Working for a higher Purpose

Studies show that giving your people a real purpose to there work lifts engagement and productivity. A great example of a company in Christchurch that has a meaningful purpose is Isaac Construction. By combining conservation with construction they are making a real difference not only for the people in their company but for the people in New Zealand.

Thanks to the hard work of the team at Isaac Construction New Zealanders will have a much better chance of ever seeing endangered species. The company funds The Isaac Conservation Trust which has just built a skinkery – that is a home and habitat for rare Grand and the Otago Skink- and the first skinks have just been transferred into their new home at Peacock Springs just outside Christchurch.

The Grand and the Otago Skinks are from the Hawea-Lindis area in Otago and are now part of a captive breeding programme. The skinkery replicates the skinks natural habitat by including huge rocks and native plants in the cages. The skinks will be kept warm by “under-rock” floor heating. I was lucky enough to be able to hold one as we helped them out of their plastic boxes and set them free to explore their new home.

I grew up in this part of New Zealand and remember searching for these reptiles in my youth so have a natural affiliation with the work that The Isaac Conservation trust is doing and we are really enjoying working with their company

The Isaac Wildlife Trust has been working with the Department of Conservation and has been successfully breeding endangered birds at Peacock Springs for many years. But now they have a new challenge- the Grand and the Otago Skink!

So when you ask the team at Isaac Construction what they do. Instead of just laying roads and asphalt the help fund the protection of New Zealand's endangered native Floura and Fauna.

Isn't that a whole lot more reason to get out of bed each morning. They think so.

So.... what is your company really passionate about and what is your higher purpose. If you don't have one you should get one.

5 ways to improve your Company Culture

Research recently conducted by a multidisciplinary team from Auckland, Massey and Waikato universities, and Birbeck University in London found nearly one in five employees are being subjected to overbearing or belittling behaviour at work.

The survey of 1728 workers in the health, education, travel and hospitality sectors found 18% had been bullied, while 75% had suffered workplace stress. Read full article here

"Bullying is happening and it is not being addressed. It has long been accepted that this is the way of working -- if you cannot stand the heat, get out of the kitchen," says study leader Tim Bentley, associate head of Massey University's school of management.

Levels of workplace stress and bullying were greater than expected and one of the main causes was ineffective leadership.

A study and the end of last year by Hays International also highlighted that two thirds of employees believe their managers do not know what motivates them to perform and one third of staff are planning to leave when the economy recovers. Addressing these issues requires a significant change in the way people see, think and act about their company culture.

Every Culture in a company has a smell - how is yours?

Here are the 5 things that have the biggest impact in improving company culture.

1. Define and articulate the real core values of your businesses not some fluffy statements that are empty words on a plaque. This drives positive behaviour and facilitates the removal of people who do not fit well with your culture

2. Use behavioural profiling tools to improve interpersonal communication and working relationships. This will also identify your people’s strengths and help you understand how to leverage your people’s strengths to increase productivity and personal fulfilment.

3. Identify and overcome any dysfunctional behaviours demonstrated by your management team

4. Survey employee engagement to identify the areas that require attention – a proven way to increase sales, productivity, and customer satisfaction - whilst reducing accidents, absenteeism, and staff turnover.

5. Conduct well-structured meetings every week with your team members. Here you can recognise and reward positive behaviour and address any issues before they become a problem.

Implementing these disciplines can provide a challenge but not as much of a challenge as doing nothing.

Lessons for Business from Nature

Why try and invent something that has already been perfected by millions of years of evolution?

I have been come across some great analogy's where nature teaches us some great lessons.

We can learn lessons about building a productive team by looking at

1) How birds work together when they fly

2) How bees communicate

3) How termites work together to construct amazing structures

4) How to create lasting relationships from penguins

Nature also applies certain underlying principles in a spectacular variety of imaginative form. For example in nature we find;
1) Economic use of materials
2) Maximum structural strength
3) Maximum enclosed volume
4) Extremely high strength-to-weight ratios
5) Utilisation of stress and strain as a basis for structural efficiency
6) Energy efficiency through form without external power
7) Form that enhances air circulation
8) Use of local materials for building
9) Curvilinear forms that disperse and dissipate multi-directional forces
10) Integration of aerodynamic efficiency with structural form
11) Producing nothing that is toxic to the environment
12) Designs structures that can be built by a single organism

Here is the lesson that we learn from geese. This provides a perfect example of the importance of team work and how it can have a profound and powerful effect on any form of personal or business endeavour.

When you use these seven principles in our business it will help encourage a level of passion and energy in yourselves and team members.

Lesson 1 - The importance of knowing where you are going

Every year the geese set off together already knowing the destination, for those that are new they guided by the older birds and they all set off together

Outcome
Until everyone is aligned on where you want to go you probably won't even get of the ground. Learn from those who have been there before.

Lesson 2 - The importance of working together

As each goose flaps its wings it creates an uplift for the birds that follow. By flying in a 'V' formation the whole flock adds 71 percent extra to the flying range.

Outcome
When we have a sense of community and focus, we create trust and can help each other to achieve our goals.

Lesson 3 - The Importance of Team Work

When a goose falls out of formation it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of flying alone. It quickly moves back to take advantage of the lifting power of the birds in front.

Outcome
If we had as much sense as geese we would stay in formation with those headed where we want to go. We are willing to accept their help and give our help to others.

Lesson 4 - The Importance of Sharing

When a goose tires of flying up front it drops back into formation and another goose flies to the point position.

Outcome It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks. We should respect and protect each other's unique arrangement of skills, capabilities, talents and resources.

Lesson 5 - The Importance of Empathy and Understanding

When a goose gets sick, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to the ground to help and protect it.

Outcome
If we have as much sense as geese we will stand by each other in difficult times, as well as when we are strong.

Lesson 6 - The importance of knowing your limitations

The two geese will stay with a sick goose until it gets better or until it dies. If it dies it means that the remaining two geese can share the load to catch up with another flock. They could never achive this if they flew on their own.

Outcome
You are always more effective having people around you. Even if circumstances change always have someone there to support you.

Lesson 7 - The Importance of Encouragement

Geese flying in formation 'HONK' to encourage those up front to keep up with their speed.

Outcome
We need to make sure our honking is encouraging. In groups and teams where there is encouragement, production is much greater. 'Individual empowerment results from quality honking'

I will let you know the lessons of communication from the bees in my next post

How to enhance someone's experience of life

You know that sometimes when you come to work something extraordinary happens that reminds you of why you are passionate about what you do.

Our company purpose is "to enhance people's experience of life" and I have just finished a meeting with a client that reminds me of why I am so passionate about making that happen.

When we started working with her company she was working extremely hard, had great difficulty in taking time off and the business stress was affecting her relationship. It was a good company that was limited in its ability to grow.

3 years on and with less than 2 weeks notice she was able to leave the country and spend time with her daughters in Egypt. She has also sailed around the world with her husband and is a glowing representation of someone having fun who owns a business. So what changed?

It all started with a plan, this gave the ability to put in some key metrics to measure but this doesn't sound so different. In fact they had a lot of this in place before we started working together. What was different was that they were held accountable to execute their strategy, weekly meetings happened regardless and tangble outcomes were agreed to be delivered upon and issues were brought out when they happened, and there butts got kicked if they didn't do it.

This drove stronger communication, better visibility and most important of all accountability around execution of the plan. Execution has always been the most difficult part of achievement but also the most important. Tom Peters calls it the missing 98%.

The four fundamentals things to achieve greatness and freedom in business is:

- Write down a exciting compelling goal that engages your people
- Put it in a clear plan that everyone in your business can see everyday
- Have a clear and visible system of measuring results
- Have a system of accountability

I guarentee that it is this simple but it doesn't happen overnight. This story is an example where this stuff was put in place and three years later achieving a freedom goal that she thought would take 10 years.

Have we enhanced her experience of life.....absolutely
Am I excited about it ..... absolutely

Great Ideas are not Great

I hear often of great ideas, indeed owning a business one never seems to be short of people wanting to share great ideas on what they should be doing. Well..... there are no great ideas only passionate action.

Listening to Simon Mundell present another of his fantastic seminars last night reminded me again that knowing great stuff doesn't matter a shit unless you are inspired to do something about it. I know that over 80% of the business leaders that were inspired to do something last night will have done nothing that they wrote that they would do. But what makes the others carry out their actions?

It comes back to the two biggest motivators in someone taking action which is Pleasure and Pain. The outcome either looks so incredibly attractive that they are inspired to follow through at all cost ...... or ....... the pain of the consequences of not doing it drives them so hard that they keep at it until it is done. In Karate we have a saying for this which is Osu No Seichin which literally means to push yourself and continue to perservere and do not falter until the job is done.

The missing ingredient for most failures to carry out a great idea is the lack of real accountability if the job does not get done. Next time you have a great idea share with someone you trust what you intended actions are, not the idea and ask them to hold you accountable for doing it. And ask them not to take your word for it ask them to get you to show evidence.

Within the next two weeks I am going to surprise some of those who attended and ask to see the actions they committed to and then the evidence that they have done it. I will let you know the results in due course but I am sure that you could guess the outcome. However what difference would it make if they new I was coming............?

The influence of the Internet on Marketing

The following is a summary from Stephen Lynch, the Chief Operating Officer for RESULTS.com after the Chief Marketing Officer conference in the USA last weekend

Key Ideas:

· Marketing as a function will move into a real-time model. You'll be measured on advertising and media effectiveness on a daily and weekly basis. You'll start reading it in real time and making adjustments accordingly.
· CMO has to think more broadly than just marketing if he/she is going to lead growth. For example, at Zappos customer service equals marketing. Shift focus from thinking a "marketing agenda" to "growth agenda."
· Customer service via social media (people who complain about something publicly from posting to Twitter from their PDA) works faster than going through a company's traditional customer service outlets (e.g. 800 number and email us).
· You're going to be involved in social media whether you choose to be involved with it proactively or not. Do you want to catch up and participate with it?
· Understand that it's just one giant conversation. Make social media a company-wide strategy. It's beyond just getting a Twitter account.
· Transparency is about trust with audience.
· It's important to connect with your audience. Don't market to them.
· Don't confuse "prolific" with being "successful."
· Build relationships with bloggers and it will pay off when you need their support. When you put out a promotion, the bloggers spread the word for you.
· If you think you're number one in your industry, check Google first. If you appear on Google for a general search in your category then you are tops. Those who appear top in their category often have blogs.
· Go to the bloggers first with your new product announcement. Completely avoid the traditional media. The traditional media will see the bloggers' content.
· Don't be surprised when customers have irrational responses. That's normal. Companies often only prepare for rational responses.
· Tech companies often come from this attitude of "When we're done with this product, everyone will want it." They don't consider marketing as a function. Yet the Valley is filled with examples of the best product not winning because they had a poor "go to market" strategy.

Guy Kawasaki, the author of nine books including "How to Drive Your Competition Crazy" gave tips on how CMOs can best use Twitter in their marketing efforts.

· Kawasaki says that he came late to Twitter. "I found Twitter, or should I say Twitter found me in 2007," he said. "My first reaction was that Twitter was the dumbest thing I ever saw."
· But, he quickly realized the huge potential for marketing.

Kawasaki's advice for CMOs on how to use Twitter

· Search for yourself or your company. This will let you see what people are saying about you, for good and bad, all day long.
· Not all of it is positive, but you learn as much from the negative as you do from the positive. And watch your competition too.
· Note: As a marketer you must realize that when someone slams your product 99% of the time they have not tried your product. Just send them a free sample to turn them into a fan.

New theory of marketing

· Old marketing used the theory of influencers. There are 20 people you need to suck up to.
· Today Kawasaki believes in a new theory: "The nobodies are the new somebodies." Once you turn an average Twitter critic into a fan they will Tweet to many, many more followers.
· Don't just focus on the top influencers with the most followers. "Rather than suck up, you should suck across or suck down," said Kawasaki, "Twitter allows you to do that."

Twitter lets you dump inventory

· If you've got excess inventory, give it away on Twitter as "deals." People will follow you just to see the deals you place on Twitter. It's a great way to move inventory quickly.

Prospecting: How to get followers

· Kawasaki said he only uses Twitter is a marketing platform. "I am not trying to be social or make friends," he said. "As a marketer I want to get followers."
· Inform. Don't “me-form”.
· Me-form - is "my cat just rolled over."
· Inform – is to provide content that your followers will find interesting and valuable. The goal is to have interesting links so people will Retweet you.

Other best practices

· Always be linking to great content.
· Anytime someone mentions you on twitter, respond.
· Your ultimate goal is to be Retweeted.

You cannot make everyone happy. If 10 are mad, there are probably 10,000 who love you. They are the silent majority. Do not let a tiny percent of angry people, to affect your marketing. You need to ignore them.

Kawasaki said Twitter today is what the Internet was 20 years ago. I think Twitter will be around for a long time. It's a mistake to say Twitter will not be useful for B2B. It's such a trivial thing to sign up, why not? In three years, you will say why didn't I get started earlier
http://thecmoclub.blogspot.com/2009/11/guy-kawasakis-twitter-tips-for.html

46 Secrets and Clever Strategies for dealing with the Recession

I was sent this pearl of wisdom and think it is fantastic. Take the points you need from it.

Tom Peters 46 Strategies

Tom Peters is being constantly asked for “strategies/‘secrets’ for surviving the recession.”

In his words "I try to appear wise and informed—and parade original, sophisticated thoughts. But if you want to know what’s really going through my head, see the list that follows":

Forty-six “Secrets” and “Clever Strategies” For Dealing with the Recession of 2008-XXXX*

1. You come to work earlier.
2. You leave work later.
3. You work harder.
4. You may well work for less; and, if so, you adapt to the untoward circumstanceswith a smile—even if it kills you inside.
5. You volunteer to do more.
6. You dig deep, deeper, deepest—and always bring a good attitude to work.
7. You fake it if your good attitude flags.
8. You literally practice your “game face” in the mirror in the morning, and in the loomid-morning.
9. You give new meaning to the idea and intensive practice of “visible management.”
10. You take better than usual care of yourself and encourage others to do the same—physical well-being significantly impacts mental well-being and response to stress.
11. You shrug off shit that flows downhill in your direction—buy a shovel or a“pre-worn” raincoat on eBay.
12. You try to forget about “the good old days”—nostalgia is self-destructive.(And bores others.)
13. You buck yourself up with the thought that “this too shall pass”—but then remind yourself that it might not pass any time soon, and so you re-dedicate yourself to making the absolute best of what you have now.
14. You work the phones and then work the phones some more—and stay in touch with and on the mind of positively everyone.
15. You frequently invent breaks from routine, including “weird” ones—“changeups” prevent wallowing and bring a fresh perspective.
16. You eschew all forms of personal excess.
17. You simplify.
18. You sweat the details as never before.
19. You sweat the details as never before.
20. You sweat the details as never before.
21. You raise to the sky and maintain at all costs the Standards of Excellence by which you unfailingly and unflinchingly evaluate your own performance.
22. You are maniacal when it comes to responding to even the slightest screw-up.
23. You find ways to be around young people and to keep young people around—they are less likely to be members of the “sky is falling” school.
24. You learn new tricks of your trade.
25. You pass old tricks of the trade on to others—mentoring matters now more thanever.
26. You invest heavily in your computer-Internet-Web2.0-“cloud” skills.
27. You remind yourself that this is not just something to be “gotten through”—it is the Final Exam of Competence, Character and, even if you’re not a boss, Leadership.
28. You network like a demon.
29. You network like a demon inside the company—get to know more of the folks who“do the real work,” and are/can be your most important allies when it comes togetting things done seamlessly and fast.
30. You network like a demon outside the company—get to know more of the folks“down the line,” who “do the real work” in vendor-customer outfits and can be your biggest allies and champions.
31. You thank others by the truckload if good things happen—and take the heat yourself if bad things happen.
32. You behave kindly, but you don't sugarcoat or hide the truth—humans are startlingly resilient and rumors are the real killers.
33. You treat small successes as if they were World Cup victories—and celebrate and commend accordingly.
34. You shrug off the losses (ignoring what's going on in your tummy), and get back on the horse and immediately try again.
35. You avoid negative people to the extent you can—pollution kills.
36. You eventually read the gloom-sprayers the riot act. (Gloom is the ultimate WMD ata time like this.)
37. You give new meaning to the word “thoughtful.”
38. You don’t put limits on the budget for flowers—“bright and colorful” works marvels.
39. You redouble, re-triple your efforts to “walk in your customer’s shoes.” (Especially if the shoes smell.)
40. You mind your manners—and accept others’ lack of manners in the face of their strains.
41. You are kind to all mankind.
42. You keep your shoes shined.
43. You leave the blame game at the office door.
44. You call out the congenital politicians in no uncertain terms.
45. You become a paragon of personal accountability.
46. And then you pray.

As many were quick to point out, this list works just as well in good times as in bad!