Archives for category: General

Off The Grid

April 8, 2016 //

I was on holiday quite recently. We took the family skiing. Not something we do every year; it’s too expensive and I’m a big fan of the heat.

We went to Italy. I don’t do the data roaming thing, because I’m not a big user of data when I travel; voice and text is enough for me. This means I rely on wireless networks, you know the deal.

The apartment we rented was tiny, but the use of space was so amazing IKEA should have been taking notes. It had no wireless, though. This meant if I wanted to get online it was the mountain restaurants and bars.

This was fine in principle, except the connections were so flaky that you couldn’t really do much, so I didn’t.

I was basically off the grid for a week, except for 5 minutes to check in for the return flights online and download the boarding passes with my fancy airline app. And, do you know what, while I was ‘away’, the sky didn’t fall in.

It was actually great. I didn’t miss it at all, and felt no compulsion to go onto social media and tell people how many corn flakes I’d eaten. No withdrawal symptoms, no first world problems, nothing. It was like the good old days when you went on your family holidays and came back wondering what news you’d missed and what song was number 1 in the charts while you were away.

Coming back was not too bad either. The inbox was manageable.

I recommend being off the grid it to all my friends, at least to try it for a few days. A sort of digital detoxing.

Tags change, Holiday, Rest

Categories General

What Brits Mean When They Say…

April 6, 2016 //

I’ve always prided myself on being honest and saying what’s on my mind. Not necessarily framed in a hurtful or undiplomatic manner, but one that leaves no room for misunderstanding. After all, people, especially customers, need to know what you’re thinking. They also need to be advised what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.

It turns out, of course, that the Brits have long been guilty of not exactly saying what they mean, as the table here will testify. I’m indebted to James Trezona of Rooster Punk for drawing my attention to this table, though the version I’ve shown is borrowed from here. In this sense it would seem that the Brits are similar to other peoples, like the Japanese for example, in eschewing direct feedback.

Anglo-EU Translation Guide

I do think, though, that this British habit of hiding behind the nuances of the mother tongue is gradually dying out. You could put this down to a bunch of mega trends I guess: globalisation, American cultural influences, the erosion of the British class system, our increasing inclination not to waste precious free time, to name but a few.

If it’s not dying out, then it’s certainly lessening from a bracing wind to a gentle breeze.

Or maybe something else is at work here? Maybe we’re not very good at delivering bad news. Maybe we’re too willing to soften the blow for our audience and ourselves. Either way, I think we’re getting better at that too.

There is, however, still sufficient truth in the table, and sufficient difference between what Brits say and what they mean – and differences between two situations is of course the root of humour – for it to be seriously funny.

Tags Communication, Meaning

Categories Communication, Customers, General, Language, Marketing, Sales

The False Economy of the Super Preferred Approach

March 21, 2016 //

In US life insurance, people with good genes and sensible lifestyles are accorded the lowest premium and the status of ‘super preferred’. In effect they’re rewarded for not being a risky proposition for financial institutions.

Extrapolating this argument, the safer you are, the more you save during the course of your life. But then, when your life is over, and you didn’t really live it to its fullest extent because you were limiting your risks and your payments while alive, who is the winner there? Not you, at least not to this writer.

It occurs to me that there is a parallel in business. These days, immense macro forces like globalisation, commoditisation and automation are making it more and more essential for companies to do something special, and be something special, for their customers. Otherwise, they’ll just get replicated and replaced by a cheaper ‘me too’ substitute.

So is your business simply bobbing along, keeping its head down and playing it safe, while not trying anything too risky? Or is it constantly trying new, risky stuff that keeps it ahead of the pack that’s soon to become extinct?

In business, the super preferred life is not a life worth living.

And on another parting, and unrelated thought, this is post #400 :-).

Tags Reward, Risk, Safety

Categories General

The Face of the Non-Athlete

March 18, 2016 //

If you’re reading this post on the day of its publication, then I’m on holiday right now. It’s actually a sporting holiday en famille. I say this not to gloat, but because it reminds me of an observation from my sporting endeavours, and those of many millions like me.

When I work really hard at a particular sport, the kind of effort that involves sweating profusely and being out of breath at times, I also go red in the face. Very red. Almost maroon in fact. It’s pretty unsightly – and I’m aware of the irony of using pretty as an adverb there. It also takes what seems like an eternity to melt away, long after the heart rate and breathing have returned to normal.

Do you know what’s most galling though? How come you never see any athletes, in person or on the TV or web, with puce faces as a result of their exertions? Why do they have a normal-coloured face in the face of extreme work? Even the paler-skinned varieties like me?

Now I’m sure there is a scientific reason for this that the good folks at wikipedia have already committed to the web, so it’s more of a plaintive question on my part than an inquisitive one.

It’s pretty annoying though. It’s like a beacon advertising to everyone in the vicinity: look out, non-athlete alert :-(.

Tags Athlete

Categories General

Karma

March 16, 2016 //

I’m not a religious person, so I don’t really hold much with divine direction.

I do believe in karma, however, the kind where spiritual credits and debits are in operation. Over the course of a life, these pretty much even out I think. If you do good, life pays you back with good. If you do bad, at the expense of others, then a big piece of bad will probably even the score.

I was reminded of this the other day when my good lady and I were at a fun-raising pub quiz night. As it turned out, our team won the quiz, and we were presented with a very bag of generous goodies each, including money. We gave half the money back as a prize for the raffle. We then promptly won 2 prizes in the raffle. Score one for the nice guys.

There was a table next to us, with a coupe of older folk and their kids. They didn’t win anything in the raffle, despite having bought quite a few tickets for quite a few prizes. We gave them one of our goodie bags and were preparing to head off.

Then, over the loud speakers our hostess explained that she had forgotten one of the really good prizes, and so there was to be one more draw, for a new smartphone. ‘Ooh,’ said Mrs D, ‘I need a new smartphone.’

You can guess the rest. Score two for the nice guys.

Karma, paying it forward, call it what you will. Be nice, it works.

Tags Fate, Karma

Categories Communication, Customers, General

It Is What It Is

March 14, 2016 //

One of my previous bosses – and I’ve been fortunate enough to have several excellent ones – had a phrase he often relied upon.

“It is what it is.”

This for me is all about accepting what you have, dealing with what’s in front of you, and making the best of the ingredients. You made a plan, you executed it, results followed and you’ve measured where you stand. It’s no use lamenting the what ifs, because, as the older generation still say, “if ifs and ands were pots and pans.” The second half of that phrase contains what you might term a ‘politically incorrect epithet,’ but it conveys the point well enough.

There’s something so succinct about It is what it is, that for me it’s like a snap of the fingers where you break out of the negative or wistful feelings and get in the right mindset, get your game face on. Let’s deal with what we have and let’s make the best of what we have.

Because, after all, we have what we have. We’re active and in the present tense. We can improve our future situation with this hand we’ve been dealt. In life and business we can’t really ask for a re-deal.

Tags Present

Categories General, Marketing, Planning

The Mis-Timed Uh-huh

February 15, 2016 //

Do you know what I find slightly off-putting, when I’m having a conversation with someone in person or on the phone?

When you’re talking to that person, and they’re saying ‘uh-huh’, or ‘mm-hmm’, or ‘OK’ while you’re talking, but it’s not at the right time. It’s not at the end of one of your clauses, or when you pause. In fact, it’s at a point where you know they’re either not listening or else they feel they have to participate in the dialogue due to nerves or a need to appear superior.

Some of the rules of dialogue best practice are that you wait your turn, collaborate with your co-speaker, put them at ease, get on with them. Then there are the verbal and non-verbal cues that you have to pick up too.

Jumping in at the wrong time – and this is different from interrupting – breaks all the rules.

Get the timing right. It shows them you’re listening and you understand how to converse. It also gets you what you need.

Tags Listening

Categories Communication, General

The Rule of 99 to 1

February 12, 2016 //

This seemingly innocuous post is, as it turns out, a very important post for me, perhaps the most important in a long time. And I don’t mean for me in an ‘in my opinion’ sense; I mean for me personally.

I have a theory. It goes like this. There are leaders. They’re leaders in their field. We see them on screen, we hear about them or listen to them, we read about them. They might be sports people, musicians, business people, artists, inventors politicians, not-for-profit innovators, entrepreneurs. They might be the best at something that we do for leisure. They’re 1 in a 100, maybe more.

Then there are us. The rest of us. We’re the other 99, or 999, making up the overwhelmingly huge majority of the seething mass of humankind. We’re not the best at any one thing, so we don’t get watched, written about or listened to.

Yet almost all the external stimuli in the world come from the 1%, are about the 1%, intended for the consumption of the 99%. It lets us into the world of the 1% and encourages us to strive to join that elite club and leave the world of the also rans behind. More importantly, it’s our consumption of the 1%’s activities that provide the economics for the rich and famous to be rich and famous. The model doesn’t work otherwise.

What are we to do about this? Should we do anything?

This topic has preoccupied me for a long time. Actually, a very long time. For some of that very long time I’ve been turning my thoughts into a book which explores the topic in detail. But for now, I think it’s a fascinating conundrum.

Tags Best, First, Leadership, Others, Rest

Categories General

Re-Work

February 1, 2016 //

Very little in work is genuinely new and original. The huge majority of it is re-examined, revised, re-worked. A document used as a base for something else, a presentation template where you can borrow the formatting and graphics, a white paper where you can adapt the ideas: it makes sense to do this.

Working from a solid base that has already found acceptance is sensible, a productive use of your time and investment.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t strive for something that starts from a blank sheet of paper. Sometimes it’s the only way to come up with something that’s fresh, exciting, or game-changing.

But in the day-to-day passage of getting things done, re-work, re-use and recycling is a good thing.

It’s not plagiarism, where you’re passing somebody else’s work as your own and plagiarising their intellectual property. Properly acknowledged, cited or quoted, someone’s work you have built on is generally the better for it.

Tags plagiarism, Re-work

Categories Communication, Customers, General, Marketing, Sales

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