Category Archives: Business

The Key to Success is Simple: The Secret is…..

January 7, 2016 admin Leave a comment

There is no question about it: Commitment is a key to success whether it’s in a marriage, a business, personal and professional growth, or sports.

What made Larry Bird one of the best players in basketball? He was considered slow, and many thought he could not jump. Sometimes it almost looked like he was playing in slow motion. Or what about Shane Williams who became Wales’ best international rugby winger? Everyone thought he was just too small to play professional rugby at 5′ 7″, except an old boss of mine. OK, he is Welsh and they had completed another Grand-Slam in the 6-nations. Shane, not my boss, always looked a little out of place next the rest of the 6 foot plus team. But why did these two succeed as players: they were totally dedicated to success. They practised more, played harder, and had more mental toughness than most of their competitors and team-mates. They both got more out of his talents than almost anyone did.

“Commitment and Success”

You see, the difference in physical attributes between athletes doesn’t tell you much. It’s the level of their commitment that separates the good players from the truly great. People who are committed to success are willing to do whatever it takes; as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else, no-one should be thinking I mean extending beyond personal commitment. Everything they do reflects their commitment; focus, work hard, learn, train more, repeat until perfected.

Ask yourself the following questions and think about your answers

How strong is your commitment?

To your career?
Your relationships?
Your personal growth?

How much of your time and energy do you give these things? Do the results you get reflect your level of commitment?”

Are you being the best you can be?

Now here the final question: How do you feel about those answers?

This article was originally published on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/key-success-simple-secret-william-fish

Business, featured, Leadership

Leadership Is About Doing, Not Saying

October 19, 2015 admin Leave a comment

We’ve all seen those inspirational posters that started to appear on office walls in the 90’s. We’ve heard the inspiring mottos, lovingly lambasted in films like Men in Black; “The best of the best!” I’m sure that many businesses across the western world have spent millions on agonising over the latest buzzwords, management speak and the slogans. Just imagine how much time and money has been expended morphing these stated goals to keep up with the latest trends. Businesses may start with pushing for “Customer Satisfaction” then move to “Total Customer Satisfaction”, before reaching the point of aiming for “Customer Delight”.

Organisations have taken these beautifully created phrases and words and adorned the walls of numerous offices. All of these have been designed to with the intention of modifying employees’ behaviour, as we all know when we read the mere act of reading the pronouncement of “strategy and values” will instantly change deep seated attitudes. Writing “Trust” or “Collaboration” in big letters on a poster will not change opinions towards each other and especially the organisations leaders.

Talking a Good Game

Regardless of the near obsessive focus on the words some may have, a very large problem exists: there is rarely any correlation between the words agonised over and displayed on walls and the behaviour of the organisations leaders. I don’t think I’ve heard of a company that hasn’t espoused or valued “integrity”, “respect for employees”, “quality”, “customer satisfaction”, “innovation” and so on. As, in essence, all businesses are striving for the same behavioural objectives, these slogans lose meaning with employees and customers.

Enrol is a good example. Before their very well publicised collapse in 2011, they had created a very professionally produced show-reel on Enron’s ethics and integrity. This highlighted their philanthropic activities and community work; the character of the Executive team were of particular note. Clearly Enron had spent a considerable sum on “packaging” the messages and marketing these values. In the end it didn’t have any bearing on what was to follow. As you will be away many on the top executives subsequently ended up in prison or indicted.

Leadership Development

In a study by Business Week in 2006, involving more than 11,000 managers across 8 large organisations in the USA, looked at the impact of leadership development programs in changing and shaping leaders’ behaviour. Each of the eight businesses espoused different values through very different words describing their ideal leadership behaviours.

The study discovered that the different words or phrasing made absolutely no difference in determining the behaviour of the leaders. One of the business in the study have spent thousands of hours crafting the precise words to best express its view on how their leaders should act, this appears to have been in vain. The first draft, if grammatically correct may have been just as valuable as the final polished version. The study found the deciding factor as to the effectiveness of any initiative was how seriously the participants took the feedback and training. Those who made a personal commitment to improvement and followed up with their fellow attendees became more effective. The Leaders who dutifully attended sessions, listened but took no immediate action or made no personal commitment were found to develop at the same level as those that had not attended the presentations or workshops.

Actions Speak Loudest

The businesses that that are the most successful at living up to their espoused values and produce ethical employees, including leaders, realise that the key to success – or failure- is always the people, not the words that are in the corporate literature. Rather than expending time feverously revamping the slogans and behaviour posters to find the precise words to capture the desired leadership conduct. Businesses that ensure that leaders get (and act upon) feedback from employees and customers, those who actually observe the leadership behaviours, see tangible results.

The preoccupation of modifying performance appraisal forms and scoring mechanisms was found by the study to provide little value at the higher levels of the organisation. It suggested that business leaders should focus their energy on providing coaching and learning from employees removing perceived barriers.

Ultimately, leaders’ actions will be more powerful message to employees about values and the competence of the leadership than the words used. If the actions of the leadership are clear and purposeful, the words that emblazon the walls of the offices will be of very little importance regardless of how ‘prefect’ they may be. Conversely, if the leadership actions are at odds with the wonderfully crafted words displayed the walls of the offices they will look more ridiculous.

Business, Management

IT and Keeping Things Under Control

October 19, 2015 admin Leave a comment

It seems obvious that with the benefits organisations received by implementing “frameworks” into operational aspects of the business the same could be applied to the burgeoning world of information and communication technology. In 1989 the Office of Government Commerce (UK government agency) published a series of books based on years of research into the codification of best practice for the provision of IT services known as the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). These have been updated several times over the last 25 years the latest version released in 2011(Fry, 2012; ITSM Forum, 2012).

In the UK the prominent IT standards were developed by government agencies and have not grown out of analysis or continual improvement on the ‘shop-floor’. Even with the introduction of ITIL and other governance frameworks UK government and public sector agencies have a large number of high profile failures regarding IT service provision.

Much of the published literature is focused on the successful implementation within organisations or with the general benefits of ITIL in practice (Doughty, 2003). Articles often describe how ITIL best practice could enable and support the IT function within an organisation through:

Improved management of IT resources
Effective governance of IT activities
Clear framework of policies, internal controls and practices

The 2008 IT Governance Institute report (ITGI, 2008) produced through the collaboration between the US and UK (OGC) bodies described the business benefits as:

Aid is realising value from IT investments
Increased efficiencies and reduced costs
Improved regulatory compliance and minimised auditory risk

Academic research has noted organisational agility is hindered by IT management practices through its structures and rigid processes (Verbann, et al 2012). Studies indicated that both central decision making and financial control of applications within the IT services were perceived as significant bottlenecks. Versendaal et al (2010) highlighted that the increased standardisation and procedural adherence did not ensure a superior IT management performance. Many have explored the potential for characteristics IT and digitisation to increase enterprise agility to be increased without reference to “value creation” at an organisational level (Overby, et al, 2006).

Leadership, Thoughts

Change! – Leader or Manager?

March 30, 2015 admin Leave a comment

Change is one of the hardest things to achieve in a business, but many will try without understanding that change for most employees is also extremely hard and not to mention stressful. Before you start down the change for improvement route there are some things to consider: As the owner / CEO it is your role to create the vision of outcomes and lead from the front. I like to think of this leadership style as the “know your team are with you without looking behind to see.” If you have to continually check to be sure they are with you, they obviously haven’t got either their hearts or their minds on board. As the change leader and not just the change manager, your role is to-

Set the vision and sell it.Let everyone know where you want to get to. Part of the journey may well be creating the road map. Have clarity of purpose – change is difficult enough and it should have solid reasons. If you cannot articulate the reasons then your objectives will not be clear.
Explain how you see the impacton the people and not just the business. Employees, even senior ones will be encouraged when they hear, “The whole team will thrive as we create this new chapter in our company’s growth”, versus “we need to change and improve what we do to be more competitive”.
Be confident.Don’t waver at those who say “I don’t want change”. Be ready for different ways you will hear this, it can come in many different forms. Sometimes you will see defensive measures where they will find a place to hide, others will go on the attack to ensure the change will not impact them and only impact others — these behaviors can come from managers as well as the general employee group.
Stay calm in the confusion. If you are truly a change leader you are likely to frighten some of the team because you expect some failure. They will hate this so you need to be calm and considerate if and when failure occurs.
Be open to discussion, and think about ways employee’s ideas can be integrated providing the vision is not destroyed. Allow discussion as it will help alleviate the anxiety that change conjures up in people. They must be guided through the process.

So are you a change leader as described above? Or are you a change manager?

The change manager’s primary role is to drive the vision while using the appropriate tools to keep the change train on the tracks

Business, Management

The Entrepreneur and the Hierarchy

March 9, 2015 admin Leave a comment

With global enterprises and entrepreneurial behaviour, hierarchy does not and cannot suffice. Being part of a supportive community becomes the basis for repeated, mutually beneficial transactions. Collaboration becomes the underlying mode of operating. Contracts are incomplete and often only marginally enforceable through judicial processes. Legal systems and ethical systems are often in conflict. Therefore, to interact effectively and efficiently, individuals must sense that they are part of a community that cares, protects, and ensures legitimate behaviour on the part of others. Trust, caring, agreed-upon standards for performance, and agreed-upon sanctions are the lubricant easing the friction inherent in free exchange. Building a sense of community is a leadership task. Learning to live as part of a community that is dispersed, asynchronous, and diverse is one of the initiatives that shapes character as well as knowledge. Such a community is created and linked by the technology that is evolving.

These four challenges for the future are mutually reinforcing. Scholars and practitioners who attempt to deal with one of the challenges without under- standing the others do so at their own peril. Entrepreneurship creates the technology and is enabled by it. Communities that form across traditional boundaries enable globalization and enable growth through entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs build community by managing networks rather than hierarchies and by reinforcing the community through celebration and reinvestment in other community members’ new ideas. They share the rewards of innovation with customers, suppliers, and other partners in the enterprise in order to assure cooperation.