologetically, by the night porter when I arrived that the advertised breakfast bags for the following day had not arrived. The next morning I politely asked the day manager why there had been no delivery and where I might get some breakfast locally. His response was astonishing. Had I not been told there were no bags when I checked in? Yes? In which case the reason why was none of my business. And this despite the advertised promise of a breakfast bag. And where could I get some breakfast now? “Dunno!” was the curt reply. Which was strange given that I’d seen him at the hotel over several months.

The second occasion was in a different city. My wife woke at 3am and walked into an eave in our room almost knocking herself out. The night porter could not have been more helpful, bringing a bucket of ice to the room along with an incident form for us to complete. On returning home I wrote and complained about the safety aspect of this eave. After 4 weeks I’m still waiting for a response. Not an apology mark you, just a response.

What is disturbing is that I hear similar stories from friends and colleagues about all sorts of companies. In my experience it is service companies that seem to provide the worst customer service; just think of all the complaints over the last few years about the banks and building societies and their high-handed attitude towards their customers.

One of the lessons all business leaders need to learn is that they must listen to their customers and try and act upon what they tell them. But do most businessmen listen for themselves (assuming that they listen at all) or do they rely upon some third party to tell them what their customers think (i.e. their customer services department)? At my last company, I made a point of spending time answering the telephones in the technical support department as often as I could because this connected me directly to our customers. Whenever we made a change to our service (we were a large Internet service provider), I got almost immediate feedback from the customer base telling me whether or not we’d made the right decision – and some of that feedback was very blunt I can tell you!

If business leaders don’t talk to their customers directly they are bound to alienate them at some point. And alienating customers is likely to mean a rapid drop in sales with all the problems and pressures that can bring.

We don’t do customer service anymore.

Perhaps we should.

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For about 18 months I’ve been a very happy user of VAServ’s cheap and cheerful VPS platform. The control panel was called LXAdmin (later renamed to Kloxo). A major series of security bugs was found a few weeks ago, and last Sunday the security company that identified the bugs decided in their wisdom to publish the bug list online because they had not had a response to their emails to LXLabs.

Well the sky fell in, and the fall out has been very painful. VAServ lost just about everything: over 100,000 domains taken off line while they tried to fix the break-in/security breach(es). For this company the pain is awful as they have been forced to be acquired (as far as I understand the email I received) by their UK datacentre partner who supplied man power to help out. I doubt the owner, who spent years building his company up, received very much if anything for it.

I lost all my domains. The reason you are seeing this is because I was forced to move to Hostgator to try and get my domains back up and running – I’m one of the lucky ones in that I had full backups of all my sites, both SQL and themes/plugins etc. Not everyone will have been so lucky.

Which brings me to the unfortunate owner of LXLabs who sadly appears to have committed suicide on Monday.

Is a software flaw, no matter how serious, really worth a life?