Blog Archive
2005
“Sir, what is the secret of your success?” a reporter asked a bank president.
“Two words.”
“And, Sir, what are they?” asked the reporter.
“Right decisions.”
“And how do you make right decisions?”
“One word.”
“What is that, Sir?”
“Experience.”
“And how do you get Experience?” the reporter asked.
“Two words.”
“And, Sir, what are they?”
“Wrong decisions.”
Congratulations to all the award winners at the Personnel Today Awards ceremony held at the Grosvenor House Hotel on 24th November, especially to Compass Group – the biggest winners of the night!
Consultants Towers Perrin have released the results of a new study which finds that a quarter of employees are actively disengaged – but much of this is down to their leaders….
Simon Caulkin writes in The Observer this week that stories permit ‘meaning and memory’. Like mnemonics, stories enable us to absorb and remember incredibly complex detail. Stories have always been part of marketing, but nowadays is an integral part of a brand.
Not sure about the idea of teepees in carparks , but we certainly go along with Daniel Allen’s views on employee engagement today in the Times…
A CEO friend of mine attended a talk the other day on organisational culture.
The speaker recounted the time he and his wife checked into a hotel bedroom. On the pillow was the usual feedback form, but under the section that read ‘Was The Room Cleaned To Your Satisfaction?’ was a hand-written note saying, ‘Please look under the bed – Betty’.
Much to his wife’s amusement the man started scrabbling under the bed, and found, right in the middle, a small card. On it was written: ‘I’ve cleaned under here as as well – Betty’.
The speaker’s theme was ‘Finding The Betty In Your Organisation!’
I read recently that the 12 Safest Companies in America all have one thing in common – a passion for safety. Question: How do you instil that passion? Answer: Employee engagement. Of course, it stands to reason that employees must be engaged when it comes to safety, but a clear message is being sent out here.
I always enjoy reading what David Bolchover has to say. I wonder how many of us concur with his view that while we might be just a little bored with our day to day jobs we could actually do another person’s job perfectly well, if not better.
There has been an interesting, week-long-so-far debate on Melcrum’s SCM forum about what makes a good leader. The response has been amazingly varied. As the Conservative Party enters its final phase of choosing a leader, I thought this BBC News Magazine article was appropriate. I’d be interested to think what everyone out there thinks about this subject!
I never cease to be amazed by some of the language that comes out of companies today. And I don’t mean cursing and swearing. It’s the jargon that people use.
When Adam Crozier recently remarked that a good proportion of Royal Mail managers were sub-standard, I suspect a large number of CEO’s secretly empathised with him, in the knowledge that some of their own managers fall short of attaining the qualities needed to be good, inspiring leaders. David Bolchover, author of The Living Dead: The Shocking Truth About Office Life, points out that it is our managers, with whom we have to work on a daily basis, who are to blame for low morale, poor productivity and lack of commitment among the workforce. Interesting reading, this.
Charles Woodruffe has written a truly insightful piece in Legal Week into what exactly motivates and engages employees, and points out that whilst this is important for every employee, it is especially necessary for talented people who are likely to become the leaders of the future. He raises some interesting points, not least that whilst the CEO’s of most organisations agree that their people are their most precious asset, and that they need to foster the right conditions to get the best out of them, ‘the trouble is that organisations do not necessarily put this thinking into practice…..’
Today in The Daily Telegraph Robert Miller looks at how Storytelling has helped companies such as BP, EDS, Parcelforce Worldwide, Hertz, Yell and Standard Life to engage their employees.
Yup, we knew it all along. There’s no substitute for the human being when it comes to communication, but when you can’t get a load of humans in one place and at one time, the next best thing has to be the human voice – even if it doesn’t have a face on the end of it! Podcasting is simple, and as Steve Smith observes, ‘this is new technology that revives our appreciation of the oldest medium.’ If, as he says, old fashioned storytelling may be the most engaging use of podcasting, then bring it on….
There really is a shift going on, says Daniel Pink, in how we are applying what goes on in the left and right spheres of our brains to how we run our businesses and improve performance. I found this article very interesting…
The term ‘Skilled Incompetents’ really resonated with me when I read today’s article by Dr James Rieley in The Daily Telegraph. This highlights the all-too-common practice of managers looking inwards to concentrate on their own personal agendas, preventing others from achieving their own goals and in doing so preventing the organisation as a whole from achieving its goals and targets. Managers and Leaders? Reading this article, the words Wheat and Chaff spring to mind.
Do you notice when people have an attitude? I certainly do. It’s that hard-to-define thing that exudes from people – the way they move, the way they talk, the eye contact, the gestures.
Most people in most situations don’t have a discernable attitude. It’s in that great grey zone of the unremarkable. We think little of them, because they make little impact.
I was in one of my local pubs last night, fascinated by a framed front page from a wartime newspaper on the wall – The Daily Herald, 16th September 1940. The headlines were predictable and almost completely dominated the page: ‘Buckingham Palace Bombed Third Time’, ‘Raiders Chased Back To The Channel’, ‘RAF Puts Goering In Shade’, ‘Nazis Hold Up French Train’, ‘RAF Triumphs In Biggest Air Battles Of War’ and so on. And quietly, in the right hand bottom corner, was a not-so-small advert depicting a mother getting onto a bus, with the headline “Tell Daddy I’ve Gone To Boots”.
Great article from Christian Budtz and Klaus Fog in Design Bulletin. Companies who want to maintain brand status in the future must have a great story to tell. Storytelling is as important for building brands as it is for engaging employees, in creating an understanding of their values and personality. Oh, and they’ve written a new book called Storytelling – Branding in Practice. I’m off to buy it right now.
Recently there has been much talk of ‘Love Brands’. I think that this is a very interesting notion, and it got me thinking.
I thought it fitting that today, the 60th anniversary of the end of the war between the Allies and Japan, we should make reference to Bristol-based designer Nick Hind’s Living Museum.
Here’s a nice little snippet I read somewhere. I believe that as human beings we respond very well to creativity, yet so much of our communication and day to day activity is sadly lacking in it as we send more e-mails, use more powerpoint and create less face-to-face interaction. Digital technology can be a great tool (no! I’ve just come off a conference call to the US – digital technology is an utterly fantastic tool without which our lives would be completely different) but it needs to be used in tandem with a more creative thought process to be really effective. It is so easy to de-humanise, as we ‘press send’ again and again, day in, day out. We do need to inject more humanity in our interaction. And if humanity can be brought about through creativity….
Creativity is essentially a form of human expression that communicates emotionally and intellectually the individual’s thoughts and feelings concerning themes about self, dreams and visions, issues and relationships. All people are therefore creative. Creativity is about humanity.
Graham Bowley writes today on the challenges the EU faces in getting its message across regarding the role it can play in creating jobs, saving the environment, reducing world poverty and disrupting terrorism in the 21st century. This is a story line which needs a human face at the centre to make it more compelling….
Leading research and information portal Melcrum features an article about our engagement programme for EDS.
(Article Copyright © Melcrum Publishing)
I hear the BBC is bringing Jackanory back to our screens. When you consider how sophisticated childrens’ TV has become, the simplicity of a presenter reading direct to camera might seem at odds. Just shows how the charms of old-fashioned storytelling never go away….
In an excerpt to Seth Godin’s new book ‘All Marketers Are Liars’, we read that the key to profitable growth is from giving consumers what they want, not what they need. People tell themselves compelling stories about what they want, and in turn believe that this is indeed what they need. Read on….!
We were highly inspired by this commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios, at Stanford University. It has nothing to do with being Apple aficionados (which we are)….his advice and experiences are truly insightful and often humbling. A word of advice: Pass this on to younger members of your family. They will learn from it too.
The Xerox Chairman and CEO, Anne M Mulcahy, was interviewed in the March issue of Fast Company magazine under the heading What I Know Now. Among other things she talks about the importance of storytelling:
Storytelling is hugely important. At our town meetings, the most frequently asked question wasn’t whether we’d survive, but what we would look like when we did. I got great advice: Write a story. We wrote a Wall Street Journal article, because they had been particularly nasty about us, dated five years out…
While we eagerly anticipate the launch of the next Harry Potter book, John Simmons for The Observer looks at how businesses and brands have been ‘crying out for clarity and emotional engagement’. What better way to build a brand – as J K Rowling has done so innocently and successfully – than through the telling of stories? This is a great article which supports our own belief in the power of storytelling in business…
I saw this on the back of The Week magazine… how clever to use a story as advertising this way:-
The Peculiar Incident of the Fishmonger Performing on Hilary’s Kitchen Table