Act your age

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Now with an update below.

I’m no extrovert…..as people who know me will tell you. I can stand up at a conference and speak, I can hold the attention of a board room, I can even manage to make people laugh…..now and again. But my preference is for conversations in smaller groups. It is just the way that I am.

My son is very like me in this respect. Or so I thought.

At the beginning of the year he got his grades and his drama mark was….well it was ok. Not bad, not good, just pretty average. James is academically strong, he is bright. He is also a good sportsman, not the best, but a good team player and a member of the cricket and rugby squads. He isn’t an actor. Or so I thought.

On the back of his grades, he announced that he was going to join the drama club. He wasn’t happy and he wanted to improve his grade. The only person more shocked than us was his drama teacher. Because he isn’t like that. Or so I thought.

Last night, we sat and watched the end of year performance. It was a Little Red Riding Hood mash-up with comedy, timing, one liners, interplay and significant dialogue. And there was James playing one of the major roles. Maybe not the star this time, but he was on and off stage throughout and with many, many lines.

And he rocked.

He was confident, his timing was impeccable, he was humorous and his delivery was word perfect. This was not my son.

But of course it was, and I was wrong.

Independently he had assessed his strengths and weaknesses, he had the courage to identify where he needed to develop and he had the balls to go and do it. He didn’t say, “its not me” he didn’t say “I’m not an actor”, he didn’t say “I’m not like that”.

He said, “I’m going to show you that I can do anything I set my mind to”.

He didn’t say, “That is just the way that I am”.

Now there’s a thing.

We’re adults, we know everything. They’re kids, they know nothing. Or so I thought.

What if we all set about tackling one thing that we know we’re just not that good at?

Update: So, he recently auditioned and has just landed the role of Bugsy in the full production of Bugsy Malone. I’m proud, but more than that I’m amazed at how much you can achieve when you put your mind to it. Well done that man, we can all learn from children.

Cross-pollination

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Some of you will know that as well as the day job and this blog, I also run a site called British business bloggers. I won’t bang on about the site here, you can find more information about it here.

(Note to self: there were too many “heres” in that last sentence!)

Anyway, long story short and all that, the site is run by bloggers for bloggers and looks to share content and blog traffic.

(Note to self: don’t say that you aren’t going to bang on about a subject and then bang on about it!)

So why talk about it now? Well two reasons really, I know there are people who read this site that maybe don’t read the other site and it would be good to raise it to their attention. And secondly, because we’re running a very cool competition at the moment!

Basically, we want to give away 4 sets of 100 business cards courtesy of the lovely people at moo.com. Yep, give them away. Because we’re good like that. All you need to do is to make us laugh….intentionally mind you! You can see more details on the competition here where you can also enter. How simple is that?

Go on…..I dare you. You know you want to…..

PS. Please enter here not HERE. OK…..I know…..I did it again.

 

Beware the digital hippies

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Is it me, or is there a new pervasive force on Twitter? In a space previously held by the gutter rats of business, the recruitment consultants, a darker army has been quietly amassing their powers.

I’m of course talking about the digital hippies.

You may know them, you may not yet recognise them, but here are ten reasons you need to be aware.

1)    They don’t create wealth – These guys mock the corporate employees. They talk about their experiences of quitting corporate life. But in the end, the vast majority don’t employ people, they don’t create wealth for other people, they are merely self-serving, lone wolves who seek purpose and identity by trying to form an online collective.

2)    They don’t understand empirical evidence – I’m not against a bit of instinct, I’m not against a bit of intuition. We have more information available to us than at any time in the history of mankind. But why trouble yourself with that, when you can spout complete unproven nonsense on a regular basis without any grounding. Peace and love man. Yeah…..whatever.

3)    They spend a disproportionate time on Twitter – I like to tweet, I like Twitter but if I look at it at any point in the day, these guys are on there. Get a life. Get a job. Get a hobby. Get off my Timeline and take a walk.

4)    They make a mockery of HR – So most of these guys are sole traders – or as you and I would know them, consultants. But they don’t call themselves consultants, because that sounds too…..well corporate. Instead they call themselves coaches, or business owners, connectors or perhaps my favourite, CEOs. They don’t talk about 80% of the work that we do in HR, they don’t talk about industrial relations or employment relations. They have no idea. They think they’re talking about HR, but their only audience are the navels they’re gazing into.

5)    They disrespect the honest working person – Most of us work because we need money. Most people HAVE to work because they need money. Most of us are absolutely ok with that. Talk of fulfilment, engagement, passion, vocation….these are things that the vast majority have no time for. Not because, they’re not brave enough, but because they have no economic choice. You’re not the vanguard, you’re the indulgent.

6)    They quote – For the love of Buddha. No more quotes. No more quotes. Yes Martin Luther King Jr was amazing, yes the Dalai Lama is a dude. But I don’t need you to tell me something that you’ve just looked up on findmeaninspirationalquote.com. I really don’t.

7)    They create pointless “communities” – Remember when you were a kid and you had gangs? Not the sort that wear their trousers low and stab you. I’m talking about the kind with passwords and “bases”. These guys have hashtags and tweet ups that are about as sophisticated and as meaningless. The thing is, they’re adults. Not kids. Which makes it kinda creepy.

8)    They place “connection” over “content” – Discernment doesn’t come easy to these guys. You look like me, you sound like me we’re all good. You write the biggest piece of twaddle ever on your blog and I will comment and retweet. Why? Because I want you to do the same. Effluent is effluent regardless of how many times it multiplies.

9)    They place nothing in context – FX crisis? Economic downturn? Political turmoil? How does that impact on us? I mean, we’re above of all of that….we’ve risen to a new emotional and intellectual plane where these things don’t matter. We’re creating a new agenda, a new way of thinking, we’re…….living in a bubble…..and talking out of your behinds…..that’s what.

10) They have a dreadful dress sense and bad breath – OK….so I made that one up. But I bet they do, I mean…..it would stand to reason, right?

Just beware……and don’t say I didn’t warn you……

How not to win friends and influence people

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We all deal with third-party suppliers, some good, some bad, some indifferent. It is part of our ecosphere, part of who we are, part of what we do. We all need one another, we rely on one another and we ultimately create wealth for one another.

And despite my years of experience, despite my wizened looks, I can sometimes be amazed.

Anyone in a corporate role will be the recipient of invites to dinners, lunches, events. It is part of the same ecosystem. We want to get you into a room and talk to you, so we need something to entice you there. There are weeks when I could go without providing a meal for myself if I wanted, but I don’t. I don’t because I have better things to do and because I won’t morally take something without a genuine interest or purpose. I’m sure many of you are the same.

A recent invite came in and it wasn’t appropriate to me, so I passed it on to the relevant member of my team. The next thing I know, I receive a letter from the supplier asking for feedback as they hadn’t heard from the team member that had attended the lunch and assumed they had left, they enclosed two letters that they had sent previously. The team member hadn’t left and I passed the letter to them.

The simple truth is that we receive call after call, letter after letter, email after email each day from suppliers. And whilst we try to respond to everyone, it takes time. If you have a lot on, if you take holidays, sometimes these things can take a little longer than you’d like. It isn’t a sign of disrespect, but a reality of modern business.

The team member in question sent an email to explain and to say that she wasn’t too pleased that the supplier had gone over her head. She explained that she was interested in the service, but that she didn’t like the pushy way in which she was being sold to. Fair enough.

End of story? No….nowhere near………

The company in question is called Syndicate Training, you can find their website here.

Now I must say, I haven’t used their services. They may be great, they may be fantastic, I just don’t know. Nor have I been able to find anyone who could provide me with any insight. So all I can comment on is my interaction with them.

The response was somewhat incredible. The email was copied to me and included the following,

It is the view of Syndicate Members that on March 13th you were able to leave the office from 11.30 – 3.00 to attend a Gordon Ramsay lunch and that requesting your feedback either by email or a quick telephone call is not pressurising you. It is very important that professionals in HR lead from the front in matters concerning professional etiquette. I don’t think it was an unrealistic expectation for us to expect either a thank you note for the lunch or a quick call with your feedback.

And

Please find attached a typical email response from a very busy HR Director representing her company in a professional and positive manner.

(with actual attached email – not just the text)

The immediate reaction was to ignore and put down to experience. There are people out there that don’t have the same business ethos as we do and perhaps that is fine. Maybe we are too soft. But then again, as a manager, as a leader, I felt compelled to support my team member, I wrote the following back:

Thanks for your email. I’m not really sure that it’s helpful going back and forth in this way as I am sure you, like I, have more important things to be doing. That said, I do feel that I need to mention a couple of things.

[Team Member] is one of the most professional and conscientious individuals that I have worked with throughout my entire career which is why when you wrote to me, I passed the letter straight to her. If I’m honest, I find your comments about etiquette unbecoming and unnecessary and would like to think that these are said in the heat of the moment rather than being reflective of your normal business interaction.

It may be that you come across people that will use your invitations just as the basis for a “free meal”, but I can assure you that we are far too busy to do that. As [Team Member] has explained, she was very pushed for time internally and then through annual leave, but had a genuine interest in your offering.

It is important to me that we work with organisation that culturally fit with ours and with people that I trust and respect. We each have choices about the way in which we run our business and the tone that we want to set. On that basis, I can’t see our organisations working together either now or in the future.

Kind regards,

Neil

So I accept the last paragraph was a little pointed, but I like to think that the overall tone was fair.

The response from the owner and Director was as follows,

Good Afternoon Mr. Morrison

Syndicate Training is a Membership based organisation with a lengthy application process which has not and will not be offering a Membership to your organisation. We would however like to offer [Team Member] a free time management course from our Open Course Brochure to be utilised anytime over the next 12 months as a way of apology for assuming she had left the business.

Kind regards

Laurie Bell – Director

Go make of that what you will.

So what do I make of Syndicate Training? Well I really don’t know. They offer courses on a range of subjects, including Customer Service – Handling Customers Professionally, Emotional Intelligence Demystified, Influencing and Persuading – A Competitive Edge and, of course, Interpersonal Skills for Business. All of these seem like really relevant courses to many, many businesses…….

A lot of things don’t make sense to me, if you are so selective why hold lunches to attract new business when you have never spoken to the invitee, if you aren’t interested then why push so hard for feedback and of course, why would you communicate with a potential customer who has expressed interest in your services in this way?

I’m sure that they are a highly reputable company that offer a fantastic service. I’m sure that this is a blip. I’m sure that this is just me being unreasonable. I’m also sure that I will never, as long as I live and breathe, be working with Syndicate Training.

Other than that, the whole thing has completely befuddled me. As for you guys, well, I’ll leave you to make up your own minds up.

UPDATE: 28 September 2012

Guess what we received this week……is this Ms. Bell trying to make friends???

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