Just Live in the Future

By Ed Percival, Shirlaws Business Coach

“ I can’t tell the future, I just live there”  - Doctor Who.

“I can tell the future because I have coached my client to create it”  - Shirlaws Coach.

Yes, I do know there is only the present.

My current beliefs also include the skill for me to travel forward in time, see the possible future and come back to explain what needs to happen today in order to manifest it.

Remember Darren Shirlaw”s unerring forecasts of the phases of the depression that has just ended? All based on his understanding of trends and human behavior.

Do you need more encouragement to become an avid trend follower, so you can begin to predict your clients’ futures by co-creating them?

Acknowledging the Hero's

By Rowan Andrews, Shirlaws Business Coach

The London Marathon will see thousands of runners descend on London for the gruelling challenge. And at this time I am solemly reminded of my hero and how important it is to acknowledge our heros.

In the past I judged that to be a hero you'd have to do something fairly super-human. Out of the ordinary. Be a superstar athlete like Muhammad Ali. A great adventurer, like Ernest Shackleton, a global leader in times of adversity like Winston Churchill, Ghandi, Martin Luther King - underdogs bravely standing up against all the odds. And to be a hero of mine you would have to be famous for what you'd done.

The person who got me to see how small my thinking was about heroism, was a hair dresser. I used to think hairdressers were not very smart. A bit boring. Shallow even. And everytime I had my haircut that view tended to be reinforced when my hairdresser would launch into a mundane diatribe about the weather or what some celebrity said on Twitter, or whatever.

But then I heard about one particular hairdresser and it transformed my view. Because this hairdresser, Claire, 30 years old, was an amazingly driven person who raised thousands of pounds for charity. Two years ago she climbed mount Kilimanjaro and raised money for the RAF Association.

I heard another story about her. It was from her friend Victoria who'd been having a bad time; feeling a bit low and depressed about her weight but who wanted to get fit and go to the gym. She was struggling to find the time or motivation to go. Claire -the hairdresser and good friend - selflessly offered to help her and go with her to the gym. And when Victoria tried to make excuses saying "I haven't really got the time" or "she couldn't go to the gym because she felt bad", her friend Claire said: "right, this is what we'll do, I come round at 6 o'clock in the morning, pick you up and we'll go there together and I'll do that everyday for as long as it takes and you feel better." Just completely there for her friend. Selfless. Would you or I go that far for a friend?

And I think it's that selflessness that I find so heroic, that ability and willingness to go beyond one's own needs. A quality I admire because I know how difficult it is.

Last year Claire the hairdresser entered the London Marathon along with more than 37,000 others and before the start had raised £500 for the Samaritans. Her Just Giving page said simply: "I'm running the London marathon for Samaritans because they continuously support others."

It transpired she was running to raise funds for the Samaritans in honour of her brother, who died of a drug overdose in 2001, at the age of 25.

What a hero.

But there is a tragic and somewhat ironic end to this story. Because the name of my hero is Claire Squires. Does that name ring a bell?

Just a mile before the finish line of last year's London Marathon, Claire collapsed and died, one of the ten people to have died running the marathon since it started in 1981. And it was news of Claire's venture, to raise money for the Samaritans, and that she'd lost her own life in the pursuit of that noble aim, that sparked an amazing outpouring of generosity from the public and which resulted in her posthumously raising almost £1m.

So my hero is Claire Squires, and all the Claire Squires in the world. And it's not because she died, it's not because she raised £1m, it's just for all those selfless acts that she, and people like her did and continue to do to help make life better for others.

It took Claire's death for her to be acknowledged on a huge public scale. It made me wonder who the unsung heroes are in our businesses. Who are the selfless people in your business who keep things going? Find the time to acknowledge them. Make them feel great for the little things they do that actually make a difference. They're amazing. They're heroes.

Asset extension - the key to rapid equity growth

It may feel that we are stuck in a permanent winter, economically and climatically, but, however it feels today, we know that spring and summer will come.

We also know, in the economic spring, that those companies that innovate and extend their product into the recovery phase are the ones that will grab share, create growth and build wealth faster than those that focus on the status quo. Whether it's the iPod in 2001, Gillette Sensor in the early '90s, Commerce Bank in '73, or IBM in the 'long depression' of 1873, every serious depression stimulates a new crop of innovative products and emergent companies.

So, how do you get your company perfectly placed to innovate and extend? The answers sit in understanding and strategically managing your key assets. In previous blogs, we've looked at culture and talent as being the foundation assets (and I argued that you can't easily innovate, grow and free up your time without a great, independent performance culture); and the power of systemising your assets. Now let's look at extending your product.

The absolute key issue here is to understand the difference between a "logical" product extension and an "asset-based" extension. All of the examples of great product innovations are of companies that have understood their fundamental assets, the "intellectual property" that uniquely powers their business, and have harnessed that to launch ambitious new extension products. For example, I love the Saga story and how that company made a transformational leap and understood that, although their product was travel (at the time), their asset was a unique understanding of a marketplace. That insight allowed them to extend into media, financial services, etc, and build a multi-billion valuation business. Had they logically extended into additional travel products (18-30s?) I wonder where the business would be now.

This concept is deftly explained in the Asset Extension Bring Faster Equity Growth article by Darren Shirlaw, the master asset strategist.

Making the Most of your Most Valuable Commodity

By Richard Gigg, Shirlaws Business Coach

Time is a commodity that is precious to most people in every walk of life, teachers need more time to prepare and do paperwork, those in the public sector spend a lot of time in meetings and in business there never seems enough time to do all of the things you want to do or see all the people you want to see. This results in less time for what are probably the more important things in life, time for you, time for the family and time to recharge. 

From a commercial perspective the profitability of a business can be directly related to how good a business and its staff make of the time it has available and I would like to share with you a simple tool that you can apply to help you make better use of time. 

I met the CEO of a professional services business recently who shared with me the fact that he and his staff were working flat out and no matter how hard he worked they didn't seem to be able to increase revenue or profit.  They were making some profit but it was small (5%) and had been that way for the last couple of years. He had cut back costs as far as he could and was in a bit of a pickle about what to do next. He had thought about bringing on more sales people, more delivery people, selling different services but couldn't figure out the best thing to do. 

Knowing the person well he also shared with me the fact that he was starting to take the stress of the situation home and relationships both his wife and children were starting to break down. 

I asked him what he wanted to address first Focus or Time, as they are separate albeit related issues, he chose time, as then he would have the time to get the focus right. I asked him to list down all of the tasks or activities he does on a monthly basis and roughly how much time he spent each month on each. It was a long list and included many tasks we would all be familiar with such as Client relationships, Complaints management, Contracts with the suppliers, Financial Control & budgets, Identify opportunities, Invoicing, Liaising with clients during service delivery, Marketing, Performance reviews, Proposals, Recruitment, Sales meeting, Staff meetings  

I asked him to colour code the list, red for all of the things involved in running the business, blue for all the things involved in sales and delivery of their services and black for those strategic activities looking forward to next year. Once colour coded I asked him to calculate as a percentage of total time how much was sent in each of the three colour coded areas. I asked him if he felt this reflected how the business spent its time, which he said was the case. The results were not untypical of someone in his position and situation, 20% 60% 20%. My response to this was "that doesn’t seem quite right to me and I don’t think you have a clear picture of exactly how your business spends its time". A little shocked by this challenge he asked me to explain. Instead I asked him to see me again in one month and between now and then to track what he spent his time doing. 

How did I know the numbers were incorrect? Through experience of running this model in numerous businesses I know that the difference between red and blue reflects the profit in the business. From his numbers I would expect the business to be making about 40% profit not the 5% there were making.

A month passed and we met again, an excited man who had discovered a new seam of energy welcomed me. He told me he was already far more conscious of how he was using his time and had already modified his behaviour. "Great said I, tell be about the numbers" 

"You were right the numbers I estimated when we first met were off. I have had all of the management team track their time and the results were a little alarming. The actual numbers for the management team, which I believe also represent the company as a whole are 45% 52% 3%".

I asked him what he could derive from these figures, his main observation was "we are spending too much time running the business and not enough time growing it" I explained to him that this has been typical of most businesses as the recession has continued, in that management teams have become far more inwardly focussed than they were in the good times. Most of the decision-making had reverted back to the senior management caused by the uncertainty of the economic situation resulting in a growing fear of making the wrong decision in the staff. This fear has driven all decision making to the most senior in the organisation impacting in their ability to work on the business and not in it. 

I asked him if he would like to see how the reallocation of time can affect the profitability and then shared with him the following calculations:

His reaction to these numbers was as you would expect was one of surprise, he was spending so much time running the business he was unable to see what was really going on. By asking for help he is able to see that how his business spent his time directly reflected how they were performing. 

His challenge now is to get a true picture of how the business is using its time before deciding on a strategy to change the utilisation; he can then decide what tasks he is going to trust others to do. How he does that is a story for another day. 

The message here is don’t be afraid to ask for help, all of the really successful, happy business owners have people who have helped them and continue to help them. Taking the time to stand back from the business from time to time ultimately is a worthwhile investment.

Culture or Commercial Success, Which Comes First?

By Richard Gigg, Shirlaws Business Coach

Have you ever noticed that successful sports teams and businesses alike are places where everyone enjoys being around? Most people like to be associated with successful organisations they have a different energy and will often be described as having a great culture or spirit. The question I would like you to consider in this article is what comes first commercial success or cultural behaviour?

Cast your mind into your own past and identify the time when you were at your most productive and happiest, chances are that you might find that was in an organisation that was doing well. It might have been in your sporting activities or maybe in a commercial business, it was a time when anything seemed possible and you wanted to be involved.

From a personal perspective I am fortunate to have worked for and with several organisations with a good culture, all of which have helped me be the best that I can, and made me happy. I would like to share with you one of those situations where I achieved my own success and happiness, in the hope that you can figure out which comes first culture or commercial success.

Many years ago whilst in the military I received a posting to the Royal Marines in Plymouth. As a soldier I was required to do a commando course to fulfil the role, one of the most arduous military challenges you can face. My course was booked in the January of 1982 and I arrived in the September of 1981, meaning I had 3 months in the unit wearing a different colour beret than everyone else. Apart from the guys I worked with most of the other members of the unit treated me as an outcast for that three-month period. As a 25 year old I had been in the forces for a while so I knew the ropes, I was a reasonable soldier so being ostracised like this was most unwelcome. I was someone who did not have the same values and professionalism as them, morning greetings were ignored and it was generally difficult to fit in or bond with anyone in the unit.

January soon came and I did my 8 week Commando Course, likely to be the most challenging thing I will do in my life (apart from bringing up children of course). The course was physically demanding and also culturally challenged many of the ways I had learnt to be whilst in the regular army. What I see now as a cultural education on how you act as a Commando, what it means to be a member of an elite unit. Sure you needed to be fit, and fortunately I was, but more importantly it was necessary to change the mind set, change behaviours to be the kind of person who fitted with the standards set by everyone else who experienced the process and succeeded. Not everyone was able to do this, and many left the course due to attitude rather than injury or lack of fitness, of my course only 26 finished out of the 127 who started.

On completion I returned, or rather hobbled back to my unit to be welcomed by everyone. I now knew what it meant to be a Commando; I understood the culture, the values and what was expected of me. We later that year went on a little trip to some distant islands to face an enemy superior in numbers to us and overcame them, thanks in no short part to our collectively culture and belief.

So the question is what came first? Was it my physical ability or my values and culture. Was it the upbringing I had which gave me the determination, attitude and adaptability to accept change and learn, or was it the years of playing sport and activity based lifestyle that gave me the fitness to complete the course.

The answer is of course that both were important, I like to think it was my character which got me through and gave me the sheer determination to chase people down when doing the Endurance course, the bloody mindedness when doing the 30 miler to not let the team down. For sure I could have worked hard to get fit before the course, would I have done that without the right attitude?

If we transfer this to a business context take a moment to think about the character or culture of your business. What is the code of ethics for your business, how do you all treat each other on the way to your destination? Who decides the culture the masses or you as a business owner? Do you work with people who sabotage your culture and values? Here is an exercise for you to reflect on, if you took every member of staff out into the car park, who would you want to let back into the building?

Having worked with many businesses and sports people I know that a business or team with good culture will always be more successful than a business or team with a bad culture. Clients are attracted to good culture and a clear set of values. Suppliers find it easier to work with businesses with a good culture and generally employees stay longer, are more productive and most importantly happier in a business with a good culture.

The question for you to answer for yourself is how much time to allocate for you and your business to work on the culture and values of your business.