Something’s Happened to Irish Greetings

April 30, 2014 //
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I may, dear reader, have detected one of those almost imperceptible changes in language that form part of its relentless movement. It’s a bit like being able to break down a movie into the 24 stills per second and grasping one of the stills as a discrete moment in time. Or, I might not have.

When I first moved to the Emerald Isle, back in the late 1990’s, greetings were a bit like they were in the US. People would say hello by asking you how you are without ever expecting a response. Where Americans say ‘what’s up?’, Irish might say ‘How are things?’ Contrast this with the German equivalent ‘Was gibt’s?’ – what’s up? – and its answer ‘Nichts Besonderes’ – nothing special – where our Teutonic friends are generally expecting a response and perhaps an ‘Und dir/ihnen? – and you?

The interesting thing about living in Dublin was that you would often hear a compound rhetorical question, where someone quite genuinely, and without any hint of irony, might say,’Morning, how are you, how are things, are you well?’ The first time this happened to me I had to ask which question they wanted answering first. Even then folk would look at you funny if you said ‘I’m pretty good thanks, and how are you?’

Over the last six months I’ve noticed kids actually answering the greeting-question, which I’ve never observed before, hence my opening paragraph which you’re probably thinking I might have slightly oversold. So now, when you greet friends of your kids with a ‘Howya?’ you tend to hear ‘fine’, ‘fine, thanks’, ‘I’m good’. I’m not saying I’m disinterested in their general wellbeing, rather that I’m not ready for them to provide an answer to what is a ‘hello’. This takes me back to my days of learning German when someone would ask ‘wie geht’s? – how’s it going? – and I would answer ‘ja’, or yes. Not what they were expecting.

So there you have it, the Irish greeting is now not a greeting, it’s a question, and one that should be answered.

You heard it here first. And probably last.

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Categories Communication, General

Fear and Greed

April 28, 2014 //
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As punk legend Ian Drury once rather succinctly put it in one of his songs: “There ain’t half been some clever b*stards.” Abraham Maslow was one such clever chap.  His Hierarchy of Needs has stood the test of time and appears somewhere in almost every business school’s sales, marketing or organisational behaviour curricula and most people have a passing knowledge of it.

My father used to simplify it further.  Before I share that with you, I have to say I don’t know if my Dad was familiar with Maslow’s theory, but he – my Dad – was always full of insights and was a classic mentor in the sense that someone who has already figured something out could give you the inside track on an important aspect of life.

Anyway, back to the simplification. My Dad used to say: “Paul,” for that is my name, “people are essentially motivated by two guiding principles. These two are fear and greed.” The more I thought about this, the more I came to the conclusion that he was annoyingly – and rather depressingly – on the money. You can distil how people behave down into two primary – and primeval – driving forces.

The words fear and greed don’t appear anywhere in Maslow’s handy pyramid – and how business consultants love the safe refuge of shapes like pryramids, triangles, funnels and 2 x 2 grids – yet what my Dad had done is cut through the pyramid and produced two possible avenues for explaining why folk do the things folk do.

Oversimplified? Possibly, but there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that. Just try it yourself. You could view it as a touch cynical or pessimistic, but it works. Forget the 7 deadly sins, you need 1 of them – greed – with the F of FUD thrown in for good measure.

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Categories Customers, General, Marketing, Sales

Ending Sentences with a Preposition: Exactly What I Had Hoped For

April 25, 2014 //
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As our beloved written and spoken languages evolve and become – dare I say it – a little more relaxed, we don’t seem to mind committing the formerly heinous crime of ending a sentence with a preposition. Back in the day – which itself is an odd idiomatic phrase – people used to get pretty worked up about grammar and syntax.

This was the one rule which caused the well known Churchillian reaction:  “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.”

They say that language neither progresses nor decays, it simply changes. Whatever it does, I think it serves us all better to be more flexible and less rigid. A great example of this is in poetry and songs, where ending a line with a preposition can help the writer out and make the line scan more elegantly. Who could forget the famous double preposition of Wings’ Live and Let Die: “…this world in which we live in…”?

More recently, but already a classic, is the Jay Z and Alicia Keys song Empire State of Mind with its line “concrete jungle where dreams are made of”.

Prepositions are handy little nodes connecting elements of a sentence together, so let’s continue to allow them to roam free, for which our language will be the better :-).

 

 

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Categories Communication, General

Authority Signals and Mis-Signals

April 23, 2014 //
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It’s interesting how we’re conditioned to behave according to certain authority signals. A uniform, a whistle, a type of hat, whatever it might be, we interpret them as cues that someone is in charge, or supposed to be, or wants us to think they are.

We’ve all seen the tour guides wielding their umbrellas and clip boards like ceremonial symbols of governmental power. “Blue group! Blue group! I’ve got a clip board and I’m not afraid to use it!”

In the 1980’s and 90’s, before there was a computer on every desk, we lived in a world of paper. A sure-fire way to look busy and shirk work was to wander from office to office carrying a sheaf of papers. “Yes, that’s right, terribly important, just personally delivering this vital piece of information.”

It’s not just authority uniforms that we have an acquired, automatic response to. You can make the same argument for all kinds of uniforms. People of a criminal or ne’erdowell disposition rely on these signals to gain access to our house without raising suspicions – sometimes when we are home, but usually when we’re not – and take our belongings. Sometimes artists who like to remain aloof use them as well to preserve their anonymity.

I remember a few years ago my wife, who at the time was a stay-at-home Mum in a rather nice 18th century rented cottage in southern England, spotted a man approach our dwelling during the day in a van, get out in running gear, come over to our house and pretend to do some stretches for jogging while all the time peering into our windows and ‘casing the joint’, before walking ten yards back to his car to drive off again. You’d never think someone purportedly out for a jog was engaged in a job of another kind.

Uniforms and other signals lead us to think in a certain way.  They can also mis-lead us, to our cost.

 

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Categories Communication, General, Language

Reading the Signs of a Bad Deal About to Happen

April 21, 2014 //
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The best sales people are those can combine the science of following repeatable best practice and the art – or perhaps even artistry – of skills like empathy, listening, charisma and intuition to the best effect.

From the scientific perspective, the old 6P adage holds true: Perfect Planning Prevents P*ss Poor Performance.  I don’t know if it’s really called the 6P approach, but if it isn’t then I’m happy to coin it so. The idea behind planning and analysing properly is that you factor out the things that can derail your deal, such as luck, as I’ve talked about before.

Where the art comes in is the judicious use of your experience, emotional intelligence and gut feel. Your intuition is often a powerful indicator of the likely result of a deal. Phrases like ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this deal,’ or ‘something’s not quite right about this prospect and I can’t put my finger on it’ are sometimes a case of you not properly applying the scientific rigour to your sales approach. On other occasions, it’s your intuition working correctly and you should listen to it carefully.

I was reminded of this a few weeks ago, when I played soccer.  Being on the old-ish side for such a youthful pursuit, I’m alway careful that I warm up first. On this occasion, a perfect storm of circumstances had conspired to cause me to be late for the first time in years. Against all my intuitive feelings, I threw on a bib and got stuck in.  I started in goal, reasoning that after 10 minutes or so in this physically less demanding role I could venture out into the backs and work my way forward from there. After a few minutes of outfield play I could feel a dull ache in my right calf. It was not painful, but still I didn’t listen.

Five minutes later, with the ball in open space I sprinted off to claim it and – twang! – tore my calf, properly this time. I hadn’t done the prep, I didn’t listen to my body and I didn’t go with my gut.

Don’t let this happen to your ‘must win’ sales deal. If you’ve exhausted all scientific methods, listen to your art and follow your gut, like I didn’t.

PS This is my 100th post. I hope you’re liking it so far :-).

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Categories Customers, Planning, Sales

Packaging Fails Can Be Terminal for Your Business

April 18, 2014 //
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Doesn’t it drive you mad when you can’t easily open a pack of food or drink? Why don’t manufacturers of anything – especially food and drink – realise that getting at the contents before consuming is part of the customer experience, part of the product itself? They have to work harder at getting the balance right between securing the contents and providing access to them.

The packaging, as far as I’m concerned, is part of what Geoffrey Moore in Crossing the Chasm called the ‘whole product solution’. Admittedly, that book is about so-called ‘disruptive’ products, but you still have to get everything to do with your product or service right. This is something I’ve talked about before here.

If you don’t get it right, you run the risk of someone substituting your product for someone else’s. Someone else who has thought harder, and worked harder, about exactly how you are going to consume what they sell, from the moment you see it. For an old but hilarious packaging fail, have a look at this beauty and imagine yourself being the owner or captain of this business, demonstrating how easy it is to consume the product – not.

 

 

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Categories Customers, Marketing, Planning, Sales, Strategy

The Best Signals Are Two Way

April 16, 2014 //
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The notion of a signal and signalling has for a long time held a certain interest for me. With too much free time on your hands it’s possible to get really deep on this and start delving into the notion of signifier and signified explored by the swiss chap de Saussure whom I touched on in this post. For a signal to function you need a sender and a receiver, otherwise it’s not a signal. You haven’t signalled anything to anyone. It’s rather like the philosophical conundrum: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Sometimes when I’m driving I don’t signal when I turn a corner, rebel that I am. If there’s no-one behind you, no-one coming the other way, no cyclists or pedestrians around, what’s the point of signalling? There’s no-one to receive it, no-one to benefit from it.  If there is someone around, then I signal to them that I’m turning and they can use that knowledge to navigate their own path from A to B.

As far as I’m concerned, though, the best signals are two-way, where the signal turns both sender and receiver into receivers. Let me give you an example. When I go to bed at night, I lock my car remotely from my inside my house, using the key-fob. This automatically sets the alarm. The red ‘armed’ light flashes on the car dashboard. This signals to me that I have alarmed my car. It also signals to the would-be car-thief that the car is alarmed. Perfect.

Some signals only benefit the receiver, some benefit both.

 

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Categories Communication, General

Learning to Swim – and to Push

April 14, 2014 //
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Sometimes you just need a gentle push from people to get you outside of your comfort zone so that you can improve.

I remember when I learned to swim at the grand old age of 11. It was in an old pool in my home town of Stafford, England, in a centre which is long gone, as is the centre that replaced it. That’s how long ago it was, but I remember the lesson.

I was not long out of the Popeye-like arm flotation devices, but still the 15-yard swim was eluding my ‘doggy paddle’ and my red badge – the most preliminary of swim badges – was still not adorning my trunks. I’d gotten close a couple of times that evening, and some of the older lads and the instructors were willing me to make the length. The truth is, I’d bottled it and put my feet down a metre or from the shallow end.

‘Right,’ said the instructor, ‘this time, you’re going to start from the shallow end and finish at the deep end.’ Gulp! I was very anxious indeed, but knew I wouldn’t be left to flounder and that this time I had to make it. I did, to the delight of everyone. A right of passage negotiated, but it wouldn’t have happened without a mentor pushing me .

This for me is a useful reminder that we need the people we trust to push us, to get the most out of us. Conversely, this means that we as mentors and people in whom other people place their trust, need to push them as well – customers, partners and colleagues – if we truly have their interest at heart.

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Categories Communication, General

Ireland’s Infrastructure

April 11, 2014 //
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I had occasion, dear reader, to travel to the Irish city of Cork from the Irish city of Galway the other day. From the provinces of Connacht to Munster. I was driving, as I don’t think you can even complete the journey on public transport, without massive detours.

My first time living in Ireland was the late 1990’s.  Although the celtic tiger had been leaping into first place within Europe’s fastest growing countries for a few years, it was still benefitting from the lag effect of massive EU infrastructure funding. Not a moment too soon either. Back then, the roads were very poor and train travel was very slow, with large parts of the rail network being single track.

I theorised at the time that this didn’t matter. You see, the web was gathering such pace that it would permeate all sections of Irish business and life and I figured the need to travel physically to and from places would be greatly reduced. The country could make jump from third world infrastructure to first world economic powerhouse with an Internet-enabled quantum leap.

Well, it didn’t quite happen like that. Which brings us to 2014. Dublin is possibly the only European capital city with no rail service to its airport. There’s no motorway connecting Galway, the fourth largest city, to Limerick, the third largest. Worse still, there’s no motorway connecting the third largest to Cork, number two on the list. Hence my rather lengthy journey from number four to number two via number three. And back.

On the rail side, it’s still largely single track which causes scheduling and punctuality challenges as the only places the trains can cross are at at stations. All tracks lead to Dublin, but travelling between the other cities on the train doesn’t really happen. Oh, and in the country you get railway crossings manned by humans.  Yes, that’s right, someone is paid rather well to close and open gates every half hour or so. I think that’s what they call a sinecure – or ‘doss job’ as we would say in England.

You see, greater Dublin accounts for half of the country’s population and its road and network systems are pretty good. Everything else is the country, literally.

Then there’s the virtual infrastructure, otherwise known as Internet bandwidth.  It’s not too bad in the seething metropolis and other city areas.  Out here, as I write my rural idyll, where the local switches have not been updated, it’s about 7MB and 1:48 contention. So I’m sharing some paper and string with up to 47 others.

All this contributes to the paradox that is Ireland, as I touched on in a previous post. Forging ahead in some areas and well behind the curve, with seemingly no chance or intention of catching up, in others.

 

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Categories Communication, General

When I Am Old

April 9, 2014 //
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There is a rather pleasing poem by Jenny Joseph called ‘When I Am Old’. You can read it here in Paul Coelho’s blog, who I gather is quite famous, with marginally more followers than me.

It’s a well observed series of things that you do when you start to attain the status known as ‘old’.  Here are the first half dozen lines to whet your appetite:

WHEN I AM AN OLD WOMAN I SHALL WEAR PURPLE


With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves


And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.


I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired


And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

I had one of those when I am old moments the other day. I was born with great eyesight, but as you get older your reading focal point gradually extends beyond your arms with the result that you can’t reach your laptop or your book and you need reading glasses.

I needed to paint our utility room after having some major work done in there. I couldn’t paint the skirting boards without using my reading glasses. It kind of takes the productivity and creativity out of an endeavour when you can’t see what you’re doing and you have to plonk the old ‘pince nez’ on. OK, strictly speaking my specs aren’t a pince nez, but I couldn’t resist throwing a French tag in there.

WHEN I AM  OLD I SHALL EAT MEALS WITH MY READING GLASSES ON

And look at you over them like a crusty college professor …

 

 

 

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Categories Communication, General
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