Whilst looking through a cupboard at work today, I came across a small book I hadn’t read for a while about positive attitudes and acheiving goals. Something resonated with me when flicking through it, which is a methodology for turning a vision into goals using an acronym called “STEAM”. Details below: -
S = Specific. As in, be specific. State your goals in the positive. How does your outcome, look, sound and feel? The more sensory rich you make it, the more you empower your brain to create what you want.
T = Timed. Set a specific completion date, otherwise tomorrow never comes.
E = Evidence. How will you measure your goal? What is your evidence procedure? Create action words to paint motivating pictures in your mind. Sit for a moment and really visualise your goal.
A = Achievable. Ensure your goal is congruent with your values, so as to avoid the fog of confusion.
M = Momentum. Break the goal down into steps, rather than seeing it as one huge task. List all the quick actions you can take, then do something. Habits such as fear of failure, procrastination and perfectionism wil l hold you back if you let them.
It reminded me of a famous quote from Walt Disney “A goal is a dream with a deadline“. Sweet dreams everyone.
Britain will suffer most of all the advanced nations in the global recession according to the IMF. Daunting news and not the biggest vote of confidence in our political leadership.
What are our choices? Do we organise a management awayday and plan our downfall and think of 100 reasons why we should all go on? Or retreat into our offices and observe the world outside slowly putting the brakes on? They of course are choices you can make, your whole life is driven by choice.
You could also choose to be one of the companies to seize the moment, to re-birth, re-energise and re-focus your energy and your team. To not be a victim. To not be one of the statistics, but one of the many companies that contribute.
Averages are driven by under-performance and over-performance. Economic averages are not distributed evenly by company size or sector. Many businesses will totally outperform others over the coming two years, they will grow and do well, only to be lost in the statistics when everything gets wrapped up by people like the IMF.
Those companies will take the news above, absorb it into their contingency planning, work out how they will acquire new customers, break convention and re-model their routes to market if necessary. There are winners and losers, even in prosperous times. Winners are the people planning the future now and making positive choices, not waiting for it to happen.
Today’s been a great day. A day inspired by newness, creativity and innovation. A day thinking not how things are, but how things could be. When did you last do that?
It’s tiring, it can be hard work, but boy is it worth it. It inspires everyone, great ideas come from people you don’t expect and more importantly it gives you fresh impetus and momentum.
Away from the hustle of now, is a greenfield site just waiting to be exploited if you just step back and dream a little. Take those ideas, shake them about and then get implementing.
Talk about a needle in a haystack. I checked out the main news sites today to find a positive news story to comment on, could I find one? Could I heck. I found plenty of mega news around the economy, 80K job losses in one day, £2bn bailout for the motor industry, BA losing money primarily due to the collapse of sterling, Germany pumping €50bn into their economy. Where were the positive stories?
Which such massive headlines dominating, the good stuff just isn’t breaking through and staying positive is a real uphill struggle. The economy needs confidence, it needs to hear that things will be OK in the long term. Markets need to move again. The media have their part to play, however you can’t blame them entirely, as our politicans are doing a decent enough job of giving them the headlines.
I’ll be in Germany next week. I read that confidence there is pretty good, despite the economic situation. They still remain as one of the biggest exporters in the world, alongside China. I’ll see if they’ll be prepared to export a little of that confidence back here, if not, I’ll see what I can carry in my hand baggage.
An interesting question posed earlier today at a workshop I participated in. Are you a genuine leader or someone in charge? Are you someone who gets things done by your implied authority?
It made me stop and think of the power of office. Modern management hierarchies dictate that the higher up you go, the higher people jump for you right? If so, are they doing it because you inspire them to do it or because you have the implied authority to do it?
Leadership at all levels is about inspiration. How your whole organisation can run through a brick wall together, using the inertia to go through the wall, using the energy of everyone to hit a problem at the same time, rather than as individuals, hitting the wall one by one.
Perhaps you can take a moment to reflect about your own management style. Do people that work for you do things because they have to, or because they want to? If it’s the former, get some feedback, fast, as it’s likely your team is underperforming and operating just to keep you happy. If it’s the latter, you’ll be benefitting from support, energy and unwavering loyalty. Good job.
Troubled sports retailer JJB is offloading one of its two Agusta 109 helicopters to a middle eastern buyer for £4M. The preferred method of transport for its now suspended CEO – Chris Ronnie – the remaining chopper is set to take flight to a new buyer in the very near future.
Corporate luxuries like helicopters and jets are few and far between nowadays and as one analyst put it “one helicopter would be indulgent for a major company, having two is simply inexcusable”. Ouch. Sir David Jones, the new Chairman is doing the right thing in offloading them.
It reminded me of an interesting discussion I had with someone I met on a conference. They worked for a global drug company whose travel policy was “whatever the CEO does, everyone does”. So, everyone flew first class, from the board right the way through to the lowliest position in the company. Expensive, but consistent. Yes, it’s very extravagant. However, you can’t say that it didn’t provide transparency to everyone in the business (although that must have come at a huge cost). An interesting lesson in perkonomics and how transparency can be a great motivator to people.
Monday this week. Apparently that was the day. The one day of the year that psychologists predicted is the most likely time for us to feel blue, in fact they have named it “Blue Monday“. Unlike other years, when this has been nothing more than a semi-interesting news story to keep you occupied over lunch, the difference between then and now, is there is actually plenty to feel depressed about.
Here’s today for example. The pound slipped to a twenty year low against the dollar. The government reported that GDP have dropped by 1.5%. Samsung the major worldwide electronics manufacturer announced its first ever quarterly loss. Retailer Sofa Workshop crashed into administration. Reasons to be cheerful, 1, 2, 3……
Staying positive is hard work these days. Every time the silver lining looks like its in the distance, someone announces that it may not be, as the credit insurers are withdrawing from the silver lining market or a bank has toxic debt in the sector.
So, I wonder whether the psychologists might be a bit more challenged moving forward? It may not be just once a year, but once a week that the most depressing day of the year is established. Let’s face it, it’s not hard to feel hit by the whirlwind of economic events happening around us. How a job which felt safe on Monday, was all over by Tuesday. How a once trusted retailer who had been around for 100 years, could simply disappear from our lives as quickly as a news story runs and dies.
Out of all adversity comes opportunity. If your eyes are always wide open. If you actively listen. If you continue to learn from others, then amongst all of this bad news, there are brilliant things happening and you could be part of it. Start a movement. Fight back. Stay positive.
Up to five per cent of the workforce are to go in the first ever cuts at Microsoft since its establishment in 1975. With a headcount of 96,000 on the books, 1,400 people are set to be given notice immediately with the remainder of the losses being phased over the next eighteen months or so.
Blaming the economic slowdown, Microsoft have also announced a pay freeze for all staff, however it will continue to recruit in areas it’s outlined for growth such as search and on-line advertising. Interestingly, they are still making $4bn dollars profit a quarter.
By contrast, Apple announced strong results and their shares increased in price. Citing continued demand for i-Pods, the i-Phone and the continuing success of i-Tunes, the company with the magic touch continues to sprinkle their fairy dust.
The moral of the story. Even if you are making profits you still need to regularly housekeep (Microsoft). If you create uncontested market space for yourself, the market is yours (Apple).
So, numbers of jobless has increased to a ten year high today. 1.92M people now unemployed and looking for work. Redundancies are at a record high. Businesses continue to fold. 250K people have been made redundant between September and November as the tailwind of the credit crunch sinks its teeth further into our lives. Even more depressing is the number of vacancies has also fallen. Ernst and Young predict the unemployment numbers will rise to around 2.7 million this year.
Businesses that make it through tough times, generally have these characteristics: -
They control their costs quickly and equip themselves for tougher times.
They continue to innovate and generate new ideas to allow them to compete in the market · They have a clear direction and stick to it with alignment across the business
They re-prioritise their spending so that they can keep spending on growth areas if there is a requirement to cut back (value for money and effectiveness being the key words).
They challenge their industry and business conventions and positively question.
In amongst the continuing negative news, it’s hard to remain upbeat. However, for the tens of millions still in employment, leaders must continue to inspire, take the tough decisions, protect their businesses, innovate and create clear strategies. Without this, the economy would suffer further and recovery stifled.
Hand in hand with a recession, working hours are also increasing radically for business leaders as they grapple with the unique problems this economic situation has presented. It’s important for them to stay healthy, share problems and not let their life outside of work suffer too much. Tough to say with big problems on your desk, granted. However, the health of the leader dicatates the health of the business, so look after yourselves.
A reality check on the future. With so much riding on the current recession, the credit crunch, business survival and staying afloat, something has to give.
It seems the first thing to go in the cost cutting, is
going green. A survey by
The Environment Agency a week or so ago, highlighted that 55% of businesses plan to cut back on investment in sustainability, as a direct result of the economic situation.
It’s a fact of life that when times are tight, spending seen as unnecessary gets the chop by business. If you are one of the 55%, then click on this
link and it may persuade you to reconsider. Climate change, global warming, carbon, isn’t going to go away. It can’t be deferred or put off in the same way that you might defer an investment in key projects.
The clock is ticking and every day matters.
OK, if it’s the difference between survival or bankruptcy, make the call, no one would criticise you. When you start your next business, make up for it.
Everyone has a responsibility to do their bit, downturn or no downturn. Savings can be made with little investment, like turning off monitors, re-cycling paper, being more energy efficient, switching to low energy light bulbs. It doesn’t take a lot to actually reduce your energy consumption and reduce your energy bills and carbon footprint.
Tomorrow, I’ll be speaking at an
LGA conference in Manchester to drive home this point to the public sector and encouraging them to give as much incentive and reward as possible to business, but to also to continue to play a lead role in contributing to a low carbon economy.
