March 2009

As the weather is so lovely, this month’s Ramble is a few yards longer than usual.

• Let Them Eat Cake
• Free Swans
• Pebbles And Beer
• Racing Yaks
• How Much?
• Speaking Of Which …
• Circulation Details
• And Finally

Let Them Eat Cake

It is always encouraging to receive positive comments from fellow Ramblers and even better when our Rambles lead them to take action. So you can imagine how pleased I was to receive this from Etta Parkes at Graduate Advantage: “I just wanted to let you know I took inspiration from the Obamarama article, and Will Carling’s love notes and have bought my team a big cake to celebrate the launch of our new website!” Well done Etta, Marie Antoinette would have approved!

So fellow Ramblers, the gauntlet is laid down. Can you rise to the cake buying challenge? Etta tells me that she is pretty good at eating the cake as well.

For information, Graduate Advantage are the people to talk to if you want work experience placements in the West Midlands. They can provide a suitable student or graduate for eligible SMEs and, subject to conditions, may even be able to help fund the cost. Their super new very pink website is: www.graduateadvantage.co.uk.

PS - You’ll have to negotiate your own cake deal.


Free Swans

Generally I have reservations about the marketing benefits of ‘freebies’. However, when the opportunity arose to attend a free concert on the afternoon of my birthday, it seemed like an offer not to be missed. The concert was in Birmingham’s magnificently restored Town Hall and was given by the Orchestra of the Swan. The orchestra is based in Stratford-upon-Avon, a place well endowed with these large white graceful birds, hence the unusual name I presume.

The orchestra were excellent and I have it in mind to attend another of their concerts soon. With the world class City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra performing so frequently in the fabulous Symphony Hall, I have found little incentive to try the smaller and more obscure bands. By giving away so many free tickets for the concert in the Town Hall, I am sure that the OOTS will have won many new customers.


Pebbles And Beer

I smiled at this quote by the veteran US business guru, Tom Peters: “While we all ‘do a hundred things,’ we may not/should not/cannot have more than 2 (or 3) true ‘strategic’ priorities at any point in time.” I have just finished running a series of self-employment/enterprise awareness workshops for a local authority. One of the things that I mention is the myriad tasks that find their way onto our ‘to do’ lists when we work for ourselves. When confronted with a long list, it is very easy to get stressed. But generally I have found that careful study of the list shows relatively few ‘must do’/urgent tasks, then there are a few more quite important jobs and lots of less important/urgent tasks, many of which may fade away if we just ignore them.

To demonstrate this to the workshop participants I do an exercise that may be familiar to some of you. I have some pebbles – a few large ones, quite a few medium sized ones and lots of small ones - gravel. The pebbles represent the various sized tasks. I have a container that represents the working day or week. As I point out, it is tempting to do the small easy jobs first just to get a few things crossed off the list. So I fill the container with the gravel, then the medium pebbles and finally the large pebbles … but not all of these will fit in. So then I repeat it the opposite way round, shaking the container to allow some of the smaller stuff to fit in around the big stuff. All goes in. And the best bit? I then open a beer bottle and tip this in to show that if you are organised there is always time for a beer at the end of the day.

Just in case you are horrified at the waste of beer, as are several people every time I do the demo, trust me, I drank it first and refilled the bottle with tea!

Do you have all of your pebbles in the right order? And perhaps you could look at your gravel and put quite a few items on the ‘to don’t’ list.


Racing Yaks

A while back I was talking to Trevor Gay and asked him how he generated new business. Mostly down to luck he said, but then went on to quote South African golfer Garry Player: “The harder you work (practise), the luckier you get.”

In his book, Liberation Management, Tom Peters says: “If you believe that success does owe a lot to luck, and that luck in turn owes a lot to getting in the way of unexpected opportunities …”. I love that, “… getting in the way of unexpected opportunities …”. Peters then goes on to list 50 strategies to help get lucky. Here are a few:

Read odd stuff. Look anywhere for ideas.

Cultivate odd hobbies. Raise orchids. Race yaks.

Train without limits. Pick up the tab for training unrelated to work - keep everyone engaged.

Listen to everyone. Ideas come from anywhere.

Forget the same tired trade association meetings, talking with the same tired people about the same tired things.

Smash all functional barriers. Unfettered contact among people from different disciplines is magic.

Spend 50 percent of your time with “outsiders.” Distributors and vendors will give you more ideas in five minutes than another five-hour committee meeting.

Get out of your office. Tell me, honestly, the last time something inspiring or clever happened at that big table in your office?!

Get rid of your office.

Spend a workday each week at home.

I think you get the drift. Right, I’m off to try to get in the way of unexpected opportunities. Anyone know where I can find a yak? Come to think about it, there are some alpacas (bit like a llama) for sale up the road. I wonder whether they’d do.


How Much?

I was pondering on the recession, bankers' remunerations and the like. Then my thoughts moved on to the increasing numbers of employees who have agreed a pay cut in an attempt to avoid redundancies. I wondered whether everyone is taking a hit or just the front line. From there my mind grasshoppered to Ricardo Semler’s Semco. At Semco they have open books. All the employees have access to all of the company’s financial information, including wages.

I know that many people would be uncomfortable with such a notion but surely it would be in everyone’s interest. In difficult times employees would be able to see that the finances were not in good shape and would more easily understand the steps that had to be taken to turn things round. Who knows, they might even come forward with proposals themselves if encouraged. And what about knowing how much everyone is paid? Semco take it to the next level and allows employees to set wage levels within their own teams. Invariably those in a team will know who pulls their weight and who doesn’t. In my experience senior management aren’t always very good at that and can be taken in by those who talk a good game.

Having decided to pen those thoughts, I then spotted the Tom Peters item mentioned previously. Also included in his list of 50 where the following.

Empower. The more folks feel they’re running their own show, the more at-bats, etc. (No idea what an at-bat might be – a baseball term perhaps?)

Open the books. Make everyone a ‘businessperson,’ with access to all the financials.

I rest my case!


Speaking Of Which …

Judging people’s capabilities can be extremely difficult based on initial acquaintance. As mentioned above, I have just finished running a series of workshops. They were for people who are unemployed. During these sessions I met a wide range of people, some of whom were fairly challenging. So who or what sticks in my mind?

Firstly, it was surprising how often a person who was vociferous in their opposition to being asked to attend the session put their reservations aside and became the unofficial leader of their team in the various activities. One young lady in particular comes to mind. She was very ‘mouthy’ at the start, didn’t want to sit where I’d asked her to sit and so on. She had ‘attitude’. But put a sheet of flip chart paper in front of her and a pen in her hand and beautifully drawn mind maps appeared. And she was articulate in expressing views and ideas throughout the day.

At the start I had given out card and marker pens to make name ‘tents’. Hers was a work of art. At the end of the day the cleaner came in and quickly cleared the debris – flips, name tents etc. Shortly after he had gone our lady came back, having intended to take her name with her. She was very disappointed to find that it had gone. I asked if she would like some more card to make another and gave her a marker pen. She was so pleased. Interesting how a name on a piece of card could be the subject of pride. However, she didn’t go before receiving a brief lecture on not letting her attitude get in the way of her talent. I think she took it on board. I hope so.

In some of the sessions I asked the teams to come up and present their ideas. For many this was a new experience and was often tackled with some considerable reluctance. One group came up to the front. They were not the brightest that I’d seen. One of the team had great difficulty articulating his thoughts. They stood at the front in awkward fashion. I had concluded that none was going to be able to present their ideas so I was about to help them out by asking a few questions. Suddenly our inarticulate friend stepped up and gave a very good presentation. I was astonished – what a transformation. I still can’t quite believe it. I just hope that the experience gave him a confidence boost and a warm feeling to take away from the day.

I guess that some of the people I met might win approval from Tom Peters: “Hire odd people. Boring folks, boring ideas.” Certainly it was surprising how many of those I met were artistic and creative. And how many were different from first perceptions once you got to know them a little better.


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And Finally

How about trying something different this month?

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

Eleanor Roosevelt, US First Lady, author, politician and human rights campaigner.

But also: "Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself."


Enjoy the sunshine!

David