Freedom after the sharks

There really is no replacement on the value of face-to-face interactions. It breeds human connection, strengthens trust and builds credibility. But traveling to face-to-face meetings may not always be feasible, economical or the best use of time. Communicating over email, text or phone works but often these messages get misinterpreted and the personal connection may be lost. Over 90 percent of how we communicate is through nonverbal gestures and facial expressions and that simply does not translate over asynchronous communication mediums.

As most successful executives and management have said for years, there’s no substitute for the face-to-face meeting. Even with today’s quickly evolving technology, the old cliche of “putting a face to the name” still holds true. In-person interaction fosters positive connections, forges better relationships, and encourages better internal collaboration.

This presents a dilemma for entrepreneurs and executives who are forced to run their businesses, manage their teams or connect with far-flung executives while on the road. Despite all of our technological advances, it is still impossible to physically be in several places at one time.

A video from your CEO, group chatting with colleagues in a different office, and becoming part of the generation of ideas without having to go to endless meetings, but in todays business is this really effective as we are to believe?
In corporate and business life, closed door meetings and endless conversations that never seem to lead to anything positive, Silos, bad organisational structure, bunkers with employees separated by title or geography. Brilliant ideas overlooked because there is no method of communicating them to the people in charge and those people that can make an informed decision. The other issue is remote workers left out of the communication loop, feeling isolated and unmotivated. These are just some of the problems facing organisations today. And they are stifling productivity and innovation.

However, Facebook are looking to revolutionize this with their new product Workplace’ which combines business and personal social media benefits to employees on one platform with such features as News Feed, Groups and Chat. Some of you may remember some time ago I wrote a blog called “Can you merge your business life with your social life?”
These days the technologies that exist to allow most meetings to be held virtually. From conference calls, to web conferencing, and lately even video conferencing, there are many different options to choose from in determining what type of meeting to run.

In addition to saving time online meetings are also more environmental friendly due to the reduction in the carbon footprint resulting from less traveling to and from meetings. However, there are times when in person meetings are vastly preferable to remote meetings and vice versa. Sometimes the two can be used in parallel. MeetingKing, the meeting facilitation and documentation tool, has the distinct advantage of being able to support both online and face to face meetings.

Virtual meetings (also referred to as online meetings or remote meetings) are an excellent option for when distances between participants are very great. These meetings can be more time-efficient because travel time is significantly reduced. These meetings can enhance productivity in your business, especially when MeetingKing is used to prepare the agenda, write the minutes and keep track of tasks. In support of online meetings, MeetingKing can be effectively utilized in combination with Skype, Webex, GotoMeeting, MeetingBurner and other similar tools. The conference login details may be entered into the location field of the meeting invite, so that all participants are aware of how to access the meeting, and can find this information quickly. Another example of all information in one place.

However, there are some situations where online meeting simply will not be the enabler for effective communication and collaboration. In particular, sensitive meetings relating to human resource matters such as grievances, disciplinary action or one-to-one meetings with employees should almost always be held face to face, especially if they involve the sharing of difficult decisions.
In addition, if a meeting involves a presentation or demonstration of any kind, or brainstorming using a physical whiteboard, inviting some participants to a conference call won’t work either. These callers will get lost when they can’t see the props that the other attendees are referring to. In this case, only an in person meeting or at the very minimum, a video conference will suffice.

Body language tells us a lot about what others are thinking. It is a key component of communication. In any situation where it is important to be able to gauge what a person is thinking not just by what they are saying, but also through their body language (yes, sometimes these do not say the same things!) anything other than a face to face meeting may prove to be inadequate.

Even if you have an effectively operating distributed team and run your organization exclusively with remote meetings, an occasional in person meeting is highly recommended. It will foster team spirit and on-line interaction is easier after you have met a person face to face.

Advantages of meetings:
In business organizations meetings are used for a variety of purposes. There are some advantages of meeting which are stated below:
1. Democratic process: Meeting is a democratic process of taking decision. Noone can blame the other for the decision because it is taken in presence of all the members.
2. Improve decision: Because every matter is discussed, pros and cons and nothing is left over unconsidered. Proverb says: ”Two heads are better than one.”
3. Participative management: All the departmental heads and supervisors may sit together for taking decision.
4. Help in co-ordination: Meeting can help for co-coordinating the work as a whole because all the parties or members are presented in the meeting.
5. Covey information to a large gathering: Meeting can convey information for all departments. Besides the presented members exchange their views, idea, opinion and feeling at a large gathering.
6. Others: Provide necessary information to a group of people, report on some incidents or activities, create involvement and interest, formulate policies etc.

Disadvantages of meetings:
There are some limitations and disadvantages of meetings. These limitations and disadvantages are discussed below:
1. Time consuming: Meeting takes much time to take decision. We know that to hold a meeting is very time consuming.
2. Costly: It is too expensive. Because the company has to decorate the conference room, pay the T.A. and D.A. to the members, pay for cards etc.
3. Formalities: There are many formalities to hold on a meeting. Agenda, minutes, regulations are needed for a valid meeting.
4. Difficult to control: Sometimes it becomes very difficult for the speaker or chairman to control over the meeting because proverb says, “Many men, many minds.”

Preconditions of a valid meeting:
A valid meeting should have the following elements:
1. Legal objectives: Any meeting must have legal objectives. Meetings on illegal or unethical purposes cannot be valid in the eye of law.
2. Convened by proper authority: A valid meeting should be convened by the proper authority of the company.
3. Serving proper notice in proper time: Notice of a meeting must be served timely by maintaining rules and regulations of the companies act.
4. Presence of authorized persons: To make a meeting valid person who is entitled to present in a particular type of meeting should be present in the meeting.
5. Presided over by a chairman: A valid meeting should be presided over by a chairman who will be selected by the members.
6. Specific agenda: A detailed agenda should be prepared before the meeting and the meeting should be operated by following agenda.
7. Quorum: Quorum is the minimum number of persons that must be present in the meeting to make it valid.

A final summary of thought, I think there needs to be a balance of video conference, virtual tools, email, social media and collaboration tools for communication and why would you even contemplate using these tech-tools without full intimacy of the relationship in the first instance. What ever happened to picking up the phone? Or meeting people and talking to someone face-to-face? Or do we not have time?

There is an interesting saying: “Two people may be able to solve a problem that an individual cannot.” The origin is from this proverb which was first recorded in John Heywood’s “A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue, 1546:” Some heades haue taken two headis better then one: But ten heads without wit, I wene as good none. ‘Head’ here means ‘mind’, as opposed to heart or spirit. The notion of two being better than one, although not specifically two heads, was also expressed in the Bible; for example, this chapter from Ecclesiastes, 4:9, in in Miles Coverdale’s Bible, 1535:

The moral to the proverb is:

“Therefore two are better then one, for they may well enioy the profit of their labour.”

The pre-hype to the EU referendum caused the people of Britain (myself excluded) to vote for a British exit, or Brexit, from the EU in a historic referendum on Thursday June 23, 2016.
I personally attended several high profile events before the EU referendum vote to hear senior Fortune chairman’s and ministers of government provide their expert predictions and visions on the likely probability of the vote and the outcome for the UK economy.

The London-economy for small businesses, investment and growth, was put into hold, postponement or cancellation, which effected many businesses and the economy: in August the FTSE 100 hit a two-week low as investors withdraw a record £3.5bn from UK investment funds, the retail price war emerged with sales for the company Asda falling by 7.5 per cent in the three months to 30 June – its worst quarterly performance on record and noticeable recorded as the worst ever month for billings in the software, media, support services and engineering sectors.

The outcome of the BREXIT’ prompted jubilant celebrations among Eurosceptics around the Continent and sent shockwaves through the global economy.
Up until June 23, London was pretty sure of its place in the world. Building on its centuries-old position as a trading hub, it had become increasingly confident as a cultural centre as well as, in recent years, a hotbed of technological innovation.
The referendum vote in favour of Britain’s exit from the EU pulled the rug from beneath the feet of the city, one of the few parts of the UK that had voted definitively (60 vs. 40 per cent) in favour of remaining part of the bloc.

Though it will take years to discover and negotiate exactly what Brexit means in practice, many Londoners felt an instant instability, both personally and professionally and on two fronts: the uncertain outlook for Britain’s ability to sell unrestricted into the EU-wide single market; and the even bleaker prognosis for so-called freedom of movement.

For businesses, though, the bigger concern is about market access and the extent to which exporters will be able to retain anything of the seamless single-market access they currently enjoy. Nowhere is that more crucial than in London, where the dominant financial services industry and the ancillary sectors of law, accountancy and other professional services have ballooned over the past 30 years, in large part because of the capital’s status as Europe’s dominant financial hub.

Nonetheless, there are plenty of voices arguing that London’s role as one of the world’s main financial hubs will not be threatened fundamentally. That is partly because rival European centres have their drawbacks — being too small, with restrictive labour laws or lacking the stability of English law — but also because of an underlying confidence that London will adapt even if it does lose some business.
But as stated in my recent blog ‘The future of fintech and why London is the capital of the fintech universe’, London does possess other areas of growth: start-up financial technology, for example, which should be relatively unaffected by Brexit. London is the world’s most vibrant fintech hub. TheCityUK which continues to highlight the sector as a priority for expansion.

The mood in the City, as across the UK business environment, has undeniably been knocked by Brexit and the pervasive uncertainty on rules and regulations that will now follow, potentially for years to come. A weaker economic environment will make life tougher for many financial services operators, which is bound in turn to trickle down to the broader London economy.

Another consideration is an Asian intervention: the unusual publication by Japan’s foreign ministry of a Brexit paper. Japanese companies, it said, were huge employers in Britain, which took almost half of Japan’s investment in the EU last year. Most of that came because Britain is a gateway to Europe. The paper advised Mrs May to try to retain full access to the single market, to avoid customs controls on exports, to preserve the “passport” that allows banks based in London to trade across Europe and to let employers freely hire EU nationals.
These interventions worry Tory Brexiteers, who fret that having won a famous victory in June, they could lose the war. Their fear is that, given the choice, Mrs May and Mr Hammond will lean more to staying in the single market than to taking back full control of migration, money and laws. Mr Davis said this week that having access to the single market was not the same as being a member of it, and added that giving up border control to secure membership was an “improbable” outcome. But he was slapped down when Mrs May’s spokeswoman said the remark was only Mr Davis’s personal opinion. He also talked of retaining as much of the status quo as possible, not least in areas like security and foreign-policy co-operation.

The case for staying in the single market is simple: economists say this will minimise the economic damage from Brexit. A “hard” Brexit that involves leaving the single market without comprehensive free-trade deals with the EU and third countries would mean a bigger drop in investment and output. Brexiteers claim that many countries want free-trade deals and the economy is proving more robust than Remainers forecast. Michael Gove, a leading Brexiteer and former justice secretary, scoffed that soi-disant experts predicting economic doom had “oeuf on their face”.

Yet Mrs May is less complacent, acknowledging that it will not be “plain sailing” for the economy. Domestic business and financial lobbies are pressing to stay in the single market. As for trade deals, although she won warm words at the G20 summit from Australia’s prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, she was told firmly by Barack Obama and others that bilateral deals with Britain would not be a priority. The climate for free-trade deals is not propitious these days, and Mr Fox’s department is bereft of experienced trade negotiators.
Mrs May has ruled out an early election and a second referendum. She refuses to provide a “running commentary” on her Brexit plans. And she insists she can invoke Article 50 without a parliamentary vote. Yet she is being urged by some to delay, since it would set a two-year deadline for Brexit that can be extended only by unanimity among EU leaders. In a thoughtful paper for the think-tank Open Europe, Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury committee, says the government should first decide what sort of Brexit it wants, adding that its leverage is greater before it pulls the trigger. He suggests waiting until the French election in the spring or even the German one in September.
Yet Mrs May might not be allowed to wait by her own party, let alone by fellow EU leaders eager to get Brexit out of the way before the European elections in mid-2019. The phoney war may soon turn hotter.

The Trillion dollar question is: is the UK now up for grabs?
I believe firmly that Brexit vote will fuel concerns in Westminster that the future of the United Kingdom is now in serious doubt.
The SNP warned during the campaign that if – as has happened – the UK overall voted to leave the EU but Scots voted to remain, Scotland would be taken out of the EU “against its will” and this could be the trigger for another independence vote.
There are also concerns in Northern Ireland about the implications of the Brexit vote for its relationship with the Republic of Ireland. Remain campaigners warned that a Brexit vote could herald the return of “hard” border controls between the North and South. The Irish government has said the future of the border is one of a number of priority issues in its contingency planning. Sinn Fein has called for a vote on the reunification of Ireland but this has been rejected by the UK government.

A final thought: Don Tapscott once said:

“Collaboration is important not just because it’s a better way to learn. The spirit of collaboration is penetrating every institution and all of our lives. So learning to collaborate is part of equipping yourself for effectiveness, problem solving, innovation and life-long learning in an ever-changing networked economy”.

Politics have recently been rife in the headlines: not just in the UK and Europe, in all quarters of the globe there has been much unsettlement – exactly what will this mean to our relationships around the world, and indeed will we still have those ‘special relationships’?

American reaction to Britain’s referendum on membership of the European Union was divided sharply along party lines on Friday. Republicans mostly sympathised with the desire for greater sovereignty. Democrats struck a more exasperated tone.
Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton stressed the endurance of a special relationship with the UK and their respect for its decision, but hinted at challenges ahead.
“Yesterday’s vote speaks to the ongoing changes and challenges that are raised by globalisation,” said Obama during a trip to Silicon Valley, revealing he had called David Cameron and Angela Merkel to discuss the referendum and Britain’s “orderly transition” out of the EU.

“Our first task has to be to make sure that the economic uncertainty created by these events does not hurt working families here in America,” said Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, in a lukewarm statement.
In an apparent swipe at the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, who welcomed Brexit during a visit to Scotland, Clinton added: “This time of uncertainty only underscores the need for calm, steady, experienced leadership.
“It also underscores the need for us to pull together to solve our challenges as a country, not tear each other down.”

Later, a senior state department official told the Guardian newspaper: “This is obviously not the outcome that either of our governments wanted but it’s democracy and so we’re moving on. We have to. It’s just too important not to. The relationship’s too important, the issues that we’re working on with the UK are too vital. “You name it: Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria, the Asia-Pacific region. The Brits are such a key partner on so many issues that it’s just too important to allow this to derail a lot of that cooperation.”

We often hear policy-makers talk of the ‘special relationship’ between the United States of America and the United Kingdom, and it’s easy to dismiss this as politician speak, yet the truth is the US and UK have a deep, complex and successful partnership that has benefited both sides economically, socially and culturally for many years.
The UK imports around £43bn in goods from the US each year, alongside receiving more than £440bn of direct investment from American individuals, institutions and companies. As a nation, the UK has invested more than £330bn into the US, and it’s estimated that British investments account for nearly a million US jobs. If you add to this the number of tourists we exchange each year, plus our shared culture, media and more, you quickly see that the US and the UK have a dynamic and deep connection.

I visit the US frequently and have a business partner in the States, so I am fortunate to have the great pleasure of seeing some extraordinary work done by startups and entrepreneurs on both sides of the Atlantic, whether it is Silicon Valley, Tech-Start up’s in Phoenix or UOA (University of Arizona) or elsewhere. One of the ideas you hear often is that in America there is a culture where not only is it ok to fail, but it’s almost expected – like a badge of honour. This is true to a point, but that implies a cut-throat culture that is more legend than reality and is actually bad for innovation. It is important to remember the human element in attempting to get a business off the ground – both in the UK and in the US. Whatever the culture, people struggle and work hard and need all the support they can get, whether that be from family and friends, mentors, other businesses, government grants and resources.

I personally believe there are major opportunities when it comes to shared opportunities and collaboration. Certainly, a key one is the maturing of the digital economy. Advances in AI, robotics, the IOT, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, nano- and bio-technology, materials science, quantum computing and financial technologies are creating new opportunities. And there will be increasing importance for companies to do business in environments and markets with transparent intellectual property protection, and predictable rule of law. As strong trading partners with shared and enduring values for attracting and supporting companies from each other’s jurisdiction, the UK and US are well-positioned to be mutual winners in this new digital age of opportunities.

The key to all of these ideas is cross-border collaboration, collaborating with colleagues across borders brings the benefit of new perspectives, further expertise and experiences, as well as a potentially different approach to the profession as a whole. There may be differences of culture, in the language that we use with donors or many other contextual differences.
Even once those differences are understood, theoretical knowledge can be quite different when it is put it into practice. You will need a strong dose of flexibility and capability to adapt to other ways of conceiving your job as well as your approach.

For example, working on corporate fundraising in one country could differ widely in another country – not better or worse, simply different. Understanding the context requires hours of back-office study before starting a project abroad. For example, fiscal regulation determines different advantages – and perceptions – for those donors interested in donating to certain projects. A deep understanding of such points will determine the most suitable ways to engage donors and, as a consequence, to set a proper fundraising strategy.

The truth is that it’s not always easy. Sometimes there is a lack of information about common or shared objectives and the opportunities for collaborative working.
Of course, working internationally could be costly in terms of time and effort and, most of all, it is certainly demanding, and will be dependent on your overall objective for export, company development and expansion, I have worked internationally for 25 years and can honestly say the benefits outweigh the barriers to entry.

Watch out for misunderstandings. Even if your language skills are second to none, the English language – which is often used even when it is not the native language of the parties involved – can mean that the same word has a variety of meanings.

To conclude, it could be said that collaborating across borders is a challenging way to share concerns and objectives with colleagues, learning more about cultural approaches to problems and causes and different ways to cope with them. This process brings added value to the organisations involved.

As Simon Mainwaring once said:

“Creating a better world requires teamwork, partnerships, and collaboration, as we need an entire army of companies to work together to build a better world within the next few decades. This means corporations must embrace the benefits of cooperating with one another.”

The Myth that Marketing Automation Reveals Buyers’ Journeys.

Big data is a disruptive technology that is changing how enterprises gain insights into their most valuable revenue generator: the customer. Knowing big data’s potential and its importance in customer analytics is one thing, productively managing and leveraging it is another.
I had a discussion recently with business associates on the effectiveness of email DM and social, it was a mixed response, but the group response was everyone had a story to share about emails being sent to the inbox that had no remote correlation to a qualification of interest and everyone was frustrated by following someone of Twitter and the first message you receive via DM was an automated offer to sell you something.

So thinking about the human interface vs automated or robotic, do you think senior citizens are the only people who still complain about not being able to talk to a live customer service rep? Think again. When a recent poll asked 1,000 U.S. consumers for their number-one customer service complaint, not being able to get from an automated phone system to a live person was the top complaint among Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers alike, these are really interesting observations.

Although often portrayed as wanting to interact with businesses entirely online, 32 percent of Millennials say their biggest frustration is customer service automation and being unable to reach a live person. Thirty percent of Gen X consumers and 47 percent of Baby Boomers feel the same way.

I recently read a few reports on marketing automation. Here is why I was stunned: marketing automation is one of the most valuable tools the modern day marketer can employ and yet it’s been adopted by less than 10% of companies.

In this context when I discuss marketing automation, I am not only talking about email automation. That is just a small piece of marketing automation. Email automation and automated drip campaigns have been around for over a decade and when they are included into this discussion the adoption numbers are higher. Real marketing automation is a tool that allows marketing departments to more effectively market to multiple channels (usually social, blogging, email, landing pages, etc.) and automate certain tasks.

A true marketing automation system requires implementation with a company’s website, social media accounts, CRM, and a few other existing infrastructures, this can cause some smaller companies who do not have the budget or time some heartburn.
Psychologists have compared the human instinctive aversion to change to the way people avoid pain or experience fear. Yet one of the primary responsibilities of CEOs is to facilitate cultural, organisational and strategic change in response to evolving market dynamics, a tall order when your opponent is human nature itself.
According to Forrester, 75 percent of the buying cycle is completed before Sales is ever contacted. IDG found that 60 percent of prospects look at nine or more digital sources to research products they are considering.
The buyer expected control of their experience. Vendors that do not put customers in the driver’s seat will have a hard time closing deals and keeping customers.
The only way to make the right changes is to align your entire organisation with the customer’s buying process. To do so successfully you will need an in-depth understanding of the customer that only comes from research and a partnership with your customer base.

The starting place is to interview them. Customers are happy to lay out the steps they take from the trigger event through purchase. Asked the right way, you will discover what type of information they look for, where, and to whom they turn for trusted feedback and advice. They will even tell you when and how they want to engage with your sales teams and their expectations of what, for them, makes a valuable customer experience. All you need to do is ask and then act on that information.

Executives might be afraid of what the customer says, but a vendor’s survival hinges on their ability to overcome those fears; to really talk to their customers and then tune their organisation’s culture, business model and processes to match the customer’s experience expectations.
Marketing automation, CRM, and sales automation systems cannot interview your customers, ask probing questions. Marketing automation does not help you build relationships or understand customers. These are not qualities we can purchase off a shelf.
What these systems can tell you is where in the buyers’ journey a prospect might be based upon the behavior you’ve been able to capture. Software has value, but vendors won’t get ahead just because they bought marketing automation.

What defines winners are CEOs who muster the courage to create change. To truly listen to their customers, build deep cross-organisational relationships based on value, and change from internally-focused, product-obsessed organizations to customer-centric businesses. That means overcoming fears of change and driving different values, culture, processes and ways of doing business.

Only when we understand customers’ trigger event, buy-cycle and what influences trust can we paint a story-board for the organisation to follow that guides us to customer alignment, loyalty, and sustainable growth.

As Simon Mainwaring once said:

“Companies and their brands need to reach out and speak directly to consumers, to honor their values, and to form meaningful relationships with them. They must become architects of community, consistently demonstrating the values that their customer community expects in exchange for their loyalty and purchases.”