Wrong…..

The word exercise comes from the Latin exercere, meaning to keep busy or at work. Which we all do in one sense, but ironically what the typical adult does at work is sit in a desk chair for eight hours, plus a sitting-down commute both ways, no physical exercise there then!

We all know that exercise improves your physical and mental health, can boost your energy and mood, and assist weight loss, which most of us at Chemistry are trying to do at this time of year! But can it also help you improve the way you work?

Exercise helps improve all aspects of your life, including work productivity, in a number of different ways:

Alertness – One way that exercise can help boost productivity at work is through alertness. When you exercise, you are increasing blood flow to the brain, which can help sharpen your awareness and make you more ready to tackle your next big project.

Easing stress and anxiety – Exercise won’t sweep away all your worries but it will help you take charge of anxiety and reduce stress. Aerobic exercise releases hormones that relieve stress and promote a sense of well-being.

Sharpening brainpower - The same endorphins that make you feel better also help you concentrate and feel mentally sharp for tasks at hand. Exercise also stimulates the growth of new brain cells.

Boosting energy - Increasing your heart rate several times a week will give you more get-up-and-go. Combine this with diet as per my blogs on nutrition and you will keep buzzing with energy and productivity as you conquer those mid morning and afternoon slumps.

Illness – Regular exercise can help reduce your risk of developing certain types of illness and disease. This means fewer sick days and improved immunity, to try and keep away that January/February cold we all seem to suffer!

Creativity – If you can’t think, go for a walk. A change of atmosphere is good for you and gentle exercise helps shake up the brain cells. There are many studies that show exercise can increase the parts of the brain that governs creativity.

So I know with unemployment up and spare cash tight so many of us are knuckling down and staying in our offices rather than taking time out to exercise, but if we could all just get in that 20 minutes a day, work, home and most importantly your health will thank you.

P.S. Chemistry – Remember my blog when you are all exercise those muscles and minds on the Chemistry skiing trip!

So how do avoid this crash and achieve the upside? Simple, (to say at least) we need to share the burden, we need to get other people involved and we need to ask others for help.  This coupled with good organisation is a recipe for ensuring that nobody drops the ball on anything.

Speaking personally I am not the best at delegating things and bringing other people in to help me out, instead taking the view that “it will be easier just to do it myself rather than get them to a level to do it for me”.  What I have realised over the last few weeks is that this approach doesn’t work and is a sure fire way to a breakdown (which I nearly had last week!).Now I am trying to programme myself to think longer term.  If I invest the time to get people to a level where they can do things for me, then I only have to it once.  If I am the person that deals with things, those things will always be dependent on me being involved.  This approach also enhances the service that you can give to your clients, as you will suddenly cease being the “single point of failure”, ie if you aren’t around, things can still happen.

Couple this with better organisation, even if it is just a to do list, and you will be able to do more, with more clients and drive your business forward.

So, my (not quite) New Year’s resolution is to ensure that I involve other people in what I am doing and make sure that things can happen without me.  Even though this goes against my need to have my ego massaged, it is vital for the success of Chemistry, and is important for the success of any business.

Now this might all sound like an elaborate excuse for me writing this blog a week or two late, and although it might serve that purpose it is in fact a moment of enlightenment that I have had, and wanted to share.  Now all I have to do is make the changes!!

So this Facebook thing… It’s got no discernable “product” (it’s actually just an online space), yet it commands a mind ripping valuation. Why?

There’s something that Facebook have tapped into, that started in the 1980s when consumerism really started to be driven by individual desires (think they called it the ‘me’ decade), rather than by what producers deemed appropriate to consume.

And it’s this: Facebook users see Facebook as an extension of themselves, as opposed to a separate entity.

You couldn’t get a much purer version of it.

Facebook facilitates a process of people tapping into their higher motivational and human needs. And once you can get individuals to personally identify with the product or thing they’re engaging with, you create ‘fans’, not just consumers. You’re getting them to push the ‘like’ button.

And Facebook is now the key to other companies engaging with the interests, needs and motivations of the modern Internet user/consumer. There is nothing more valuable that currently exists on the market anywhere.

What’s interesting to me is how business people can apply this concept. What does ‘pushing the like button’ mean for us bods with a few less 0’s attached to our valuation…

For me there are 3 key aspects that the “like” button refers to:

1. Meaning – Because Facebook is an extension of me, I can attribute higher meaning and purpose to my actions
2. Sharing – Facebook enables me to interact with the people I want to interact with, to meet new like minded people and make connections
3. Expressing – This creates a safe environment where I can openly debate and comment with others

Now let’s apply this to two critical areas of business: clients and staff.

Let’s take clients first.

Most of us are service providers. Our job is to make heroes out of our clients. When a client pushes our “like” button, they see us as an extension of themselves because we’ve enabled them to do something extraordinary, in their own image.

So what would indicate meaning, sharing and expressing (being “liked”) by our clients?

1.My client engages me in conversations at a level above the practicalities of ‘what’ I’m trying to achieve – they divulge underlying purpose (meaning)
2. My client freely and independently refers me to other companies, and creates networking opportunities (sharing)
3.My client calls me to ask for my honest opinion, not just because they need something (expressing)

How many of these can you truly tick?

The same is true for staff. All too often businesses make the mistake of thinking that their brand is big enough to support itself. Not true. Your brand are your people, and the way they talk about you, and the way they do the things you ask them to. So, to apply the same notion:

1. My employee has a ‘reason’ to be at work which aligns with the vision of my company (meaning)
2. My employee freely tell great stories about my company to people outside of work (sharing)
3. My employee feels empowered to offer an opinion and to contribute to the direction of the company (expressing)

How many of these can you truly tick? (this one is probably more difficult)

There’s a word for all this, by the way, and I think they call it engagement J. And this is the “like” button most organisations struggle with.

It isn’t a coincidence that the most personally ‘engaging’ website on the market today is also seen as the one with the most potential for growth (see valuation fee, tbc…), so maybe we should think about the “like” button a little bit more…

Tom

It made them all smile massively.

And I got a different executive team to do exactly the same thing in London, UK two weeks ago.

It made them smile massively too.

I can’t believe I got them to do it really

Their first smiles (and giggles) were due to the silly idea of senior managers having post it notes on their heads … fair enough!

But as the session moved on the smiles quickly became deeper, less nervous and more genuine. Their mood shifted, their spirits lifted and they were properly enjoying themselves.

How did I get 20 stressed out senior people to feel so good? I asked them to tell each other things that would make the other person feel important. Things they had noticed about that person that they did really well. And they came up with all sorts of things.

When I asked them how the experience had felt, they said, “easy, rewarding, fun, honest, a pleasant change.” Apparently in their organisations they don’t often praise each other. It’s as if that might mean people get complacent. And it’s just much harder to say these things rather than, “you need to improve!”

But apparently if you stick a post-it note on your head it becomes easy. So they are all now going around sticking “virtual” post-it notes on the heads of their colleagues. And they are loving it. It doesn’t mean improvement stops, in fact the opposite is true, it’s a lot easier to improve starting from a good place rather than a bad one.

And what was written on the Post-it notes? Four letters – M M F I

Make Me Feel Important.

Easy.

Cheers,

Simon

The story that seems to have gripped the media though is the captain and whether he was to blame.  Whether he was or wasn’t I guess is for the courts to decide.  But it’s made me question what makes a good leader? I think it’s easy to pick out good leaders when things are going well.  When Captain Francesco Schettino was sailing his ship along the beautiful Italian coast on a wonderfully sunny day, I’m sure his crew would have described him as a great Captain.  But when it all went wrong and they really needed him, what happened to those leadership qualities?

When bad times hit, you need a strong leader, someone who is going to see you through the tough times. We’ve just been through one of the worst recessions in our lifetime and if you believe the analysts we’re heading for the double dip sometime soon (my sources say September).  I’m sure the companies that will come out of this recession thriving will all have one thing in common – great leaders.

Captain Francesco is facing accusations of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning a ship before all passengers were evacuated. His crew seemed to react too slowly to the disaster and lives were lost as a result.  It’s a tragic story and only Francesco knows the truth of what happened that night and whether he could have done more.

That’s the thing about leaders; they have to please everyone.  Employees look to them to motivate and build optimism and hope for the future and customers look to them to build confidence in the services or products they provide.  I guess it can be a lonely place and if you get it wrong, it can have dire consequences.  I wonder how many organisations really think about the importance of getting this right. The wrong leadership can have a catastrophic affect on your people and in turn your business.

When times are tough, the leadership needs to thrive.  The best leaders will be investing in their people and their organisations and will be looking forward to the growth that inevitably follows the bad times.  I doubt any leader today will compare themselves to Captain Francesco and of course any business problems can’t possibly be compared, however, I do feel that lessons can be learnt from these tragic events.

Of course leaders need to inspire their teams through the good times but I think it’s just as important to inspire them through the bad!

And a lot has been wasted.

Not your fault – the proposal looked feasible and the trainers professional.

But nothing much has worked so far.

Perhaps it’s time to take a fresh look at what you might be able to change, how that happens and what it might achieve.

First consider what you are not going to be able to change.

Their intellect, values and motivation are tough to affect.

Which leaves their behaviour.

As an example, look at your management population.

To secure the future of the business, they really need to be good at growing talent.

When they do that, the equity value of your people grows.

And when you do that, the value of your company grows too – investors will pay a 20% premium above benchmark multipliers for companies who are perceived to have the top talent.

So people are really important to the equity of your business.

If the management population is not fabulous at growing talent, you’re at risk.

What The Chemistry Group is good at is solving complex people puzzles.

In your management group there will be some who are terrific at growing talent.

Chemistry capture that group, identify them as possible gurus on growing talent and then coach them up to the next level, so they can coach peers to build the behaviour of growing talent.

Each guru creates a pod of peers and frequently shares ideas, encourages and prods them into evolving.

Tangible results are apparent quite quickly – even when projects involving a hundred people can see significant changes in behaviour in six months.

So far, the approach of pod coaching seems to be bringing behaviour development about quicker, more effectively and cheaper than old school methods

And if you’ve been watching the news this week, you’ll have seen the next in line is family-run retail chain Peacocks, which is sadly facing closure after being in the business for over 100 years.

Despite reporting a 17% rise in like for like sales over the Christmas period, Peacocks’ apparent increased lending has finally led to its demise. With reported borrowings escalating £577m, CEO Richard Kirk clung to hopes of a potential buyer bailing them out. But as the story continues, that flicker of hope is slowly fading and it’s reported up to 10,000 jobs are at risk. Another substantial blow to the country’s unemployment figures.

Whether you believe it’s down to the lending from banks or the lack of inspiration on the shelves, we may not know for some time. But what we do know is Peacock’s isn’t the first high-street retailer to be hit by the harsh stick of recession and it certainly won’t be the last.

Now, I am not an expert on the economy. Nor can I claim I should be giving out advice on our country’s financial lending (although I do have some opinions!) but I do see myself as somewhat of an expert when it comes to spending, I’m what you might call, a shopaholic. In a time when we are working harder than ever to earn our crust, it makes us want to buy for ourselves the treats we deserve. Even in a difficult economic climate, I am still going out and spending in the retail market every month. And I know what gets me, and no doubt half of my generation’s population through the doors, purse in hand, when payday rolls round the corner.

Variety and Innovation

Browsing is the single most dangerous thing I can do to my bank account. Why? Because when a consumer “browses” they are not looking for anything in particular. Their criteria is not set. The customer is literally coming to you asking: “What have you got for me?” So a lack of innovation and variety on your shelves means your “browsers” become uninterested and you become predictable. You need to constantly update your products to the needs of the consumer. Because guess what, if we don’t find something we like, we go elsewhere.

Value for money

As a self-confessed expert when it comes to buying, I have an eye for detail. And  as a consumer, I want to be sure what I’m buying is worth the money you are asking for. Now, let’s not confuse this with quality over price. Each store has it’s own brand and market. For example, when I shop at Primark, I’m looking for a cost-effective option. When shopping at French Connection, I’m looking for quality. However, as consumers, we can spot the difference between higher prices and better value for money. These are 2 very different things. We’re not always looking for the cheapest option, it’s about getting the best we can for the money we have.

And finally…Reward

Now, by rewards, I don’t necessarily mean I want free stuff (although those who know me will know I’m not one to turn down a gift! #justsayin’) but for me, rewarding repeat business is one of the crucial things retail businesses miss out on time and time again. Recognise your loyal customers and acknowledge what their repeat business means to you. Why should I be loyal to you if I don’t feel you are going to be loyal to me? When I am rewarded, I want to repeat my business with you. I feel valued and next time, I’m likely to not only come again, but come more often. Form a partnership of trust with that customer in the service you provide. Whether I spend £5 or £500, I want to be treated as an individual. Call me anal, but after working for a business that is all about providing the best to our clients, I want the same from my suppliers. If there’s a problem with my product, or order, it’s unfortunate. These things happen. It’s how you react to it that I care about. Retailers that are proactive in their solutions as a provider will drive repeat business time and time again. Retailers that don’t, well, you lose our trust and eventually, we pick up our plastic and take it elsewhere.

But what exactly can do we do in practical terms to make sure that we are on top of the issue?

Understanding ‘what good looks like’ starts with knowing the business, its leadership, its culture, systems and processes. Every organisation is different, which means that ‘what good looks like’ will be different for each one.

That’s right – the potential performance of an individual is not fixed. We do not believe that great people were born that way or that they can be great anywhere. Performance is situational which, in turn, means that the ability of individuals to perform is situational. The best talent will manifest itself in an environment that is right for it.

A real world example of this theory can be seen with a global information services business, which had serious attrition and performance issues within its sales force.

The firm’s hiring activity was largely focused on two categories of people- the first were entry-level but bright graduates, while the second group were recruited for their experience, generally directly from the competition. Sound familiar?

As for the environment in which they operated, this could be described as having:

• Top down, autocratic management, which made it more like a military than a commercial organisation
• Rigid sales processes and governance procedures
• Fixed pricing
• High daily call volume expectations
• Low deal volumes, but high deal frequency
• Territories that were run on a ‘franchise’ kind of model.

So what kind of people would be likely to excel in this type of culture? Those who:

• Enjoy planning and are good at it
• Like clear structures and systems
• Don’t mind being told what to do and when
• Manage their time well
• Cope with repetitive tasks
• Like working on their own for most of the time
• Work well under pressure, especially in the face of financial targets
• Believe in building their own ‘book of work’.

After identifying such requirements, the next step is to ask what level of intellect an individual would need to have; what kind of values they should espouse; what might motivate them and how they should behave? For example, would a high performer with a high degree of intellectual horsepower be required in the environment as described above? No. Intellect was not found to be a predictor of success among the company’s top performers.

Some ‘good’ factors

Moreover, simply the fact that an individual was a graduate – which is not an accurate measure of intellect in and of itself – likewise did not make it any easier to forecast performance, an issue that raises the question of why a potential talent pool should be restricted to such criteria?

But there are also factors to be considered from a values perspective such as are you likely to require a conformist or a non-conformist and someone with a 50,000 foot view or a 50 foot view? Would you want an individual who sees time as simply a human construct to ignore or someone who takes pride in being in the right place at the right time?

Moreover, from a motivational standpoint, do you need someone who is attracted to risk and reward? Do you need a team player or would a self-motivated loner be more of what you’re after?

To answer these questions and find someone who will excel in a given role, you need to understand both the nature of that role as well as the company’s culture and working environment. But once you understand such matters, you can choose some tools to measure them.

The tool used to identify potential high performers in the case of the global information services business was Edgar Schein’s career anchor questionnaire. Here an individual was statistically more likely to be a higher performer if their primary career anchor was ‘lifestyle’ and their secondary one was ‘entrepreneurial creativity’.

Conversely, people were more likely to be low performers if their primary career anchor was ‘lifestyle’ but their secondary one was ‘security’. (As an aside, this questionnaire is fabulous for identifying the latest, and very trendy, intrapreneur employee profile, where “the owners are not the renters” – if only businesses knew.)

But individuals were also more likely to be high performers if they scored highly on the ‘conformity’ and ‘detail’ scale. They also generally demonstrated strengths in how they ‘gathered information’ and how they ‘planned and measured’ their own performance.

By being clear about ‘what good looks like’ and measuring only those factors that affected an individual’s ability to perform, it was possible to shorten the firm’s recruitment process by providing its resourcing team with the necessary data and enabling it to identify and exploit untapped talent pools. As previously mentioned, however, prior experience proved not to a good predictor of current and future performance.

By understanding and measuring ‘what good looks like’, organisations can improve their business performance. In the case of this particular company, sales increased and attrition rates were drastically reduced. In other organisations, the productivity of IT teams has improved by more than 300%, while sales teams have boosted revenues by over 250%.

But going down this route can also help to enhance the diversity of the workforce in terms of gender, race and physical abilities. A key upside of building hiring processes around ‘what good looks like’ is that there is no room for human prejudice. If a candidate is right, they are right. And that’s it.

Where do I begin? Well the sales process was pretty simple; the sales staff seemed knowledgeable and very helpful.  I chose my bed, was told it was in stock, as was the mattress, and they would be delivered in two weeks but I would receive a call in the next couple of days to arrange a date. I paid up (paying extra for assembly) and left feeling very pleased with my purchase.

Over a week later I still hadn’t been contacted so I gave the company a ring.  After sitting on hold and being cut off for nearly 2 hours I finally got through to an advisor who told me my bed was out of stock and not to expect it until the end of December. (a good month after I was promised delivery) Oh, and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it.

After complaining on Facebook (the status I left my complaint on had 250 other people also complaining about anything ranging from late delivery to mattresses being left out in the street, to rudeness of call centre staff to entire beds going missing in transit).  Shortly after I submitted my complaint I was contacted by a fabulous member of staff, let’s call him Peter.  Peter realised my mattress would be in stock in a week so arranged for it to be delivered with a temporary base to tide me over until the frame I had ordered could be delivered, assembled and the spare base to be removed.  Not ideal but it was better than nothing.  If I only I knew that was just the beginning problems…

I won’t go into everything that happened, but here’s a summary:

• Delivery of my bed frame was arranged, cancelled via voicemail but still turned up on the day it was originally arranged for without further notice
• When the frame was delivered I was told someone would be along in 10 minutes to assemble it.  After waiting for four hours I spent over an hour on hold trying to locate the bed builder only to be told (by an extremely rude advisor) the assembly I paid only covered the assembly of the spare base (huh?!?) so no one was coming and they were not going to take away the spare base
• Complained on Facebook and within an hour Peter rang me and arranged someone to come and assemble the bed that evening but they couldn’t remove the spare base.  Peter then went the extra mile by arranging a separate, external courier to remove the base.
• While bed was being built they realised one of the drawers had been delivered broken.
• I contacted Peter (he gave me the number to his direct line) and he arranged for redelivery of a new drawer but they were now out of stock so I had to wait another 3 weeks.
• Bed was finally complete last weekend – 2 months after my original order was placed

Ok so a lot of things went wrong, and while not ideal, some of it was really just down to bad luck.  However the way the staff handled my problems was what frustrated me.  With the soul exception of the wonderful Peter, the staff were rude and indifferent.  They couldn’t care less. These customer facing employees, the ones that represent the company, just couldn’t give a damn!

Peter may not have more experience than his colleagues, he may not have more knowledge around retail or be more senior than them.  The difference that set Peter apart from the rest is that he truly values customer service. Instead of being rude, Peter’s focus was to try and salvage what he could of my customer experience and make the rest of the process as pleasant as possible.  In short, Peter is a shining example of What Good Looks Like (WGLL) for this organisation.

If only this company understood WGLL for them in terms of values, motivations, behaviours and intellect they could turn their customer service team around.  They could build a recruitment process around WGLL ensuring that they only hire the very best people for their business.  They could use the WGLL framework to benchmark their current workforce; to understand who has the potential to be a future star with a bit of development, and the ones who don’t fit the mould who they should let go and allow them to be brilliant somewhere else.

If only this retailer placed more importance on their staff they could build a dream team and turn the complaints to compliments.

After watching ident after ident of this company’s television sponsorship over Christmas, seeing their ads all over TV, hearing them repeatedly on the radio it’s pretty obvious this company has money to invest. So maybe this year, instead of ploughing £ after £ into marketing, perhaps they should start investing in their people.  Good service costs nothing and word of mouth, positive or negative, is worth millions.

So Bed Retailer, here’s one for you to sleep on.  Your people are your lifeblood, the heart that makes your organisation what it is.  If your people are brilliant the rest will follow… It’s not rocket science but it might just be Chemistry!

Sleep tight,

Cesca x