Leadership with Guts, Conviction and Commonsense

I hear Boris Johnson’s appearance at the Conservative Conference in Birmingham is creating massive excitement and a huge attendance. Why? Could it be possible it’s because he says what he thinks, appears not to pander to the media or the floating voter and he really does do the best for London.

If only we had more politicians with guts, conviction, commonsense and leadership. Just for a short period wouldn’t it be wonderful if our politicians did what is right for the country as against what will affect their re-election chances. This ridiculous panacea of taxing the wealthy to reduce the national debt is cuckoo land. Every intelligent individual knows that to raise loads more tax revenue it can only be done by reducing the top rate. Researched and proven repeatedly - top rate 36% - not only does one dramatically increase the amount of tax raised but the knock-on effect is investment in business growth, increase in employment which brings an increase in the number of young people becoming employed. It will also create a national change of attitude from doom and gloom and fear of the future to “Right, now let’s get going!”

Political dogma stinks; the stench from the Party Conferences permeates throughout the UK with the ridiculous stage managed standing ovations which are so farcical. Our politicians are stagnating the economy, not just the Bankers. Give us leadership, guts and conviction and our economy will turn and our young people will be at work not adding to the national debt. Read the full story

'U.S Customer Service' The USP - REALLY?

‘The customer experience is the next competitive battleground’. Jerry Gregoire, CIO, Dell Computers

Following in the footsteps of my pioneering Great Uncle, Sir Cecil Denny Bt, the founder of the city of Calgary, I too set out to make a life in Canada. Whilst I was not an original Mountie and was not responsible for founding a major city, in my own way I made an impression through my involvement in the music business. I returned to the UK this year to take up a position as CEO with the Richard Denny Group having spent many years living and working in North America. Both places are dear to my heart but one cannot help making comparisons from time to time….



I was struck recently when watching the new TV ad campaign from Enterprise Rent A Car… by their tagline, ‘ with US customer service, we’ll pick you up ‘..  What stood out was the emphasis on ‘with US customer service’…why should this be such a feature and differentiator? I accept that for the most part, the UK is not known for its customer service, the needs of the consumer seem often times secondary to the wants of the service provider. Too often we are told what a company or individual ‘cannot do’ rather than a focus on what they ‘can’ do for you. How often are you pushed around from one department to another in a culture of blame and unwillingness to take responsibility for the issue you have raised? In France or Italy for example, the food service industry is full of proud ‘professionals’ whose pleasure it is to serve you. They take pride from their work. I struggle to say the same about restaurant service in this country, or for that matter 90% of ‘service provision’ in general.

In considering why this might be, I cannot help but conclude that the British class system lies behind the apparent unwillingness to provide good, simple, considered service. A fear that to ‘serve’ suggests you are subordinate or of a lower order than the one you serve. This may seem a somewhat generalized statement, but I make it based on my own experiences of received service between North America and the UK. The fact that a global company such as Enterprise chooses to feature US customer service as a point of difference in its UK advertising, to me suggests that the gap between UK and US customer service is such, that it is worth making a feature out of… a selling point! I would go further and say that the gap is more likened to a chasm.

As a business, providing good service should be at the forefront of our growth strategies. The customer experience is everything, and developing personal, ‘emotional’ relationships is a way to retain existing customers and acquire others. How many times have you been told by friends about a nasty experience with a business? Wouldn’t it be great if every customer became an ambassador for the business rather than a hater…these days there is vast choice between providers and whilst the recession causes many companies to drive down their prices to be competitive, I know I wouldn’t mind spending a couple more pence if the buying experience was wonderful and I felt ‘cared for’.

It is critical that we recognize that we are in the age of the consumer. The customer holds the power and it is they who ‘buy’, rather than be ‘sold to’.  The Enterprise Rent A Car TV ad should be a wake up call to all of us service providers to take a step back and ask ourselves if we really have the customer at the heart of what we do, or do we simply pay lip service to that notion. Do we as employers, provide adequate training in customer service and more importantly, do we invest and train those managers tasked with leading CSR’s to ensure they know how to lead good consistent service teams?

It doesn’t matter to me whether you run a small café in the middle of nowhere or British Telecom, good service is now a critical part of the customer expectation and it is incumbent upon us all therefore to set aside our insecurities around our class, take responsibility for our job roles, adopt an egalitarian approach and do everything we can to ensure our customers have the best possible experience when dealing with us. Our frontline people are ‘our company’ and how they deal with anyone reflects our corporate culture and how we view our consumers.

Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it.’ Peter Drucker

Wake Up People!

Last week this comment was made to one of our account managers: ‘ Oh, we don’t sell anything, we are a construction company’…

This mindset, apart from being mind blowing, is still rampant in British commerce, abhorrence to ‘selling’ and ‘sales people’. Here we are living and working through the most challenging and uncertain economic climate. The news media dishing out daily recession updates, high unemployment, cut backs, business liquidation, and constant cuts in the public sector. We are also told that it is the construction industry that is holding back the economy by under-performance.

We don’t sell anything is a mindset to adopt if you want annihilation. Every sane business leader and entrepreneur knows that nothing happens anywhere in the world until a sale takes place, and they are willing to admit that a sales person brings in the money that everybody else can live off. In this challenging and exciting business environment, the successful companies will demonstrate that to win, succeed, grow, provide employment and have happy customers the mindset is to be customer led but sales driven.

With that philosophy in mind, here are a few thoughts and challenges:

1. Does everybody in your company know that their jobs are dependant on somebody winning some business – because that is sales?
2. Is your company truly customer led and delivering what your customers really want?
3. Is your company really sales driven from the boss to the cleaner?
4. Has everybody in your company experienced some rudimentary sales learning?
5. Is there an enthusiasm to adopt the latest techniques in winning business?
6. Are your front line sales people, sales people or solution specialists?
7. What’s so special about you and your company?
8. Does everybody in your company fully understand the two major reasons why businesses fail? : 
   Þ     They can’t, won’t or don’t sell.
   Þ     Not getting paid on time.
9. Are you providing your customers the cheapest, or value

So, my last question; what are you going to do differently tomorrow?
Let me know.  Email Me

A CRUEL AND RECKLESS FATE

Army 2020…
The defence secretary Philip Hammond has announced details of how the Army will be restructured as it loses a fifth of its personnel over the next few years. Seventeen units are to axed as part of sweeping reforms that will reduce its overall strength by 20,000. Apparently, the cuts will require at least two more tranches of redundancies next year and as well in 2014 meaning that soldiers will hear about their own future at the same time as British forces are pulling out of Afghanistan. Anyone who has ever worked for a company that is going through a restructure will know the impact not only on morale but also on efficacy. How our forces are supposed to remain positive and effective units with this Sword of Damocles over their heads is beyond me…Graciously, Hammond acknowledges that morale in the army was "fragile". "People never like change…change brings uncertainty," he said as he palmed the issue off to the Ministry of Defence to explain to its staff.

I am intrigued therefore to understand the real thinking behind this and how such a plan can be justified. Sure, I have no doubt it looks good on the bean-counters spreadsheet and all the back-patting must be causing a degree of bruising under those grey Whitehall wool suits, but the reality from a purely common sense point of view, must be that this is insanity. A reduced defence force dependant on part-timers and foreign partners…
.
‘Uncertainty’, the name of the game…
If we are to believe the media, we are in the midst of a double-dip recession, the construction industry is under-performing as a result of tight lending and the rest of mainland Europe seems on the brink of collapse. ‘Uncertainty’ is the name of the game right now…Despite a slight fall in the unemployment rate in the last quarter, we still sit at 2.61 million people unemployed just short of the 2.98 million we saw ten years ago in 1992. Despite unemployment numbers being a somewhat inexact science due to lag and timing, the reality is we have a huge number of people, a large proportion of whom are 16-24 year olds, claiming the dole and other welfare services. They are disillusioned, disenfranchised and feel for the most part helpless. There is no question that the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have not’s’ is greater than it’s ever been in Britain and this was confirmed in the findings of The Riots, Communities and Victims Panel, set up after the riots of 2011.
 
Reckless…
It is against this background that I challenge the sanity of a decision that will over the next few years put so many valuable people into harms way. I use the word ‘harm’, because it is appropriate. It is perhaps not known or appreciated, that when a member of the service is discharged or made redundant, they are in effect homeless and jobless…either is a challenge at the best of times…but to be made both by an institution that has cared for you by providing every need and instruction, seems reckless and cruel given the service and loyalty our military personnel deliver.
No room at the inn..

In speaking with many of the agencies tasked with resettlement of military personnel, they all share the same issue i.e. the real challenge of trying to place ex-service members into full time employment. There is no question that our service colleagues are highly trained and have a myriad of different skills, sadly for the most part however, employers and HR professionals do not always have the time to try and find out how those skills may be of benefit to their businesses. How they could deploy these skills and with a small investment in re-training, acquire an asset that can add hugely to their bottom line.

Franchise that..

I have been involved in advising, working with and speaking to in excess of 50 major franchise companies over the years, I have discovered that some of the most successful franchisees are ex-service people and in endeavouring to discover a logical reason ‘why’, it becomes blatantly obvious. For a franchisee to make a franchise work successfully and very profitably they should follow the franchisor’s plan exactly to the letter. So, who are the best-trained people in the UK to do what they are told to do?

The challenge…
I have also been fortunate over the years in working with and speaking to, dare I say, hundreds of thousands of people and in the process have met thousands of ex-military. Consistently it has become apparent how they are valued for the significant contributions they have made to the organisations that they work with, often they are some of the very best employees and I mean at all levels of employment.

There is a challenge though and it is one that must be addressed in advance of discharge and then continued during the initial period as a civilian. Military personnel exist in a tight structured environment. Many of the simple things we think about such as shopping for food, managing our finances, maintaining a roof over our heads, preparing a CV, applying for jobs, things one might describe as ‘Life Skills’ are not part of their thought process; they haven’t needed to be. It is critical then that apart from retooling people’s skills, they are supported in the more fundamental and mundane aspects of civilian life.  By default, being in the services requires you to be flexible and react to changing situations, this may be easy in theatre…but their skills must now be redirected and adapted for ‘Civvy Street’. If they are not appropriately supported and re-trained, we run the risk of merely adding to the general unemployment frustrations mentioned above. Young people dream from an early age of joining the Forces and to have that dream ended because of ‘cuts’, is not something that can easily be contemplated or accepted. By the same token, individuals that have provided years of loyal service both in peace and in war will have an extremely hard time accepting these upcoming redundancies and the slashing of historical traditions.

Why? ...

The point is simple enough; are we just cutting the military because it looks good on paper? Has Whitehall considered that unless properly supported, we will only be adding to the layers of unemployed and so any savings are merely redirected to a different budget line? How much support are UK employers willing to take to ensure that we can find jobs for these people? How are the government encouraging and incentivising employers to take on ex-military staff? However you carve it up, we will ultimately be responsible for paying the bill. So with that in mind, let us be proactive in finding opportunities to hire ex-forces personnel and not allow them to become a nameless statistic on a graph.


Be creative…
In an ideal world, there would be 0% unemployment, many corporations talk about people being their greatest asset. As a nation, we should be thinking the same thing and taking collective responsibility for the less fortunate and unemployed. Our military are the unwilling victims of some spreadsheet madness. They need protecting. Too much of our employment mentality is directed towards skills and past experience so may I say to UK employers, BIG, BIG mistake. Think outside the box when you are recruiting, don’t just tick boxes because it’s the easiest thing to do, go for attitude because the skills are easy to train and you will always get a positive experience on the back of good training.

The opportunity…
There is a reason why our British Armed Services attract the admiration of the rest of the world. Our core military values are courage, discipline, respect, integrity, loyalty and selflessness.  Why would we not want to harness those traits to help grow our businesses?

"No Fault Dismissal": A Licence For Poor Leadership & Management?

‘Dead hand of fear’
It is anticipated that the most controversial concept contained in the formal submission, created by the Adrian Beecroft, recommending that "no fault dismissal" should apply to micro companies employing fewer than ten staff – will quietly be killed off. Apart from Vince Cable’s warning to ministers that the proposal would leave the 'dead hand of fear' hanging over employees, reports seem to indicate that the evidence so far shows little support among British businesses for the proposal.



Flexibility = Prosperity
David Cameron is right when he suggests that it is in everybody’s interest (apart from a tiny minority of skivers) that our labour market is more flexible, even more so if we want to create prosperity and increase our share of world trade. A flexible workforce will create greater job security because our products and services will be more competitive meaning more sales and in turn greater prosperity.

You’re fired!
A flexible labour market though, is not and should not be a licence for lousy or weak management to behave like monsters and treat their workforce as flotsam by enabling them to dismiss employees without “fault’. Good, decent and skilled managers should treat their staff as they would treat their customers. No fault dismissal is a disgraceful proposition and would only appeal to companies and individuals not worth working for, the ‘hire and fire brigade’ of get rich quickies but long-term losers. Managers should treat their employees with dignity and treat them, as they themselves would expect to be treated.

People don’t leave jobs they leave people
I help and train managers to be leaders. In my experience very few have ever been trained in basic people management skills, a result of our willingness to reward diligent and loyal work with endless promotions to positions an individual is often not prepared for. Projection into roles you are not ready or trained for has a negative ripple effect; the promoted employee becomes stressed, their productivity and efficacy begins to drop, whilst their subordinates become secondary, undirected, demotivated and ultimately dissatisfied with their job. This simply is why people don’t leave jobs, they leave people.

Let’s not get distracted
I would agree therefore with Terry Scuoler, the EEF chief executive that the focus really should be on positive labour reform and not allow the fatuous ‘no fault dismissal’ notion to distract the urgent needs of UK business and manufacturing. I embrace for example, the recommendation to try and streamline the employment tribunal system, which really is a time and money consuming disaster for British commerce and so weighted in favour of the crooked rogue and dishonest employee. The five-point plan in the Beecroft report has some great benefits for all the working population and amazingly this includes managers who generally work a darn site harder than the so-called workers.

Rest In Peace ‘No Fault Dismissal’…

The Customer is doing us a favour...

Much of what I talk about and what we teach at Denny Training, is to ensure that at all times, the customer is at the forefront of every decision we make.

Mahatma Gandhi said, ‘A customer is the most important visitor on our premises; he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so’.
Surely then, in times of economic downturn and recession, it is vital that we remain in tune with this philosophy by being at one with our customers needs as well as being in touch with their ‘mood’. We, as providers of a service must understand enough and be sensitive to the challenges faced by our consumers. We hear a great deal about the impact of the failing economy on businesses, but how often do we as business owners take a step back to think about how it is affecting individual customers? I am not talking about other corporations. I am referring to the every day hard working individuals charged with the responsibility of keeping a roof over their head and food on the table; the ongoing need to provide for their families. The pensioner who has suffered a loss in savings and faces the fear of outliving their financial capacity. The young person who has never had a job since leaving school, is laden with debt and has little if any prospect of securing one in the short term. These are the people we need to be ‘connected’ too, not literally, but metaphorically. It is surely in all our best interests, that we allow our customers to act as a barometer in our decision making process, whether that be the products and services we provide, the price points for our goods or the amounts of money we pay our top executives.

It is in this context and against this principle that I felt compelled to comment on what I believe will become a trend in the coming months and years if we do not step back and test the temperature.
 
On April 27, 2012 despite openly stating they had had ‘an unacceptable year’, Bob Diamond, Chief Executive of Barclays PLC was perfectly content to receive a £17.7 million pound paycheck in a year when Shareholders received £700m in dividends while the banks’ staff received £1.2bn in bonuses. It is no surprise then that 31.5% of the shareholders voted against the remuneration packages. Whilst this was not enough to prevent the payments being made to the executives, it did send a loud message of dissatisfaction.

On May 3, 2012, Aviva, the insurance giant took a kicking from its Shareholders, 54% of whom decided that the remuneration packages for its executives, including now departed Chief Executive Andrew Moss, were way out of proportion given the performance of the company. Whilst the amounts were perhaps mere pocket change by comparison to the banks’ bonuses, what we are seeing is a trend towards excessive reward for poor performance in a climate where the division between rich and poor throughout the world is becoming chasm like.

I am not naive, I acknowledge and believe that there must be fair and appropriate remuneration for workers and executives alike. Good work and performance must be recognized and rewarded, but such rewards must be aligned to ‘reality’ and sensitive to current economic conditions and public perception.

My challenge with these obscene pay awards is two fold;
Firstly, how can anyone be worth those kinds of sums?

Secondly, we can only assume that the ‘fat cats’ who recommend and approve these grotesque amounts, are so far removed from ‘real life’ as to make them the least appropriate or prudent people to be handling our money, our insurance or indeed any sensitive and volatile aspect of our lives.

Ask yourself this:
Did the people involved in agreeing these reckless pay awards consider me, the customer, the shareholder at any point in their decision making process?

Is the trust we invested in these companies valued?
The answer must be a resounding ‘NO’!
The Barclays website states, ‘As a responsible global citizen, Barclays is committed to ensuring the sustainability of the communities in which the business operates, and strives for sustainable relationships with customers and clients worldwide’
I am at a loss to understand how £1.2bn worth of staff bonuses, including one single award of £17.7m to the Chief Executive, in the current global economic climate could ever be described as ‘responsible’ or an act that would ensure a sustainable relationship with customers.
Speaking of irony, in 2009 Aviva won the Market Research Society Award in the Financial Services category, for its approach to generating insight, putting customer needs at the heart of the business. What changed?

What is clear, is that despite their rhetoric, these institutions were so far removed from the needs and expectations of their customers, so out of touch with the mood of their stakeholders that they made decisions which will forever haunt their careers and tarnish their brands reputation. ‘U’ turns on financial packages and resignations resulting from the embarrassment of shareholder revolts, have all followed the events of April and early May and simply endorse the customer response to these executive pay awards.
In order to differentiate and really mean what we say about customer care, we must take to heart and really comprehend the last couple of lines of the earlier quote, ‘He (the customer) is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so’.

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Procure yourself into insolvency.....

Professor Arjan van Weele, NEVI-Chair of Purchasing and Supply Management, at Eindhoven University of Technology and doyen of procurement strategy is quoted as describing procurement as “the acquisition of goods or services. It is favorable that the goods/services are appropriate and that they are procured at the best possible cost to meet the needs of the purchaser in terms of quality and quantity, time, and location”

There is a dangerous trend amongst a plethora of companies to believe that their efficiency, growth, competitiveness and profit will grow through transferring traditional buying processes over to the Busy Work division also known as ‘Procurement’. It beggars belief why any private sector business should want to copy and emulate a public sector practice or policy unless of course, you are a vast financial institution. In which case, you are already divorced from any semblance of common sense.

I read that there is going to be an announcement on the fourth NHS procurement strategy in 10 years.  I can only presume that this is because the others have not worked.  Yes, of course, I am a passionate believer in the importance of persistence.  The greatest example being Edison who, in his creation of the light bulb, went through 3000 prototypes before finding a solution. I am not sure though, that ‘persistence’ is a good enough rationale for the NHS to hang in there attempting yet again, to get our billions of purchasing pounds more efficiently utilised. I am confused as to why they have got it wrong three times already and who has paid for these apparent wasted exercises?

The traditional trained, skilled and experienced buyer is and will always be, in my opinion, a most valuable asset to corporations. Having trained thousands of sales people over the years, many have feared the ‘professional buyer’; I reassure them every time, that it is a great pleasure and can be immensely rewarding to meet, sell to and build valuable relationships with professional buyers. Apparently, it is now a common corporate policy that staff, other than Busy Work personnel, should not meet third party suppliers as they could be influenced into buying decisions, which may be driven by considerations other than price. I am not aware of any of the big retail chains from supermarkets to clothing outlets that have dispensed with their buyers and handed over the process to procurement. How can someone in procurement, who never use the term ‘customer’ in their dealings, have enough inside knowledge or real understanding of their end users needs?

At my Leadership and Sales Master Classes, frustrated managers share countless case histories and examples of the procurement team having not only simply lost customers, but who also have created significant customer dissatisfaction and complaints. 

The issue is simple enough, procurement are positioned too far away from the real needs of the end user and/or the customer. Whether the customer is internal or external, you cannot measure their requirements against a set of criteria that may at first glance appear in the best, immediate financial interests of the business. Purchasing then becomes merely an academic abstract exercise that is in tune with the ‘bottom line’ and not aligned with who, what, where or why. Smart buying must be about relationships, an understanding of how and why a ‘widget’ is going to be used, as well as an intuitive instinctive component built on expertise, experience and understanding. It is this latter piece that has been lost in the procurement process and the challenges I mention above spring directly from the absence of simpatico with the wider business needs. The end result can mean fractured relationships both internally and externally, as well as long term and significant negative impact financially and corporately.

Rebecca Howard of ADR International, one of the world's leading procurement consultancies, tells us that, ‘“In the challenging world of procurement it can be difficult to feel that you are making a difference.” I wonder why?

If any readers of this blog have experiences or thoughts on procurement, I would really appreciate you sharing your stories with me.

http://www.richarddenny.co.uk/

Thought for the Day

"Those who follow the crowd are quickly lost in it."

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How about some chocolate sperm this Easter?

Jonathan Sachs the Chief Rabbi as usual delivered an illuminating message in his Thought for the Day, the Passover meal and family involvement being the theme of this special Easter week.

For many who have a Jewish or Christian faith the week leading to Easter is very special, regardless of whether you have a religion or not how about making this a special week for somebody, and the best place to start? Call up a member of your family or a friend you have not spoken to for some time and give them the gift of your interest, attention and care.

For many people Easter is just an event where we are commercially brainwashed to buy chocolate eggs and so replicate the reproduction process of our feathered friends, it could just as well be chocolate sperm!!

Easter introduces spring, a fresh start, what a great theme to have a new beginning with relatives and friends where this may be needed.

Greater joy and happiness will permeate throughout the year rather than just the short chocolate fix!!!!

How about having both?

http://www.richarddenny.co.uk/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=how-about-some-chocolate-sperm-this-easter.html&Itemid=147

Lichfield & Taworth Chamber Event

Richard Denny presenting at the highly successful Lichfield & Taworth Chamber of Commerce networking event at Drayton Manor Park on 15th March. "A huge thank you for yesterdays event. I have been organising Chamber events for the Southern Staffordshire region for over 5 years and we have never received such positive feedback from our delegates. It was first class." Chris Plant - Area Marketing & Events Manager.

A Ratner Moment?

This is the age of the customer and all of us at work should take a reality check in protecting our brands.

Two major brands have suffered in the past two weeks with serious brand damage - one possible irreparable, Goldman Sachs with their ‘Muppet Customers’, and now the Conservative party with ‘apparent payments to meet policy makers at best, and beans on toast with the Camerons at worst’.

The Conservative brand would of course be a different rating to Goldman Sachs who was supposedly AAA whereas the Conservative Party was probably a D- in trust, reputation and loyalty.

So what would you do if you were the brand manager of the Conservative Party?

BlueStar Vartech UK Event

Richard Denny is the guest Keynote speaker at the BlueStar Vartech UK event at The National Motor Cycle Museum on 21st March.

The topic is 2012 – The Year of Growth – and will include tips on -

• How to grow your business
• Professional sales techniques
• Taking great care of customers
• The vital ingredient

Click on the Bluestar Vartect event to view more information.

Thought for the Day

Take risks, if you win you will be delighted; if you lose you will be wise.

Profit from Humour

Is Laughter Really the Best Medicine?

Victor Borge the Danish American humorist, pianist and entertainer once said “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” Laughter really does connect people, strengthens relationships and can be a useful business tool to increase sales success.

Research by Dr Terri Kurtzberg of Rutgers University uncovered that a simple laugh could actually result in more effective and efficient negotiation and measurably helped towards reducing suspicion, building trust and a dramatically increased positive outcome.

So now armed with that laughter really can be great medicine for the winner of business, get the balance right. Avoid the silly dirty joke or the jokes best left to the comedians but a sense of humour an amusing situation or funny story shared can bring you great returns.

Very difficult to train but humour can be enhanced with coaching, therefore we should all learn to lighten up a little and have a bit more fun with those sales and meeting presentations.

Thought for the Day

The function of leadership is to produce more leaders than more followers.

Learning As Against Training

Now that we are coming out of the recession there is once again an enthusiasm in companies to develop the skills of their people. So what type of skill development is proving to be most effective in this age of electronic technology? I think that we all agree that we (sadly) seem to learn more by our mistakes and failures than by our successes – sad but true.

Research has shown that solely focusing skill development on positive aspects of best practice can be a mistake as the most persuasive approach in the development of people. A sizable part of knowledge sharing towards learning should be devoted to how others got it wrong. Case studies of errors that lead to discussion that lead to suggestions on how those errors could be avoided are more effective. The research demonstrated this approach is not only quicker, more productive but also cost effective in creating the learning experience.

Thought for the Day

More doors are opened with please than keys.

http://www.richarddenny.co.uk/

Avoid the Hindsight Club

Have you ever been a member of The Hindsight Club, you know the one, populated with failed politicians and civil servants whose qualification for membership is justification/excuses for their actions.

“We can all be wise in hindsight…”

Or

“Well of course in hindsight we wouldn’t have…”

Or

“We would have done things differently if we had known…”

How about prior to making a decision visiting hindsight first? I get all my clients to visit hindsight before making any major decision and then prepare a contingency just in case hindsight should rear its ugly head. Now all of the concentration is to make the decision successful and fascinatingly when one visits hindsight first you never have to visit there later.

What a difference a week can make

Suddenly it is no longer politically correct to beat up our financial institutions. Apparently the giant Prudential, the UK’s biggest insurance company may emigrate and this scare is publicised on the same day that HSBC announces a huge increase in their profits, and of course its ok for them to pay some big bonuses. Yes there is a difference in rewarding success and failure, but I find the interviewing and reporting just a little hypocritical and a demonstration of the immaturity and naivety of so many in the media.

London, as I think we all know is a micro climate within the UK which is fantastic bearing in mind the vast revenues generated that go into the Exchequer. Even the so called Bankers (most of whom were not) with the big bonuses had to pay 50% of their income to you and me via HMRC to then be laundered by the government. Indeed we should all be concerned to have a tax system or bureaucracy that makes the UK unattractive, and let’s now hope that the media’s unhealthy culture of criticising the business and wealth creators (yes RBS and Lloyds will be back there shortly) will be reporting the good news of business growth.

I can report that companies are investing once again in training, coaching and mentoring, and as we all know business growth rapidly follows.

Frustrated from Gloucestershire!

Am I the only one!!! (according to the Times this is the most popular start in a letter to the Editor) Anyhow, am I the only one who is getting more and more pi…d off with people who do not reply to phone calls or emails. My colleagues spend an inordinate amount of precious time which is wasted because people just do not respond and this is sadly all too common in executives these days. Is it any wonder there is a lack of trust and respect?

Stress is a major cause of sickness and absenteeism

• the biggest cause of stress at work is the mismanagement of time

• the biggest cause of mismanagement of time is procrastination

• and procrastination is a serious business weakness

Thought for the Day

The best teachers are those who can infect others with their own enthusiasm.

Complimentary Modern Life Skills Event

Richard Denny will be presenting at a series of complimentary half day Modern Life Skills events hosted by The Learning Architect at various nationwide locations from May 2012.

The first free event is on May 1st at the
Cotswold Conference Centre,
Broadway, Worcestershire.

Click here for more information

Thought for the Day

We never seem to have enough time to do it right but always enough time to do it again.

Business Growth Seminar Poland

Richard Denny is visiting Poland to present a Business Growth Seminar to an audience of Board Directors, CEO's, Senior Executives and Entrepreneurs organized by our associates Bigram SA and Golden Mark.

The event will be at the Hotel Sheraton in Warsaw on the 16th April and as usual will be packed full of practical and usable ideas that will have an immediate positive impact on the businesses of all who attend. click here for more detail

Lichfield & Tamworth Chamber event

Lichfield & Tamworth Chamber event Richard Denny is speaking at a lunch-time event on the 15th March at Drayton Manor Hotel, Tamworth organized by Lichfield & Tamworth Chamber but is open to members and non-members alike.

The session entitled - How to Win New Business in Challenging Times - Click To book your place and find out more

Thought for the Day

The economy is doing better than we are led to believe, so 2012 is the year to fight the negatives, stay focussed and positive and your future is what you will make it.