From Armchair to Action

The Journey of Innovation

Last night I was in Brighton speaking at an event that was focused on innovation.  It was a great evening, where people had a chance to put the concept of innovation into practice.  I spoke first about my journey to reaching the North Pole and linked in some of the points related to innovation. For example, coming up with lots of ideas about how to raise the funds required to participate in the polar expedition.

At tables, people discussed the idea of how to be the most innovative fish and chip shop.  It was really good to be creative, have a discussion and identify the best idea and then think about how it could be put into practice.  ProfitNet, the Brighton based organisation run these type of workshops to encourage businesses to be more innovative, definitely worth going along to!

Update from Women Presidents Organisation conference

Had a good day at the conference here in San Diego yesterday with the highlight being Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay and now running for Governor of California.  Her four top tips on business were:

1. Make sure you get the right person, in the right job at the right time with the right values and beliefs.

2. Focus, focus, focus - learn the art of exclusion (what NOT to do)

3. The price of inaction is much greater than the cost of making a mistake

4.  Leaders are bold and courageous

Simple is best

Today was the first of our Leadership Academy workshops that we deliver for the Rugby Football Union.  Whilst the programme cover all things related to leadership it never ceases to make me smile that the session that people generally find most useful is the one on questioning.

It is a back to basics session, on considering different types of questions, which ones are most useful at different times and how by asking great questions and listening really well, you can help another person without having knowledge of their particular issue.

The concepts are simple, yet not easy, and somehow in our culture we sometimes mistakenly believe that our job is to know the "right answer" to issues and yet the right answer very often, is to know what question to ask!

Rugby clubs are similar to small businesses

This week I have been busy attending the launch events for the RFU Leadership Academy for leaders within Community Rugby Clubs.  It's a programme designed to develop both today's and tomorrow's leaders because, similar to small business, we all know that the quality of an organisation is highly linked to the quality of its leadership.

Even though clubs are run by volunteers they face similar issues to those of small business owner; how to create a vision and strategy for the long term, motivating people and managing change.  Sir Clive Woodward had some twelve useful leadership lessons for rugby teams and it also applies to leaders of clubs and small businesses:

(Adapted from The Sunday Times June 19, 2005)

1. Good leadership is transferable across disciplines. If you have proved that you can successfully manage a team or an organisation in one industry, the chances are that you would fare equally well in another
2. Passion is all. No manager will succeed without it.If you’re ambitious, don’t stay in a job just for the money or status. You will never excel unless you do what you want to do rather than what you feel you ought to do
3. Enjoyment is a business term. While strategy, planning and organisation are all necessary, don’t lose sight of the fact that there are human beings who volunteer with you who won’t perform unless they enjoy their task. Always challenge your people with new ways of doing things, new ideas. Always make them feel that they are progressing as individuals
4. Only hire those who pass the ‘24-hour plane journey’ test. To maintain your level of enjoyment, you need the right people around you. When you recruit, don’t just look at the CV. Would you want that person with you day in, day out, for years?
5. Achieve success through setbacks, and build on success. Work hard to learn the lessons of victory and success. Don’t dwell on failure. Focus on the positive.
6. Remove all ‘energy sappers. Too much nonsense is written about motivation. You need to get the right people, all of them committed to achieve. If there are those who don’t share that commitment, move swiftly to turn them round. If their attitude doesn’t improve, get them out before the entire working atmosphere is tainted irreparably
7. Establish ‘teamship’ rules at the outset. When you start managing any team of people, sit down with them and thrash out a set of standards and rules by which everyone has to abide. Once you get this buy-in, everyone can concentrate on moving the business forward without fear of disruption
8. Make use of the creativity of everyone in your organisation. Intelligence and fresh thinking are not the preserve of senior executives and MBA graduates. If you neglect to consult the grass roots, you might lose out on ideas which could change your business
9. For a fresh view, go outside your industry. People who work in the same industry tend to end up thinking the same. If you genuinely want new ideas, don’t forget to consult people you respect who have never worked in your industry
10. Never follow tradition for its own sake. ‘That’s the way we do things here.’ You’re not ever going to beat the competition with that sort of complacency. Look at absolutely everything your team or club does and then ask yourself honestly, ‘Should we really still do it this way?’
11. Don’t neglect any detail. It could make all the difference. Competition can be fierce. What then differentiates the best from the also-rans? It’s those one per cents, the ‘critical non-essentials’
12. Understand your team, but don’t get too close. Your relationship with your team should be a delicate balancing act. Get to know something about their lives outside work so that you can understand them better and so that they feel part of a team where people care. But never get too close. That might compromise you. 

How to run a gold medal business

We are now in the middle of the Olympics and every evening I watch the highlights on TV.  I marvel at how the athletes can pull exceptional performance out of the bag, when the pressure is on and there are hundredths of a second between win or lose.

So having achieved the heady heights of running for Scotland in athletics here are my five tips to help you run a gold medal business:

1. Never give up.  If you are really determined to succeed then its amazing what you can achieve. Keep going until you are forced to quit or win!

2. Focus on your own, not your competitors performance.  It can be easy to get distracted (just like the UK sychronised diving team did) and start thinking about other things. It might be what do others' think, what are your competitors doing, or why results are not as good as previous years.  Make sure you keep focused on what you can control.  If you do your best then that's all you can ask of yourself.

3. Develop self-belief.  Practice developing your "can do "mindset.  Write down one success that you achieve every day and what you were thinking when you achieved that success.  Use it as a motivational tool on the days when you feel less positive.

4. Practice being competitive.  This does not always mean win-lose.  Compete against yourself - how can I improve what I did yesterday?  What is my new target?  Research your competitors in business and identify what their gaps are, and look to excel in those areas.  This might seem at odds with point 2, but you can do the research and then use it to your advantage, in the heat of the "moment" when pitching for business, or creating your marketing materials.

5. Look after yourself.  Your business will only be successful if you are able to run it effectively.  Take time for relaxation, eating healthily and having some change of scene outside the work environment. By having diverse interests, you can get inspiration and ideas from other places.

Building customer loyalty and growing your team

Last night I was speaking at an event for business owners in the hairdressing sector.  It was a fascinating evening.  There was another speaker before me Colina Currell from Synergy who was great and provided loads of inspiration, enthusiasm and wise words for the salon owners. She reinforced the point that training, training, training is the mantra for getting and keeping good people which of course was music to my ears.

I found myself thinking about how a hairdresser builds and maintains customer loyalty.  It seems that  good old customer service and making people feel special is paramount.  Salons should recognise that clients do not belong to individual stylists but to the salon and therefore clients should be encouraged to try a different stylist in order to gain from other's creative ideas - but most importantly overall keep that person coming back.   This is very similar to the problem that many consulting and training companies experience - how to wean a client away from their first initial contact person and to work with someone else?

Too often, a senior consultant goes into an organisation, builds the relationship and wins the business and then the client only wants that person to work with them.  Its often about how the consultancy is positioned right from the start and this is what the team at Synergy clearly try to do - show that they are a team and every stylist is great. 

This issue is so important for business owners looking to grow their businesses - as they need to learn to delegate work to colleagues and free themselves up to look for new business.  This means learning to trust your associates, team-mates or colleagues and finding ways to introduce them to your clients and let them build relationships too.