September 2008
During this month’s Ramble we collect some gongs and ring the bells.
# Look Beyond The Label
# Going For Gold
# What’s In A Name
# Stop Selling
# I Said Don’t Do That!
# Ring The Bells
# Circulation Details
# And finally
Look Beyond The Label
Sorry young Mozart, but we can’t possibly publish your music because you aren’t old enough. And while we’re at it, Mr McCain, there is no way we can have you as the Republican candidate for President of the USA. And Mr Branson, sorry, Sir Richard, I’m afraid your qualifications aren’t good enough to run a business … oh, and you’re dyslexic as well! (Other quite successful dyslexics include: Pablo Picasso, Sir Steve Redgrave, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Werner Von Braun, John Lennon, Winston Churchill, Michael Heseltine and John F. Kennedy.)
Everyone is gifted, it is just that we all have different gift. We also tend to develop at different rates – quite dramatically so in some cases. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was appointed chief engineer of the Great Western Railway at the age of 27; Churchill was 65 when he became Prime Minister for the first time, and a month short of his seventy seventh birthday when he came to office for his second term. Having said that, Churchill was only 31 when he became a government minister, 34 when he entered the cabinet and was Home Secretary at 36; so perhaps not such a late developer after all!The Princes Trust (http://www.princes-trust.org.uk/) uses an image of a barcode with the words, “Look Beyond The Label” to remind us that first impressions and assumptions can be very misleading. Whatever our age or whatever our apparent abilities, it is the responsibility of teachers and managers to do their best to ensure that we can do our best, to help us to develop to be the best that we can be in our chosen field.
Going For Gold
With the Olympics fresh in our minds, it is worth reflecting on some performances from previous games. Welshman Lynn Davies was expecting to win a medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Davies had come into the event as reigning Olympic Champion and was set on winning another gold medal. Then, at his first attempt, the 22 year-old American, Bob Beamon destroyed the previous world record of 27 feet, 4¾ inches with an unbelievable leap of 29 feet, 2½ inches.The problem for Davies was that he had focused solely on winning the gold. This was his aim, or end goal. He did not have a specific target or objective. But without such a target, he was demoralised by the enormity of Beamon’s jump, as he admitted subsequently. He ended up jumping a foot short of his previous best and missed out completely on the medals. If, for example, he had set himself an achievable target of equalling or improving on his personal best jump of 27 feet, and had remained focussed and had achieved that, he would have come away with a silver medal.
We move on to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The 400-metre runner Kriss Akabusi had a personal target of 48 seconds. In the final the American Kevin Young ran the distance in a world record time of 46.78 seconds to take the gold medal. But it really didn't matter to Akabusi. On that day Young was the best in the world. But Akabusi had achieved his target with a 47.82 time. In doing so he ran faster than he had ever run before. Faster than any Briton had ever run before. He had done the best he could. He was a winner.
Food for thought when target setting! We should always have an aim, an ultimate goal. But to allow us to get there we must have interim, realistically achievable steps, otherwise we may become demoralised by the size of the task and fail to achieve our potential.
What’s In A Name?
Let’s face it, some of us are not very good at remembering names … or spelling/typing them correctly when writing. I heard a story about a guy who had quoted for some business worth a very substantial sum. This chap saw his potential client at an event not long after submitting his proposal and of course went over to greet him and have a friendly chat.
He reached out to shake hands and said "hello X". Oops, wrong name. Potential client very unimpressed and any chance of doing business went out of the window.
It is claimed that there is no such thing as a good or bad memory, that it is just a matter of how we use it. If I meet a number of people at an event and exchange business cards, on the back of their card I make notes that will help me to remember them. If possible I do this at the time, otherwise as soon as I get back to the office. The note might just be where I met them, that they spilled their coffee while shaking hands, in fact anything that will create a picture in my mind that will make the moment of our meeting easier to recall. Once you have a mental picture of the moment it is easier to put a name to the face.
As for typnig or speling mistakes, just take more care!
Stop Selling!
If someone sets out to sell something to me, they will almost certainly fail. Junk mailers and cold-callers please note. However, if someone takes an interest in me and what I do, in other words, starts to develop a relationship, then there is a good chance that they will succeed. And maybe more importantly, I will look for opportunities to introduce them to others who may have need of their services.
But there is another issue. If someone is in selling mode, it is likely that they are talking about their products or services rather than asking questions and listening to the potential customer. Only by questioning and listening will it be possible to understand whether you can provide the solution for the customers’ problems.
I Said Don’t Do That!
We all know that telling a child not to do something only makes it more likely that they will. But maybe we aren’t so keen to admit that we never really grow up in that respect.
Apparently, the brain doesn’t detect negatives very well, so if you say, “don’t drop that valuable item” the ‘don’t’ aspect of the message will be lost, making it more likely that the precious thing will be dropped.
Likewise, if you try to tell yourself that you are not hungry at 11:30 and that you can manage without that Mars bar, as it’ll soon be lunchtime, your brain will regularly remind you that, in fact, you are hungry.
Considerable research in the US and Europe has shown that attempts to regulate traffic speed by use of warning signs and road markings actually increases the average speed of motorists. Experiments show that removing all of the clutter and allowing drivers to take responsibility for their own decision-making results in reduced speed and fewer accidents.
It follows that businesses that attempt to regulate their employees excessively will create the same negative effect.
In his book Liberation Management, Tom Peters tells of a marketing company that gave responsibility to the front-line for their expenditure on stationery, travel etc. Essentially they were told to approve their own expenses. The results were startling:
· Car mileage costs declined 46 percent
· Other travel expenses down 70 percent
· Office supply expenditure reduced by 18 percent
As Mr Peters would say, “Wow!”.
Ring The Bells
A while back there was a discussion in one of the Enterprise Nation (http://www.enterprisenation.com/) forums about celebrating success – in particular, a sales success. Reactions varied from ringing a bell in the office to getting straight on with the next job. If you work in a large corporate organisation you probably won’t even know that a sale has been made. And if you work for Heinz you can hardly crack open the bubbly every time someone buys a tin of your beans from Tesco. But Enterprise Nation is targeted at home-based businesses where the impact of success (or failure) is likely to be more immediate and personal.
Nevertheless, to keep people motivated in any organisation, it is helpful if there is some tangible recognition of success. In large companies it is always a senior director signing the deal, handing over the keys or whatever it may be. The same directors or senior sales staff or the PR team go to awards ceremonies. Wouldn’t it be nice if it could be someone from the assembly line or the office cleaner?
However it’s done, keeping up team morale is essential. The old adage that success breeds success is true whether on the football field or in the office. Of course, what success really brings is confidence - confidence to go out to win the next game or secure the next order. Think I’ll buy myself a bell; and the office cleaner will definitely be going to pick up any awards that come this way!
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And Finally
More on names from Sir Richard Branson. "When we launched Virgin Atlantic in 1984, a survey said only 10% of the public would fly with an airline with a name like ‘Virgin’. I wrote to tell them that, since we only had one plane, it would take us 10 years flying every day with a full complement of passengers to take all 10% of them where they wanted to go."
Have a good month,
David