Category: business strategies

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Leadership and Engagement in today’s business

leadership

If there’s one thing that is scary to many companies, it’s change. Dealing with change requires leadership at all levels if that company is to survive the turbulent wave of uncertainty and misdirection that change brings. Leading in adversity amidst constant change requires focus, commitment, and a well-tuned internal and moral compass to know which way is ‘right’

So what really motivates employees?

Let’s begin by defining engagement as the “positive emotional connection an employee has to their work and their workplace.” In short, caring about work leads to commitment and wanting to give more than is required or expected.
More than simply “satisfaction”, employee engagement is a positive emotional connection to the work they do and a “thinking connection” to the belief in the goals, purpose and mission of that work. Employees want to feel proud, feel enjoyment, feel support, but more than that, they want to believe that their work matters, that they contribute, and that it resonates their values.

One challenge leaders face is making sure their people’s voices are heard. If people feel as if opportunity eschews them then they will immediately take themselves off the playing field and the leader will lose support.
When focusing on engagement, it is important to understand who in the organisation is really ready and who may need some help moving forward. During times like these, a certain pattern of behavior sets into many organisations.
Generally, the leaders creating strategy are living in the future, concentrated on indicated trends six months out. They are looking at the next quarter’s timeframe. Workers primarily function in the present, concentrated on accomplishing the key tactics of the day to day. Many workers find it difficult to shift into the mindset of future strategy and need time to process.

As a leader, it is your job to educate the entire organisation, from top down, clearly identifying the path ahead. The challenge is to continue to move forward, with your employees feeling more than just clear and confident about the strategy and direction, but also excited and invigorated about the potential. As a leader in today’s business environment, you are in the energy business, the human energy business. You are called to build a sense of engagement, helping employees realise the growth potential for the organisation, the team, and themselves.

How can you be successful in leading an engaged organisation?

Below I have listed four key areas that can begin the process to increase your own leadership effectiveness and create a culture that works best for your organization.
1. Leading Oneself. It all starts with you. You need to lead yourself before you can lead others.
2. Leading Others: One to One. The skills you use to facilitate the individual growth of others often are regarded as foundational, such as communication skills, goal setting, and delegating.
3. Leading Teams: One to Group. In addition to one-to-one skills, leaders need to lead and inspire individuals to work effectively together and achieve results as a team.
4. Leading a Work Culture. The act of leading a work culture is distinct from the other levels.

Finally, when leaders move toward improving their observable behaviors, they have the extraordinary ability to positively influence employees to willingly become engaged. That’s a powerful investment that pays dividends not only in developing good people, but by directly affecting the organisation’s bottom line.

Sam Walton once said:

“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.”

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No Concern, No Timeline, No Passion

NoConcernI recently had a conversation with an associate of mine in the US across ‘no concern on timeline in the business environment’. As you can imagine the conversation turned into a heated debate and we lead the discussion to ‘where is the driver of Passion’ in the business environment.

Knowing where your professional passions lie puts “you in a good position,” says Dorie Clark, the author of Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future. Lots of people don’t know what they want to do. “They’re struggling because they know they’re not happy doing what they’re doing, but they don’t know what else is out there.” An idea is certainly a promising start, but executing it while holding down a busy full-time job is undoubtedly a challenge. “You’ve nailed the one percent inspiration, now it’s time for the 99% perspiration,” says Daniel Gulati, the coauthor of Passion & Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders.

So exactly why are people so unhappy in the workplace, why is there so much no concern’, well, lets start with business decisions.

If everyone in a company made ordinary business decisions in a commonsense way, a company could be unstoppable. It turns out that very few people, in companies or anywhere else, make ordinary business decisions in a commonsense way. Most companies don’t fail for lack of talent or strategic vision. They fail for lack of execution—the mundane blocking and tackling that the great companies consistently do well and strive to do better.

So what happened to daily, tiny miracles and emotional intelligence driven by leadership.
Senior management cannot manage without a thorough mastery of the details of its business. To my knowledge, no CEO can claim to be in charge of the organisation unless within nano-seconds and I mean this literally, can a CEO answer the following questions:

  • What are the company’s revenues per employee?
  • How do the figures compare with the competition’s?
  • What are the revenue-per-employee figures for each of the company’s leading product lines?
  • What explains recent trends in each line?
  • What is the average outgoing quality level in each product line? How many orders are delinquent?
  • Which of the company’s top 20 executives are standouts, which are low performers, and why?
  • Which departments could recover from a major competitive shock, and which are vulnerable to change?
  • What are the yields, costs, and cycle times at every manufacturing operation?
  • What explains the company’s stock market valuation relative to its competitors’?

Could this be a formula for “micromanagement” by the CEO…..? Will top executives get lost in the details and lose sight of broader strategic imperatives? Being in command of detail does not mean interfering where you don’t belong. Collecting information, reviewing it regularly, and sharing it widely allows you to practice management by exception in the truest sense. So long as you stick to  strategy and process.

Great people alone do not guarantee corporate success but no company can succeed without them. Sounds like a truism, right? Yet how many companies are as scientific about hiring as they are about designing new products or perfecting the latest market-research techniques? Hiring is one of the most bureaucratic, passive, and arbitrary parts of corporate life.

Most companies, and certainly most big companies, do just the opposite. Managers sit behind their desks and wait for personnel to parade candidates through their office. Of course, personnel is never as motivated as the hiring manager is to fill an open slot. As the hiring schedule falls behind, the manager grows increasingly desperate and makes an offer to the first warm body that meets rudimentary requirements. This approach guarantees that the quality of the company’s work force will nicely (and disastrously) mirror the quality of the available talent market. The organisation drifts toward average.

Middle managers can be an organisation’s most enduring strength. They are more aware of the company’s day-to-day business realities than any other group, and they are earnest, committed, and creative. Middle managers can also cause companies to grow fat and being non-competitive, not because they can not do their jobs, but because they think their jobs are the most important in the world and thus lose sight of the broader corporate imperative. In organisations that suffer from this disease (and it afflicts the majority of large companies), middle managers clamor for resources while top managers are chartered to hold the line. Usually, top managers are forced to cave in because middle managers can call on so much more information and functional expertise. How can a senior executive turn down a request for resources (people, equipment, expenses) when a well-respected middle manager makes a plausible argument that the department will unravel without them, probably taking the company with it?

The moment senior executives buy into the tunnel vision of their middle managers, they really have lost control of the company. If that happens, it’s not the middle managers’ fault; they’re simply delivering their tasks as they understand them.

There are many issues to tackle in the organisation to reignite Passion’ and effect Organisational Behaviour’ some of these issues can be addressed at a local level of operation, but experience stated that it is better to effect transformation and change from the top down and bottom to maximise true effectiveness, especially when you are effecting; attitude, personal sensitivities, and culture.

Culture is one of the most important factors that affects how executives organise themselves internally and to the external world. Some cultures emphasise the individual while others stress the group.
Finally, the real question is to know if the the anticipated change will impact culture or if the result is the culture.
Changing corporate culture is changing people, make them adopt new individual and collective values.
Changing the system is making some behaviors logical, accepted, coherent in the workplace.

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Is your business secure from Cyber Crime?

Beware-online-pirates-014Cyber-crime is currently a hot topic and threatens the entire commercial and government landscape.

Perhaps the most dangerous types of malware creators are the hackers and group of hackers that create malicious software programs in an effort to meet their own criminal objectives.

Cyber crime is not just hogging the headlines: it’s posing a looming threat to the entire commercial landscape. Director asked the experts to provide essential pointers for UK business leaders

The rise of state-sponsored hacking is also putting top security researchers in an invidious position as state security organisations increasingly target them – while cyber-criminals will resort to threats and blackmail in a bid to silence them.

That is the claim of Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, who works for anti-virus software vendor Kaspersky Labs in the US.

According to a McAfee report of June 2014, cyber-crime costs the world economy more than $400bn (£260bn); to put that into perspective, the global aid budget comes to about $100bn a year.

You know you have a cyber crime problem when the national body in charge of fighting it – Britain’s National Crime Agency – is itself targeted by hackers, as happened in September. And yet, according to a new study from identity protection experts CSID, more than half (52 per cent) of the country’s smaller firms “are not taking any preventative measures to protect themselves against cyber-crime”.

Fraud is estimated to cost the UK economy £52bn annually and 44% of UK organisations reported fraud, compared to 37% globally. The impact of cyber-crime is significant; representing £27bn of the annual estimated cost.

Some 42 per cent of small and micro businesses in the UK report having experienced cybercrime, according to a study by the Association of Accounting Technicians.

Furthermore, research has found that 60% of small businesses suffered a malicious breach in the past year and half of them had a serious incident. The worst breaches disrupted operations for small businesses for an average of seven to 10 days.

A group of experts, convened from government and industry to create an easy to understand action plan in order to help SMEs combat cybercrime, recommended that all small and medium-sized businesses should:

  • Train staff to understand cyber threats;
  • Keep software secure by always installing updates;
  • Install and use anti-virus software and
  • Use complex passwords which include a minimum of three words and a symbol.

Common problems faced by businesses include staff exposing IT systems to malware by plugging in external devices or storage such as USB sticks, opening infected emails or using unsafe websites with malicious code. Poor device passwords and out of date software also leave firms vulnerable. The Fraud Advisory Panel (FAP), an independent voice of the anti-fraud community in the UK which was established in 1998 as part of ICAEW’s public interest agenda, published guidance earlier this year to help firms considering introducing a bring your own device (BYOD) policy ensure that they have considered the associated security issues.

In summary, security is a frame of mind that leads to technology deployments, never the other way around.

The worst thing a company can do is buy an anti-virus suite and then consider the job done. Not only does every piece of software need to be constantly updated and patched, but to protect the most valuable data additional layers of security must be added and access given only to those who truly need it.

As a small business you need to take responsibility to ensure your systems are safe, as a business can you afford to lose all your data or have your business shut down for several weeks because of lack of IT security?

 

 

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The Shared Business Economy

Sharing-Economy_360_253_90There has been much debate over the last year around exactly what is The Sharing Economy. A clear definition is needed not only for purposes of clarity and to enable meaningful discussion, but also to provide a precise aim and direction to those working to enable, foster and create a better and more collaborative Sharing Economy.

The Sharing economy, also known as ‘shareconomy’ or ‘collaborative consumption’, refers to peer-to-peer-based sharing of access to goods and services coordinated through community-based online services. The Sharing economy can take a variety of forms, including using information technology to provide individuals, corporations, non-profits and governments with information that enables the optimisation of resources through the redistribution, sharing and reuse of excess capacity in goods and services. A common premise is that when information about goods is shared typically via an online marketplace, the value of those goods may increase for the business, for individuals, for the community and for society in general.

Collaborative consumption as a phenomenon is a class of economic arrangements in which participants share access to products or services, rather than having individual ownership.The consumer peer-to-peer rental market is valued at $26bn (£15bn), with new services and platforms popping up all the time.

Whilst the Sharing Economy is currently in its infancy, known most notably as a series of services and start-ups which enable P2P exchanges through technology, this is only the beginning: in its entirety and potential it is a new and alternative socio-economic system which embeds sharing and collaboration at its heart – across all aspects of social and economic life.

The collaborative consumption model is used in online marketplaces such as eBay as well as emerging sectors such as social lending, peer-to-peer accommodation, peer-to-peer travel experiences, peer-to-peer task assignments or travel advising, car-sharing or commute-bus sharing.

 

The Sharing Economy encompasses the following aspects: swapping, exchanging, collective purchasing, collaborative consumption, shared ownership, shared value, co-operatives, co-creation, recycling, up-cycling, re-distribution, trading used goods, renting, borrowing, lending, subscription based models, peer-to-peer, collaborative economy, circular economy, pay-as-you-use economy, wiki-nomics, peer-to-peer lending, micro financing, micro-entrepreneurship, social media, the Mesh, social enterprise, futurology, crowdfunding, crowd-sourcing, cradle-to-cradle, open source, open data, user generated content (UGC).

In one sense, it has been with us forever, but over the last decade, it has grown from a means of transaction between friends and family, to become a global movement of businesses which are increasingly being valued in the billions.

sharing-economy-life-cycle-infographic

As the mega-trends evolve and collide, the sharing economy is becoming an increasingly accepted feature of the business landscape. PwC estimate that the five main sharing sectors (peer-to-peer finance, online staffing, peer-to-peer accommodation, car sharing and music video streaming) have the potential to increase global revenues from around $15 billion now to $335 billion by 2025.

The decisions that organisations make today will decide how far the sharing economy can live up to its potential. We have spoken to a range of influencers in this space to find out where they think this trend is heading.

However you define it, the sharing economy is a disruptive force in a slew of industries, particularly travel, consumer goods, services, taxis, bicycles and car rental, finance, music, employment and waste. And the disruption may be long-term if the new businesses permanently change consumers’ attitudes towards ownership. In the PwC study, 81% of people familiar with the sharing economy agreed that “it is less expensive to share goods than to own them individually” and 57% agreed, “Access is the new ownership. Twitter ”

Whether attitudes towards ownership change for good remains to be seen. Another supposed aspect of disruption seems far less likely to endure. While 78% of the people surveyed by PwC said that the new sharing companies helped build a stronger community and 86% agreed that it was more fun doing business with these “upstarts” than with traditional companies, research published in the Journal of Consumer Research takes issue with this “romanticised view on access.”

According to the researchers, Giana M. Eckhardt (Royal Holloway University of London) and Fleura Bardhi (City University London), users of Zipcar “don’t feel any of the reciprocal obligations that arise when sharing with one another. They experience Zipcar in the anonymous way one experiences a hotel; they know others have used the cars, but have no desire to interact with them. They do not view other Zipsters as co-sharers of the cars, but rather are mistrustful of them, and rely on the company to police the sharing system so it’s equitable for everyone.”

In fact, companies take the trust issue very seriously. Some go so far as to carefully vet those they do business with. DogVacay has a five-step screening process that certifies only 15% of applicants to offer dog sitting services. TaskRabbit runs identity and criminal record checks as well as in-person interviews. And many companies provide some level of insurance.

Virtually all the sharing companies establish trust through crowd-sourcing. Online reviews are at the heart of the sharing economy. Before anyone agrees to use an Uber driver, rent an Airbnb room, sleep on a Couchsurfing couch or hire a TaskRabbit handyman, they check out what others who they have used the particular service have to say. And companies facilitate this through easy-to-use technology and easy–to-understand rating systems.

If community and trust are not key variables in the value proposition for the sharing economy, what is important is what has always been of most value to consumers: convenience and cost. In the PwC survey, 86% and 83% respectively agreed that sharing companies make life more affordable and more convenient and efficient. According to Eckhardt and Bardhi.

Whatever your opinion on The Shared Economy, it is clear that the sharing economy is set to expand rapidly. If you look deeply enough, you will more likely than not find that you have already had a first-hand encounter with it.

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10 ways to start 2016 on a positive note

Business-Quotes

The recent Forbes report certainly shows that the bubble hasn’t popped yet.

That’s the easy conclusion of Forbes’ latest Hottest Start-ups list, which ranks Silicon Valley’s most successful companies in 2015 by one simple metric: the fastest growing valuations over time between funding rounds. That means their list captures the most in-demand start-ups, the ones for which investors had the highest hopes–and wrote the biggest checks.

Combined, the top 50 hottest start-ups raised over $7 billion this year and have a total valuation close to $120 billion.

Interestingly enough, Forbes took an end-of-year look at companies leading the way as valuations get extra frothy, ranking the Hottest Start-ups of 2014 by fastest growing valuation over time between funding rounds. These aren’t necessarily the most successful (or most hyped) start-ups — but they are the ones that investors are betting the biggest bucks on for the future.

The list is headlined by a who’s who of unicorns grabbing huge sums of cash. Ride-hailing juggernaut Uber (#16) is raising $2.1 billion to add to the $1 billion it raised in July. Workplace communication tool Slack (#2) raised $160 million, shared workplace landlord WeWork (#31) raised $433 million, and cyber-security start-up Tanium (#21) raised $120 million.

However, many start-ups at the top of the list are slightly off the beaten track. Secretive Uptake Technologies ranks first over all, coming out of nowhere to raise $45 million at a valuation of $1.1 billion. Uptake, run by former Groupon co-founder Brad Keywell, promises to provide the data analytics back end for the Internet of things revolution coming to major traditional industries like construction and aviation.

It is a fact that no business is guaranteed to succeed. But with the right level of energy, passion, determination to a belief in yourself and your product/service you can progress independently with your dream idea and business.

The beginning of the year has arrived and while it’s important to take some time to assess the positives and negatives of 2015, it is also worthwhile ensuring everything is ready for the year ahead so that 2016 does not start with unnecessary stress.

Many entrepreneurs are passionate about their chosen trade but aren’t always strong when it comes to the financial side of business.

It is the little things that people often forget about. Simple things, like cash flow and budget that can make all the difference.

The following 10 tips would make sure business owners cover all their bases and have a successful 2016.

1)      Budget for the year ahead

2)      Understand your business and its customers

3)      Analyse your monthly management accounts

4)      Keep your accounts and taxes up to date

5)      Secure your IP/IPR

6)      Know your limitations

7)      Invest in good legal and accountancy experts

8)      Build revenue streams with trusted relationships – no matter how small

9)      Invest in cash recovery experts

10)   Take a holiday and exercise every now and then

If you follow the tips you will see the benefits returned ten-fold.

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Is there room in the boardroom for Generation Y

Question-Mark-HeadAs globalisation and the fast pace of the digital economy speeds up, customer expectations shift, and the impact of social media rises, the global market place is now more complex than ever before. Businesses that want to stay ahead of the competition – especially in customer-facing sectors like finance, retail and media – need Generation Y to help them understand and respond to the big trends that are already shaping the future: understanding tomorrow’s customers; responding to the desire for more responsible business; and gaining a competitive edge in emerging markets.

Rapid cultural change has been matched and it driven by rapid technological and demographic change. Today’s consumers are heavily influenced by social media, which has given them more access to information about how companies do business than ever before. If the industrial revolution gave power to corporates, the digital revolution has empowered the consumer. Companies that fail to respond to Gen Y’s desire for good business find their brands tarnished and their valuations plummeting. Generation Y business leaders can add value by acting as cultural translators, helping their colleagues navigate the new business environment.

As traditional models of business leadership break down, demand for Gen Y leaders who understand these changes will only rise. Globalisation has created increasingly complex decision-making environments which require new skill sets and fresh perspectives that were simply not around when many of today’s board room executives entered the labour market. Simply accumulating decades of experience in a corporate silo no longer means you will become a successful leader. In the fast-paced, digitally-enabled, multi-cultural and multi-lingual market place, every company now needs to balance Gen X’s experience with Gen Y’s dynamism, inherently global outlook, digital aptitude and understanding of responsible business.

So who are Generation Y? Sometimes referred to as millennials – employees who entered the workplace after 2000 – they are broadly classified as those born in the 1980s and early 1990s. They are characterised as a tech-savvy group, whose members are visionary, highly ambitious and not afraid to fail or to speak their mind. Mark Zuckerberg and Sergey Brin are among the elite few who have become standard-bearers for this generation.

The influx of these fresh, talented individuals, many of whom find themselves among the business elite at a relatively young age, has proved a magnetic draw for organisations. Some businesses in pursuit of greater diversification have sought to bring Generation Y on board through such strategies as reverse mentoring (junior staff advising seasoned executives) or mergers and acquisitions, thus subscribing to a meritocratic culture that helps push aspirational young people to the top table.

The problems of ‘generation integration’ in the boardroom do not only lie with senior executives. Being a director, particularly of a large multinational, is not just about applying a standard set of procedures that might occasionally benefit from a shake-up and youthful energy.

Understanding that it can take time for individuals, particularly those of a different generation, to ‘click into’ the language of a board and have their point heard by colleagues is crucial to avoid this imbalance of power developing.

Integrating fresh young talent into businesses has always been crucial but is not without its challenges. Each generation can disrupt custom and practice within an organisation, but the hope is always that this disruption can be a catalyst for something better to take its place. This is where it gets interesting, because Generation Y has not just opened up new markets with revolutionary products. Over the last few years we have also seen the huge impact of their input on core traditional industries.

A final view on the way Generation Y can disrupt traditional industries is akin to a new industrial revolution. While such rapid change may make some feel uncomfortable, an even bigger upheaval is right round the corner. Just behind Generation Y is Generation Z. Born after the mid-1990s these are the first generation of ‘tech natives’, who have grown up never knowing life without the internet. Their impact on the workplace could make Generation Y seem like a mere blip in comparison.

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The CEO Journey

Businesses must be able to learn and adapt faster than the rate of change in the respective markets. This is especially critical in times of economic, regulatory and business uncertainty.

Business and climate uncertainty increases the pressure on leaders to spend their time in the business, addressing the day to day activities that drive today’s performance and ROI results. These typical issues make tasking difficult and a balance to find sufficient headroom time on the business, considering how a leader must approach solutions to drive sustainable change and growth.

Sustaining growth and value in a company comes from making the right strategic choices and then aligning the business model and operational performance, stakeholder requirements and risk management to those choices.

It will take a good leader and his team careful consideration whilst considering the components of value creation and the important priorities in the short, medium and long term as spending time in the driving of the day to day performance of the business.

Being the CEO of a large company is like being the President of a small country. Effective CEO’s have mastered the delicate balance of leadership, hard work and innovation.

Many people set their sights on becoming a CEO from a young age, but what does that journey look like?

What should future CEOs prepare themselves for along the way to becoming a CEO?

On the CEO journey, there is quite a grooming process that most CEOs have experienced before they finally achieved that position. The road is generally both pressurized and tough and certainly not for the timid as well as respected.

The more traditional route is illustrated below, It’s called Keys To The Corner Office, and it was created by CEO.com. It breaks down the process of becoming a CEO into 3 steps which include education, experience and grooming. It’s interesting to note that the average age of a CEO at the time of appointment is 50 years old, and that’s of course after years and years of preparation, experience and working up through the ranks. If you take the non-traditional route to becoming a CEO which we already mentioned, you’ll get there a lot faster, but there is more risk involved. As always, there are pros and cons to both. You just have to decide which is best for you.

What To Expect On Your Journey To Becoming A CEO

CEO-Keys-final3aAnother key point for the CEO journey is organisational risk. Organisational risk is now on the radar of top executives, and it’s the CEOs – not Chief Risk Officers – who should ultimately bear the responsibility for risk management.

Organisational risk is generally broken down into three types of risk. First are the preventable risks. Examples are the risks from employees’ and managers’ unauthorised, illegal, unethical, incorrect, or inappropriate actions and the risks from breakdowns in routine operational processes.

Then there are the strategy risks. A company voluntarily accepts some risk to generate superior returns from its strategy. A bank assumes credit risk, for example, when it lends money; many companies take on risks through their research and development activities. Strategy risks are quite different from preventable risks because they are not inherently undesirable. And finally, there are the external risks which arise from events outside the company and are beyond its influence or control. Sources of these risks include natural and political disasters and major macroeconomic shifts.

External risks require yet another approach. Because companies cannot prevent such events from occurring, their management must focus on the identification (they tend to be obvious in hindsight) and mitigation of their impact.

An interesting report Exploring Strategic Risk, a global risk survey released by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL), reflects the views of mainly C-level executives, board members and risk executives from the Americas; Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Asia Pacific regions, state; two-thirds (67%) of more than 300 executives surveyed on strategic risk management practices say the CEO, board or board risk committee has oversight over strategic risk at their organisations.

Finally, to cultivate a successful CEO journey is to create shareholder wealth in our turbulent economy, CEO’s within companies need to spend as much time on building and executing strategies as on operating issues. Those that do will build skills and generate strategic ideas that evolve over time. Rather than fear uncertainty and unfamiliarity, these strategic CEO’s  can embrace them, and make the passage of time an ally against competitors that hold back when the future seems dark.

A famous quote once stated “ The hills we climb today are only foothills, compared to the mountains that we will climb tomorrow.”

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Why it pays to think before you share!

think before you share 1

There have been many conversations recently on when is the right time to share a post and what are the consequences of posting an inappropriate post. Earlier in the year I posted a blog with wine and app messaging – do we find the truth.

Every so often we get to party and we end up having a couple more drinks than we planned. As adults, we get to the point where we know how to drink responsibly, but like they say, “I didn’t go looking for trouble, trouble found me.” When that trouble is in the form of an adult beverage, it can quickly lead to embarrassing moments. Whether it’s your office party, birthday, or you just got a little too far ahead of yourself before dinner, it happens. Of course, you know what happens next… you take out your phone and get to texting and posting pictures.

These day’s social media is one of the most popular forms of communication in the 21st century, with over 1.6 billion monthly users. Anyone can connect with anyone else, or find out information about them that may not otherwise be available.

In the wake of employers going so far as to ask prospective employees to hand over their Facebook passwords, a practice that has been heavily frowned upon by Facebook itself, social media ‘screening’ continues to be a common practice amongst human resource professionals.

According to a CareerBuilder survey, as many as 37% of employers are checking out prospective employees on social media before they make a final decision.

Beyond that, some critics say it’s unfair for companies to use social media as a factor in screening potential hires. It could lead to discrimination, they say, and it may screen out otherwise strong candidates who have done some things the company doesn’t like but aren’t related to work.

think before you share 2They aren’t just snooping around for, say, embarrassing photos that offend HR’s sensibilities. To suggest that HR professionals monitor social media to root out private activity that they personally disapprove of is to make light of real dangers and potentially costly and protracted legal and regulatory risks

But there are implications that could as an employee offer the employer opportunities for suspension, for example; you are not actually responsible for a particular post, you decide to take a day out at the rugby and inform your employer that you have a stomach illness, your employer has is linked to your Twitter and Facebook account and there is a picture of you taking a selfie in the rugby stand cheering on your team, which is viewed by your peers, colleagues and HR.

This is where social media can lead to disciplinary action, social media effects our business and personal lives, another recent blog that I wrote discussed the fact whether in business you can separate your business and personal life online, the facts are this is becoming increasingly difficult for anyone to effect this properly, your business life is your personal life online and your personal life is observed by your business life. In some situations you are hired by an employer because of your personal characteristics and high level of emotional intelligence with others.

One of the key problems with posts and in sharing is that because we live in a fast technological world not everyone reads all content or reviews images before liking them, sharing them and promoting them online, this time is usual spent on the train, in the tube or in between advertisements in front of the TV, posting information without a proper review and too quickly without thinking of the implications in the public domain.

All information once sent is recorded, the delete button has very little effect once you press the send button, so what is the answer?

Social media is viewed differently from employer to employer, not all employers have a social media policy, if you company has a social media policy, you should read the chapter and verse and pay careful attention to the guidelines and forbid yourself compulsion to post images and information that could damage your reputation and career.

Finally, It is simply too easy to turn social-media searches into fishing expeditions. Employers are human and cannot avoid being offended by employees’ private behaviour that goes against their values. Experience shows that employers fire employees for reasons having nothing to do with work. People have lost jobs because of their political opinions and religious beliefs. A photo in a bikini has cost many women their job. One man was fired because his employer didn’t like his short stories (too much sex and violence).

A wise man’s quote, “A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.”― Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom

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Why strategy vs. the P&L is important

investor-readinessStrategic planning is critical to business success, it is not just about the revenue model and P&L.

Different from classic business planning, the strategic variety involves vision, mission and outside-of-the-box thinking. Strategic planning describes where you want your company to go, not necessarily how you are going to get there. However, like all other “travel plans,” without knowing where you want to go, creating details on how to arrive are meaningless. Strategic planning defines the “where” that your company is heading.

Delivering a strategic plan is one of the most important things any organisation, regardless of size can undertake.  A well-formulated and executed strategy establishes the foundations against which the organisation can create, monitor and measure their success. And yet many people find strategy and its purpose difficult to articulate.

swot-analysis (1)Why is strategy important?

Strategy is fundamental to the success and sustainability of any organisation for the following reasons:

  1. Understanding your company and industry

Strategy allows organisations to develop a clearer understanding of their own organisation and what is required for them to succeed. It helps organisations understand their core capabilities, identify and address weaknesses and mitigate risks. It can help organisations better design themselves so that they are focusing on the right things that are the most likely to deliver the best performance, productivity and profit both now and in the future.

  1. Growing in a changing world

Understanding what is taking place within the external environment is important to preparing a strategy that will ensure long-term profit and growth. Understanding changes that are taking place in your industry, or with your market place is important.

Because if you don’t adapt you die. Even successful businesses need to realize that what made them successful today is not what will make them successful tomorrow. With the rate of change becoming faster every year, it’s increasingly important that we understand what trends are going to impact on our business and our industry, and how we’re going to respond to them.

Whether political, social or technological, we need to what changes are going to affect our businesses. And we need to know how our organisation can respond to them. It enables us to find opportunities for growth and sustained profitability and it can help us identify and respond to changes that could make us extinct.

It is important that you understand what can affect you and your business both short term and long term.

  1. Creating a vision and direction for the whole organisation

All organisations and their staff need to understand their purpose, their destination and the course they are taking to get there. A company without a strategy is akin to sending your staff into the desert and leaving them to follow mirages in search of water. Without a destination and focus in mind your staff will wander aimlessly from one activity to the other never knowing what to focus on or how to prioritise.

Providing an organisation with a common purpose, goals and a set of actions to reach the goal ensures that everyone is working for the same outcome (your organisations success) and that time and resources are being allocated to the same goals and objectives. Simply it streamlines your business and ensures every pound and minute you spend on the business is in the direction of your sustained success.

While strategy is can be difficult for many organisations to commence, its benefits are far-reaching and many. From creating new business opportunities, to streamlining the operations and engaging staff, a well-formulated strategy will enable increased growth, productivity and profit both now and into the future

Why the P&L is important?

For a long time, the answer has been “more.” Ever since Frederick W. Taylor did time studies of steelworkers with a stopwatch in 1900, the measurement of business activity – called “Greater Taylorism” by Walter Keichel in his business history “The Lords of Strategy” – has grown ever more central to management. One result of this drive to quantify and analyse has been that senior executives often create numerous profit centers, or isolated groupings of both revenues and expenses nested within large businesses.

The two benefits are obvious. First, profit centers allow these executives to make better decisions. In organisations whose various revenue and cost accounts are not linked, poor economic performance can be hidden by positive results elsewhere, and decision-making is clouded. Second, profit centers help make accountability clear. By giving managers direct profit and loss responsibility, companies can incentivise activity that measurably contributes to the bottom line.

Finally, for a coherent strategy to work, then, the organisation executing it must be measured as a whole, rather than as parts. In other words, if a company is to have a single strategy, it must be driven by a single P&L.

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The balance of IQ vs EQ, is it necessary?

iq+eq=successI was recently in attendance at a Non-Executive Directors panel and evening, discussing the big debate over IQ vs. EQ, whilst I enjoyed hearing the collaborative panel, I really enjoyed the final summary around the facts from a Chief Business Analyst at a ranked Business School, the facts are and without a showdown of a doubt business has lacked in leadership, the statistics speak for themselves, but why?

I completed a TV interview a few years ago where I spoke on The Emotional Wake of Transformation. People in leadership love the title but can they really deliver the skills? If this is the case, what is the cost to the business without the right leadership?

Einstein, Plato, and Da Vinci are some notable personalities known to have an IQ of over 160. Evidently, they are truly geniuses in their respective fields. But does having a high IQ guarantee a one-way journey to success?

IQ

Intelligence quotient (IQ) is an evaluation of a person’s technical intelligence and logical reasoning. If you take an IQ test, you will be presented with questions to assess the following competence:

  • spatial ability, a person’s capacity to visualise space and shapes
  • mathematical ability, how a person uses logic in solving problems
  • language ability, the recognition of meaning from incomplete sentences and jumbled letters
  • memory ability, how a person recalls information

EQ

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the measure of a person’s capacity to be aware of his own feelings and the feelings of others. Daniel Goleman, author of the book Emotional Intelligence (2005), indicated the different facets of emotional intelligence. It revolves among the following:

  • self-awareness, the ability to understand one’s emotions
  • self-management, the ability to have control over emotions
  • social-awareness, how a person develops relationships
  • relationship management, how a person treats others with compassion

EQ IQTake an example  a company middle manager with a high emotional intelligence quotient (EQ). As such, he is more than capable to recognise his emotions and those of others around him; his communication style is intuitive, motivational, and engaging; and he naturally uses empathy, as well as creative and emotive language – such as “I feel” and “I wish” – in his emails and office pep talks to make a connection with his staff.

His company director,  meanwhile, employs a direct, no-frills communication method. She requires “only the facts” and thrives on logic, and her preferred head-over-heart method of communication is sparse and to the point. Hers is a high IQ (intelligence quotient) functioning approach, which tends toward the cognitive, intellectual, analytical, and rational.

Two different people, two varying communications, contrasting styles. And this is where a difficulty can arise in business because while both are shooting at the same goal, they might as well be playing for different teams. As a result, the directors can suffer an awkward breakdown in communications, simply because they are not operating on each other’s wavelengths. Worse, their clash of cultures could have an impact on their working relationship.

Of course, a controversial IQ/EQ friction is not simply restricted to the office because it can also be an issue in the wider business world, for example when an EQ-driven director meets  IQ-driven customers, prospective clients, or peers and fails to make a connection with them. It may even be a contributing factor in his company not winning a lucrative contract. Either way, be it an internal or external IQ/EQ conflict, it has the potential to hamper good business, or turn good business bad.

Demonstrating the right balance is fundamental for the success of a business, that means putting the right processes into place that accelerate a balance of IQ and EQ, the future of every business is dependent upon it!

The below list is different for every individual candidate, but these tips are a good place to start:

  1. Seek opportunities to demonstrate that you can add value within the business by getting actively involved in a diverse range of projects. It’s important to be able to show your achievements beyond delivering accurate and timely work.
  2. Get as much practice as you can attending meetings or contributing to team initiatives. Many directors/ professionals see themselves as introverts and don’t want to ‘put themselves out there.’ In reality introverts are often excellent communicators because they are good listeners – the most important attribute for empathising well with others.
  3. Bolster the skills that are holding you back. Instead of adding another technical degree or certification to your resume, think about developing the soft skills that will boost your EQ.
  4. Go beyond the numbers to think about the impact your work has on different aspects of the business and the people who do those jobs. What insights can you give the sales team to help them sell more or make more profitable sales? If you think and communicate from a broader commercial perspective, you’ll soon get the attention of management.