The Most Powerful PR Aligns Interests Clearly

People often ask me what it takes to deliver a really successful PR campaign. These days they believe usually that it revolves around some stunt that drives digital media virality.  If that was the case then cute kittens would already have decided most of our futures except for those not yet drawn helplessly to the tractor beam of social media, of course.

No, if you really want to get bangs for your buck with public relations you need to see the big picture and align yourself with the strategic imperatives that are reshaping the world in which we live. Yet, so often, the subject matter, presentation and execution of PR campaigns are tactical, limited, short term and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

That’s where PR budgets get poured down the drain. I’ve long since lost track of the number of `news announcements` I've seen where there is no discernable news content and that have been clearly forced through by a management or personal ego satisfaction agenda. Campaigns that don’t pass the `so what test` don’t deliver and `poor communication` - PR - is blamed and the messenger is shot, making it even more difficult to mount successful campaigns in future.

Tragically, this is even true when the subject matter is of the utmost importance. Take the sustainability debate, for instance. You’d think this would be pretty much the epitome of serious stuff. But debate is stifled because so often communication in this segment is polarised. It’s typically about being worthy - `doing good’ in the long term as a route to a better world pitted against `doing bad` money grabbing devil-may-care short term environmental and social destruction.  This quickly de-generates into the quagmire of a quasi-religious argument where no-one is any the wiser and the best that can be hoped for is a messy compromise that satisfies nothing.

The current ongoing omnishambles of the UK Government’s `Green Deal’ fiasco, PV Feed-In Tariff debacle,  Onshore vs. Offshore wind energy vacillation, dash for Shale Gas policies and just about every aspect of energy policy is a case in point. Despite the critical need to ensure long-term national energy security and hit carbon reduction targets, it shows a classic case of delivery of mixed messages that reveal misalignment between the immediate interests of the politicians, public sector, industry and the consumer, not to mention Mother Earth.

The same challenge to delivering sustainability has applied for many years in the financial markets. Investors have struggled with the demands of delivering superior returns whilst at the same time requiring environmental, social and ethical responsibility in the companies in which they invest.

Good intentions in the financial markets, whilst admirable, have not proven to produce decent returns, neither have they proven to encourage sustainability - just like UK energy policy. Again aims are not aligned, everyone has lost.

Responsibility, investment, sustainability and business are routinely regarded as odd bedfellows, with tactical PR campaigns often attempting to paper over the cracks as communities, legislators or the markets are placated or appeased as a way of making progress. But ultimately, to be an effective partnership, and to support powerful PR messages that cut through, their marriage must be born of objectivity, pragmatism and most of all, of course, aligned interests.

But there is a twist to the tale. Far from being a simplistic Band-Aid, the existing efforts of corporate and financial PR professionals and their PR agencies, combined with the transparency the internet brings, have created a large and growing pool of hard and comparable audited data on corporate sustainability.

Using this it is possible to determine the resource efficiency of a company relative to its peers. Resource efficient organisations are those that produce more output from less input.  The added benefit is that resource efficient businesses also display attractive investment characteristics. Everybody wins - the organisation, the investor and the environment.  Now that’s a story worth getting behind.

Resource efficiency is not a subjective rating determined in a corner office on Wall Street any more than it is the preserve of people who choose to live in teepees in the far flung corners of the British Isles. The basis of resource efficiency is the actual observed amount of resource used, consumed and in the case of waste, created, in the process of generating a unit of revenue; the cubic metre of water, the kilojoules of energy, the ton of carbon dioxide equivalent. It is real, objective, hard and unequivocal.

And the benefits are not static. Research shows that resource-efficient companies become more resource efficient over time through innovation and `intrapreneurship’ both internally and through the company’s supply chain, making them more competitive and therefore capable of delivering greater value to investors.

Everyone keeps winning as management teams that are forward thinking, aware of the economic imperatives brought about by resource constraint, attract investment. Wealth creation from resource conservation - that’s a very powerful self-reinforcing combination of two interests, a virtuous circle that also makes a powerful story.

Aerospace and cars manufacturers, logistics suppliers and cosmetics firms might not be the first place you’d expect to find sustainability - perhaps because they don’t explicitly prioritise sustainability as a key platform in their communications. Yet the numbers show leviathans such as Boeing, BMW, UPS and L’Oreal are highly resource efficient in their respective industries. Even Unilever recently announced it was swapping the earnings rat race for sustainability.

Boeing, for instance, has maintained a forward thinking approach to energy consumption for many years. The fact that it draws on both historic and renewable energy sources and use internally created technology to store and distribute this energy may not be immediately apparent. But energy intensity measures constructed from corporate sustainability reports over several years indicate high and rising relative resource efficiency.

Now here’s the rub. Markets tend to reward these companies, not for their resource efficiency per se but for how their resource efficiency translates into financial ratios that the market appreciates. The point is the two powerful forces are brought together to be a force for good.

So, PR is playing its part in creating the conditions for sustainability as well as the storytelling. Rather than greenwashing reality, it is producing the figures that can take good intent to an objective, pragmatic and measurable level and aligning communities of interest to make a real difference and creating a virtuous circle of sustainability. In in that respect PR, for once, is really walking the talk and that’s a truly good thing.

Read more →

Keeping Competitive Means Unleashing the Perennial Gale of Creative Destruction

If the succession of eye-watering valuations of pre-IPO companies in recent weeks has taught us anything, it's that the perceived power to disrupt is very valuable - particularly if you are seen as a bona fide disruptor.
 

Darwin identified that the creatures that evolve to adapt most successfully to their surroundings, are the ones that avoid extinction. That means changing shape and habits that both take advantage of, and influence, the natural environment. That applies as much to the corporate landscape as to the natural world.

Given the increasing rate of change in the global economy, the maxim that you should re-model your own business before someone else does, has never been truer. But although it is the only certainty these days, change is scary and the human condition is that we value security.

Nevertheless, it's the companies that have reinvented themselves, often radically, that go on to become the leaders in their fields. Nokia - which until relatively recently was preeminent in mobile handsets - had made the transition in a few years from a company that specialised in rubber and forestry products.

This was until it too was caught out. First by the market for flip phones and then by touch screens, apps and operating systems, leaving it in its current parlous state. Nokia's nemesis, Apple, had become a successful competitor by changing from being a niche PC maker to a dominant force in portable consumer electronics and music industry.

However, no matter how many examples there are of successful reinvention that has guaranteed longevity, as a successful entrepreneur that has built up an existing business, it's very easy to find excuses not to take action. That may though, be the fastest route to oblivion.

The reality we all face is that global digitisation changes everything. Digital businesses break down traditional barriers between industry segments, creating completely new value chains and opportunities. These may not be filled by incumbent players, so if you think you are not a technology company and different rules apply, think again.

Many of the new generation of disruptive companies owe their success to identifying new ways of engaging with their market. They have worked to use technology as a powerful route to changing a customer relationship, making them formidable competitors in the process.

But you may think you're doing fine as it is. After all, you're delivering excellent numbers and are still growing so why re-imagine your business? You are in an inherently slow moving sector and you know who your fellow traveller competitors are and you are ahead of them. Stop right there.

In today's world, every day you need to track and anticipate changes in the market that may influence the future of your business. It's important to look at the most successful companies in the world and see how you compare instead of merely looking at you current peers.

After all, the business of retailing books had gone on pretty much unchanged for hundreds of years before Amazon arrived and completely revolutionised the sector, using its momentum to do the same in other areas. This included selling its core expertise in cloud computing services. Now, Facebook is capitalising on its reach as social media platform entering the mobile payments business where financial institutions have already been subject to a first generation of external start-up disrupters such as Monitise.

Like repairing the roof when the sun is shining, the best time to think about the future is when things are going well. Free of pressure or even panic, when your results fall short you're much more likely to make considered long term strategic plans to invest, acquire or hire rather than short term tactical fixes.

Once you have calmly figured out where you want to go, then you can decide how to get there and deal with the barriers in your way. Establish a compelling vision and actionable mission, and make small but continuous changes in how you think and act and hire staff to suit the new philosophy. Momentum will quickly build as a result.

It's important to realise though, that cultural change necessary for sustainable transformation takes time, and only happens because of new behaviours and new attitudes arising within an organisation. They however have to be placed there, and have to be embodied in the company's leadership. 'Do as I say, not as I do' does not apply in successful transformations.

To borrow from the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, unleashing 'the perennial gale of creative destruction' should be on your everyday agenda – otherwise you too will quickly get blown away by new, more agile, more digital and better positioned firms that compete by changing the rules of the game.

Read more →

Give Perfect Curve the Swerve or End Up at PR W1A

Back in 2012 whilst being confined to a post-operative `Bedquarters` I had the opportunity over a number of days to put my iPad to its most satisfying use. Catching up on what was worth watching on television via BBC iPlayer, ITVPlayer and 4OD.
 

Given my normal consumption of entertainment through television is miniscule, it was a bit of an eye-opener. In particular, I discovered `Twenty Twelve`. For those, like me, previously unfamiliar with the programme, the BBC `mockumentary` series followed the trials of the management of the fictional Olympic Deliverance Commission (ODC), the body tasked to organise the 2012 London Summer Olympics.

It was British satire at its best, lampooning the nonsense that is spoken in large and, in reality, unaccountable self-important corporate bodies groaning under the weight of political expediency and cultural fads. Anyone familiar with the internal workings of the BBC will know that the writers don’t have to travel far to find their inspiration. Perhaps that familiarity also explains its accuracy.

What particularly caught my interest is the inclusion of yet another masterly PR grotesque. Played by Jessica Hynes, Siobhan Sharpe (every irony in the surname intended I’m sure) is the gibbering, excitable, idiot head of brand, a function she performs through her PR company, Perfect Curve. She’s the latest in a series of hugely entertaining media monsters, including Ab Fab’s Edina Monsoon and The Thick of It's Malcolm Tucker who appear at the same time exasperated, befuddled by - and strangely disconnected from - the world that surrounds them.

It’s clear that the rest of the `delivery` managers find Sharpe’s ideas and gushing cliché-ridden delivery very tiresome indeed. Bereft of her own ideas she relies on her team back at Perfect Curves achingly trendy slogan-ridden office for inspiration. They are a collection of three contemporary PR stereotypes – the vapid girlie, the smug hipster and the clueless geek – so jaw-droppingly close to reality that I find myself squirming, then replaying each gut-wrenching scene as though afflicted with some form of masochistic professional OCD.

Sharpe is a character so excruciating, so self-absorbed, and so emotionally unintelligent you’d think she couldn’t have come out of reality. Think again. One of things that is interesting is that Sharpe has been appointed as `Head of Brand` wheras she practices, spectacularly ineffectively, the lowest form of stunt-based publicity.

Perhaps that’s a clue - much of the world doesn’t understand what PR is and so many PR professionals can’t be bothered to explain or are incapable of explaining. The fact that Sharpe was ever hired and is still employed is a mystery, given her incompetence far outweighs every one of the competing losers that regularly assemble around a table high in Canary Wharf.

And, with art imitating life, Sharpe is now back in the series `W1A` where the BBC has moved from being the inspiration to the subject matter. Directly satirising itself in some form of passive-aggressive PR response to its recent troubles, no doubt.

Sharpe and her equally incompetent boss, Ian Fletcher, former Head of the Olympic Deliverance Commission, both arrive independently at the BBC. Having got off at the next stop of the public sector gravy train, she is now BBC's Head of Brand, he the BBC's Head of Values. This, much to the vexation of Senior Communications Officer staffer Tracey Pritchard who appears to be patiently awaiting the award her gold-plated, index-linked pension at the earliest opportunity, having long since become resigned to the fact that she can make no difference whatsoever.

Her predicament and the endless, pointless meetings in celebrity-themed BBC Broadcasting House `spaces` underline  a mystery that exists in real life, particularly in large organisations with small PR functions. Management believes PR is needed for some reason, but for what is never specified, let alone by the PR department itself. Thus the PR department is left to its own devices. This inevitably results in a vicious self-reinforcing downward spiral of poor performance from the disconnected function and a lack of respect from managers. The problem is, so often, no one cares enough to sort it out providing the incompetence never causes offence.

There are endless examples of how first-rate marketing can make winners out of companies with second-rate products or services and that the companies that win are the best communicators. That starts with the board treating PR as the accountable, measureable management function it must be in the non-stop connected global economy and PRs behaving like management peers.

So, if you are running a company that employs PRs either in an agency or in-house then go to YouTube and immerse yourself in Twenty Twelve or W1A  and have a good look at both Siobhan Sharpe, her team and the relationship Sharpe has with the other `senior` management. If you see even the tiniest hint of your reality, it’s time for a PR re-think and fast.

Read more →

Common Sense Ain't That Common

One thing has stood out to me in running fast-growth technology and business-to-business PR firms for nearly 30 years. It is the continuous claim from the entrepreneurs I meet that when trying to build a team they ‘just can’t find the right people.’
 

Despite unprecedented investment in the education system, there is always a steady stream of stories about jobs that can’t be filled. A recent example is 2000 vacancies in the assumed employment black spot of Hull.

This is a big business PR challenge, and for once I don’t mean public relations. People Recruitment, People Retention and People Relationships.  For me success in all of these areas comes down to one thing – attitude. Not just of employees but of employers too.

If you have ever grabbed a lunchtime sandwich from the undoubted success story that is Pret-a-Manger I can confidently assume that you will have been met by a wall of cheerful Iberian pleasantness.  In fact, try to find a builder or plumber or go into any retail establishment on the high street, from a bike shop to a pub, and you’ll encounter enthusiastic customer service keenness that clearly wasn’t born, brought up or educated in the UK.

If people can be bothered to come thousands of miles from their homes, learn another language and another culture it says a lot of positive things about them. It also says a lot about employers, who are far happier to rely on the informal friendship networks of employees than the local Job Centre, an institution routinely described as `useless` by those I talk to who have tried to engage its services.

It also says a lot about those in the UK without a job, especially graduates. Whilst we are embroiled in endless arguments about our education system  and looking for scapegoats as to why we have `failed` our young people, perhaps it’s time we took a long hard looks at ourselves - and them.

Abdicating responsibility is a disease of our times.  We are too ready to blame the often faceless agencies of the UK state – teachers, policeman, social workers, politicians, civil servants, the BBC  and so on.  But, of course, it is to 'them' that we have abdicated responsibility for so many aspects of our lives, so why shouldn’t we conveniently let 'them' take the blame?

As a parent you can rail against the media or society at large but the bottom line is it is your responsibility to set an example and bring up your kids to be polite, well-grounded and successful.  The same is true of our society, of which firms are simply a microcosm and business leaders - whether we like it or not - are 'in loco parentis.'

The reality is that this comes into sharp focus when recruiting.  I’ve been recruiting for tech PR and other agencies and into corporates for decades and, thankfully, can point to an overall record of success based on the subsequent meteoric careers of those I hired when they were raw graduates not many years ago.

But throughout this there has been scrupulous focus on what I’ve come to term 'head, heart and guts'. The intelligence, inter-personnel skills and desire to be good at what you do underpins entrepreneurial and career success - and is essential for success in a tech PR agency where the world around you is changing constantly. Also, a resolute determination not to recruit from other agencies - lest I compound the generally poor standards of recruitment, training and leadership in the PR industry – has also been of great importance.

Head, heart and guts - three simple concepts that are rarely distributed in equal measure in candidates, even those with further degrees from the most prestigious institutions. It’s the last requirement – the guts – where so many fail.  The focus to succeed; to be curious, to listen to criticism, to be as good as you can be, to learn. And, of course, the willingness and application to simply put in the effort.

It’s that which separates the winners from the majority of also-rans.  Complacency, 'the-world-owes-me-a- living' attitude or the belief that 'good enough' is good enough shows the mark of a person who is going nowhere as much as it is the mark of a culture in decline.

The recent Evening Standard campaign for firms to take on graduates who the system had failed, perhaps, accidently, highlighted exactly why these 'unlucky' graduates had failed to land a decent job. At the risk of sounding old, we’re not talking green hair, lip-piercings, low-slung ripped jeans -these were not St. Martin’s graduates looking for an elusive lifestyle job in Hoxton, but graduates expecting to secure well-paid roles in traditional firms. Funnily enough, it also happened to emerge they were graduates that had turned down jobs at employers they deemed not worthy of their talents. By the time you’ve finished university, you’re meant to have matured past that stage not to have perfected it.

To me this all amounts to, as John Cleese once said,  'a statement of the `bleedin’ obvious.' But, as ever, something that appears to be simple may not be so. Charlie Mullins, the founder and driving force behind Pimlico Plumbers, summed it up when he said  that 'the problem with common sense is that it ain’t that common.' I couldn't agree more.

Read more →

Nothing Communicates Like Contentment

Deep in my LinkedIn Profile, in the section marked 'Additional Info – Interests' it says latterly 'anything with wheels, hulls or boots attached that goes fast.'  What this really means is that I love driving cars, riding motorbikes and bicycles, sailing catamarans and downhill skiing. It’s all about the feeling of the control of motion in all its forms. Nothing remarkable about that, though, I’m the proud possessor of a Y chromosome, after all.
 

In order to fund this interest, I’m also forced to be a resident of the crowded metropolis that is London. That fact alone is a bit of a dampener on how much fun you can actually have regularly chasing any of these pursuits without incurring profound physical or fiscal damage. This is certainly true as far as car ownership is concerned and, in particular, certain sorts of cars. This is the point where I have to fess up to conforming to a middle aged tech-industry stereotype – I’ve been a Porsche 911 owner since the end of the last century. There, I’ve said it.

But much as I’ve loved the iconic - as Jeremy Clarkson would put it - `overgrown Beetle` it’s a tool ill-suited to the reality of my life which these days, far from the endless trips of yore tearing up and down the M4, is spent in the City, around central London corporate and technology PR firms or in a cab to Heathrow to exit the country. Frankly, these days, too if it’s a choice between flogging down the motorway and jumping on a train, train wins hands down.

Unlike our ever-dependable VW diesel people carrier/builder’s truck/mobile Augean stables, the Porker is also a thing that presents you with a 4-figure bill every time it needs servicing or the most minor thing goes wrong. And it likes fuel – a lot. What’s more, when out-and-about every baseball-capped dodgily-tonsured boy racer in a pimped-out Honda Civic Type R or Citroen Saxo wants to beat you away from the lights. You also get the distinct, and ultimately very tiresome, impression that everyone else on the road hates you for myriad reasons and is just looking for an opportunity to show it.

Thus a law of diminishing returns had begun to define my relationship with Stuttgart’s finest hardware. And then there is the Porsche dealer network. It appears it is so used to dealing with the latest toy-owning uber-rich or grossly overpaid thick young men who kick footballs and their even denser perma-tanned and false-eyelashed wives and girlfriends that it thinks it can away with and attitude and service that would shame a scrapyard. I’ve seen a lot less bullshit in the sheds on my stepfather’s dairy farm.

So been there, seen that, done it. It was time for a change. But to what? A trawl round the usual (mostly German) suspects revealed the same sorry tale. A veneer-thin trained-to-the-hilt impression of competence in luxurious premium-marque dealerships that disappeared instantly, replaced by a gormless expression and chippy attitude the moment the `sales consultant’s` ignorance about the product they were supposed to be unloading was exposed.

All prospects of lifetime relationships on which the industry now makes its money destroyed in a moment of stupidity.  No amount of being called `sir', tarted-up leather-seated reception areas and passable coffee can replace the added value that comes with knowledge about what is being sold. Increasingly, as products get harder to tell apart it’s the people, their relationship building and attention to detail that form the crucial part of the whole product. Anything less and you are only selling part and who wants to buy unfinished goods?

Having decided I still needed a quick and less-than-dull vehicle, it just had to be smaller, I chanced upon a MINI show room. I’d previously avoided these sometimes cutesy and sometimes remarkably ugly by virtue of endless brand extension retromobiles given that: they are two-a-penny in my neck of the woods; are driven by the world’s most despicable estate agency chain and are occasionally seen in pink. Thank God, I thought, for the popularity of Fiat 500s and Smart cars as at least they make the basic MINIs look positively butch.

Having convinced myself that the original classless, genderless marque that defined the word `nippy` could be for me, I took the plunge. From the moment I entered the small corner of the BMW Empire, I was in a different automotive world. The shock of the same call handling efficiency, uniform language used and promises delivered without fail caught me off guard.

Dealing with me like a grown-up who might know what he was talking about delivered no matter ultimately where the dealership was located or who owned it was truly a revelation. Rather than just talking about lifetime relationships MINI has actually done something concrete about it so much so I might consider such a bond. Residual values, for instance, are ensured by inexpensive prepaid servicing packages that mean the vehicles return to the authorised dealerships regularly and relationships are not soured by the sound of air being sucked through teeth and huge surprise bills. Indeed, MINI is confident enough of the quality of its service system to display on their dealer website home pages their customer feedback ratings.

The experience hasn’t been without its faults, but as Pimlico Plumbers’ founder Charlie Mullins is fond of remarking, one of the reasons for the success of his firm may not be that they are particularly good - it’s just that their competition is so bad. In that respect, the MINI organisation definitely counts at least as the one-and- a-half-eyed man in the kingdom of the vehicular blind.

But MINI and certainly the industry still needs to improve. Online retailers are already streets ahead with seeking feedback and interaction, keeping customers informed of the status every inch of the way and realising that customers too are part of the whole product and their opinions and suggestion should not only be listened to, but acted upon.

So what’s all this got to do with public relations and communications? As businesses and consumers are ever more enabled by digital and social media they can quickly build or equally easily destroy your brand’s reputation. In a communication-rich world, your customers will soon tell others if you do or don’t meet their expectations. So in building a business you have a choice. You can work to create an army of loyal advocates or create individuals with a visceral hatred of all that you represent who will take very opportunity to help put you out of business.

Western car manufacturers were taught a tough lesson originally by the Japanese that quality is not something you add on like a sticking plaster it’s something you build in. The same is true of marketing, communications and public relations.

Everything communicates and contributes to the whole product, particularly now as the real and virtual world merge and value comes from the combination of the product itself and the service that surrounds it. How you do something counts as much as what you do.  People buy an experience and the nuts and bolts of the discrete product or service are only part of delivering it.

On that subject, for year now I’ve been the proud and pretty contented owner of a very manly grey and black MINI John Cooper Works, with more trimmings than Christmas dinner and a service plan to match - all secured ever-so-slightly-used at a bargain price from some very nice people at Sytner MINI Sheffield. Did I mention it they are very nice people? Oh yes they are, very nice indeed.

Read more →

Think Net-a-Porter, not Michael Porter

As an academic in the early 1980s my colleagues and I spent much of our time mostly paid for by government and quangos - pondering the wonders of innovation theory in order to produce the silver policy bullet that would revive the UK economy.
 

Many of my former esteemed colleagues are still earnestly involved in the same endeavour. I’m constantly amazed by the readiness with which their outpourings, and other business school-generated articles of faith, are swallowed by the corporate and bureaucratic worlds and how often the intellectual products of chin scratching cobblers are allowed to run barefoot.

Freed from the surly bonds of academia my subsequent career, building technology PR firms afforded me an insider’s view to the same issue. Experiencing what it’s like to run an entrepreneurial outfit, and being intimately involved with many of the organisations that have shaped the world in which we live today.

As an academic-turned-entrepreneur I smiled wryly when I saw that the Monitor Group, a consulting firm co-founded by university thinker and business school favourite, Michael Porter, was forced to file for bankruptcy protection. For those not familiar with Porter’s work (tsk, tsk, pay attention at the back), he originated the ’five-force’ competitive analysis model that any MBA student of the last 30 years or so can recite in their sleep.

Founded in 1983, exactly the same time as I was cosseted in the dreaming spires, the Monitor Group ultimately generated hundreds of millions of dollars in fees from corporate and non-profit clients. It also became a revenue engine for other large strategy firms such as McKinsey, Bain and BCG as organisations sought to create ’sustainable competitive advantage’ from Porter’s theoretical frameworks.

Despite its initial success, Monitor’s bankruptcy wasn’t unexpected; its long slow slide into oblivion coincided with the global recession. You might be wondering why the consulting firm didn’t use the ’five force’ principles to manage their business better. My bet is that even if they had, the world of business has changed so much since ‘five forces’ that they have been rendered irrelevant.
The problem for Monitor was that in the globalised digital world - except perhaps where artificially created by or supported by government regulation – the sustainable competitive advantage as envisaged by Porter in the five-force analysis model simply isn’t achievable.

But that didn’t stop executives in the corporate world of the recent past dreaming of delivering excess profits by creating structural barriers to competition. Porter’s theories became a convenient mantra for corporate management sitting Canute-like on their Hermann Miller thrones, trying to shore up their business whilst the inevitable tide of change lapped around them.

After all, why go through the entrepreneurial hassle of actually designing and making better products and services when the firm could simply erect a sea-wall positioning its business in a way that ensured endless above-average profits. That’d make paying for the MBA worthwhile and would certainly work for Wall Street and the City. After all, since when have either of those been interested in supporting either entrepreneurship or enabling long-term gains?

How did this situation come to be? In the early 1970s, as the industrial age was coming to the end of its life, and the digital age was still in short pants, Porter began to do his seminal work. He observed that excess profits were real and persistent in some companies and industries, because of effective barriers to competition. His genius was turning this observation into an industry.

Porter’s personal breakthrough came in the Spring of 1979 when he published his findings in the Harvard Business Review in an article entitled ’How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy’ and followed it up the succeeding years with the inevitable books on competition theory. Just like Stephen Hawking’s `A Brief History of Time’ Porter’s books are ones that everyone who wants to be taken seriously claims to have read and understood. In reality copies are unread, but look impressive on the office bookshelf. 

It turned out that, like much academic work that interprets and rationalises the past in an attempt to predict the future, Porter’s conceptual framework could help explain excess profits in retrospect.  But it became clear to those who tried to use his ideas to model things to come that they were almost useless. Interesting that Porter wisely avoids forecasting. Enough said.

In contrast to embracing Schumpeter’s `gales of creative destruction’ and ignoring fellow `management guru’ Peter Drucker’s previous insight that the only valid purpose of a business is to create a customer, Porter focused strategy on how to protect businesses from rivals. Strategy consultancies, business and business schools subsequently aligned to find safe havens from the forces of competition. How ironic, then, that Porter’s academic studies should have been conducted in the supposed bastion of raw capitalism and unbridled competition, the United States.

The problem was Porter’s basic premise. As Drucker indicated, and most entrepreneurs know intuitively, the positive purpose of business is to add value for customers, their community and ultimately, society at large. This is what should drive strategy. Porter’s negative view of business was driven by how to play the corporate game, avoiding competition and seeking out above-average profits protected by structural barriers. Not taking the risks of making a better product or delivering a better service entail. What it completely ignores is the inevitability that someone from the outside would decide to change the rules of the game. Those game changers started to appear in force as the digital revolution took hold – Amazon, Apple, Google, eBay and a host of now household names leading a pack of digital disrupters hungry for change.

This situation is massively different from the mature oligopolies of ‘50s corporate America on which Porter based his theories, and decades before ideas such as the Black Swan or Long Tail grabbed the innovator’s imagination.

Thus, Monitor effectively fiddled while Rome burned, encouraging business leaders to fail both to their shareholders and to their citizens. Collecting fat fees as digital and internet buccaneers recast business models, value chains and created whole new ecosystems. Unsurprisingly, in this environment, Monitor failed to add value to customers. Eventually customers realised this and stopped paying Monitor for its services. The market made its decision and Monitor went bankrupt.

The reality is that to succeed in today’s hyper-competitive business environment you need to join – as the Americans would say - the offence rather than the defence. Any competitive advantage that can be achieved in an increasingly transparent world comes from out-innovating to attract people, resources and customers; aligning the whole organisation so that it does just that that, over and over again, to focus on delivering steadily more value to customers through continuous innovation. This has to be earned every day by the nitty-gritty of perspiration and inspiration, probably in the ratios that Thomas Edison advised.

Clearly we are not yet in a world of pure, unfettered market forces driving us to the sunny uplands of authenticity and ever-rising customer satisfaction. But the customer is not stupid, never was and never will be. They will find you out very quickly these days, and have the power to close you down or at least put a large dent in your numbers as investors in outed tax avoiders, patent abusers and those indulging old fashioned industrial espionage have discovered.

But is continuous innovation itself sustainable? Can firms go on disrupting themselves as much as they disrupt others in the fight for the customer? Time will tell. What we do see is that organisations that innovate are doing a lot better than firms pursuing shareholder value by market manipulation or focusing merely on defeating rivals. A pyrrhic victory as the ground they are fighting for disappears from underneath them all as the tectonic forces of paradigm shift take their toll. Ask the former management of the now defunct UK electrical chain Comet, who appeared so focused on competing with similar companies selling the same stuff from the same sort of anonymous retail parks that they failed to spot that the world of gadget shopping had moved online.

Just as the idea of sustainable competitive advantage that arose by studying historical numbers and the past structures of the industry became increasingly implausible and irrelevant in rapidly changing economy, so too are the armies of freshly-minted MBA bookworms that used to march into highly remunerative positions in the strategy industry. Like the boy pointing at the emperor with no clothes the idea of engaging those without deep experience in understanding what customers might want, what is involved in actually making things, delivering services in particular industries, never mind how to innovate and create new value in the world outside of the campus now seems faintly ludicrous.

In a world where the only certainty is the certainty of change - and of expecting the unexpected - corporates and other consultants alike should take note if they want to avoid insolvency too. For a future that works they need to think Net-a-Porter, not Michael Porter.
 

Read more →

COC, Bull and The Art of Clarity

For anyone frustrated by the process of creating high quality content as part of their marketing campaigns - or abhors the unthinking gobbledegook churned out by so many corporate communications departments and agencies - a  column by Financial Times’ columnist Lucy Kellaway is a real treat.
 

In her 2013 piece "The first word in mangled meanings" she first sticks it to corporate bosses, opining that the year 2012 turned out to be "yet another bumper year for guff, cliché, euphemism and verbal stupidity."

There were so many prizes to award in her 'Golden Flannel Awards' that she decided to supplement the prizes for 'Bull' with an award for COC. This, according to Kellaway, stands for Chief Obfuscation Champion, and is open to chief executives whose over-zealous public relations accidentally backfire.

Kellaway apparently got the idea earlier in the year from Burberry’s Angela Ahrendts’ torturous use of the English language. It’s laid bare in the fashion house’ annual report, where she is quoted as saying:

“In the wholesale channel, Burberry exited doors not aligned with brand status and invested in presentation through both enhanced assortments and dedicated, customised real estate in key doors.”

As a result, Kellaway went on to damn Ahrendts with faint praise, delivering the following linguistic laceration;

"I realise this will be disappointing to the Burberry boss, so I’m putting her in for another new award: The Door Gong. I was certain she would win this for her outstanding effort in pretending her company sells doors, when really it makes super-pricey raincoats."

And when is a door not a door? When it is a-jar-ring Burberry-esque word jumble.

Clearly not content with a mere supercilious smirk, Kellaway firmly twisted the knife;
"But in the closing days of the year I found a company called Record, which actually makes folding aluminium doors but has elected to describe itself as a supplier of "entrance solutions"  

That’s cringe worthy enough, but not a patch on my favourite bit of corporate gobbledegook which moves up and down our motorways daily on the sides BOC’s trucks. The supremely vacuous slogan reads "Delivering Innovative Solutions." Yeah, right, "Transporting Compressed Gases" too tame for you then?

Kellaway then went on to nail some more truly queasy corruptions, giving the next prize to the Martin Lukes Creovation Cup "for combining two words to make something less effective than either."

This sublime bit of nonsense was judged to be competing in a crowded field of marketing manure that contained such preposterous poo as “solutioneering” from Yanmar, “innovalue” from the Taiwanese government and “sustainagility” from Atos Origin as well as Momentum UK, for claiming we live in a “phygital™” world. This could probably have been improved by emphasising the letters `GIT` in capitals. And just don’t get me started on TMs.

And then there is Dow Chemicals’ “solutionism” that graced the London taxis queuing in the rank outside Chameleon’s London office throughout the Olympics. I know it may come as a shock to many PRs, marketers and advertising copywriters but there are words other than 'solution' that are available to describe the benefits of a product or service.

Not content with pointing out the Emperor’s New Clothes of outrageous corporate-speak, prepositions got Kellaway’s attention. First, a statement from high street bank LloydsTSB:
“We have made substantial progress against our strategic objectives,” which actually suggests the bank is moving in the wrong direction. That’s the thing about corporate-speak, it can sometimes inadvertently reveal the truth.

But Kellaway's winner is the use of the formerly `innocuous word' “to” which has crept across the Atlantic like so many nonsensical nasties as in: “I’ve got some slides to talk to” – the unfortunate implication, according to Kellaway, being "that the speaker has to talk to the slides because no one else is listening." See my comment above.

Her next award, 'Most Extravagant Job Title', produced a clear winner. Dr Amantha Imber is Head Inventiologist at Inventium, where her job description is: “to turn people into innovation dynamos.” You can almost feel the flash of pearly white dentition and see the sugary flow of insincerity. Pass the bucket…

Now, onto one of my favourites, the Best Euphemism For Firing People. Lots of companies sacked people last year by “consolidating leadership”, but only Citibank clumsily attempted to hide the fact that it was giving 1,100 people their P45s by claiming in a press release that it was “optimising the customer footprint across geographies”.

This makes the usual sacking euphemism of “right-sizing” look positively open and direct. Abuse of the word “right” also gets a special prize. The recipient is Oliver Wyman, which in a report on the Future of Asian Banking came up with not only “right-spacing” but “right-culturing”. Wrong, just wrong, in so many ways.

One of the perennial PR challenges is to position the negative as a positive, and this year’s prize-winner is one of the finest examples Kellaway claimed she’d ever seen. An analyst at Religare describing a big fall in profits at United Spirits as: “Ebitda de-grew by 23.3 per cent”. That puts the usual `negative growth` clunker into perspective then...

And finally, a classic, so often produced when a rather-pleased-with-themself CEO is in full flow and not paying attention - the magnificently mixed metaphor. Kellaway went onto described something overheard in a project management meeting at a big company: “You have to appreciate that the milestones we have set in these swim lanes provide a road map for this flow chart. When we get to toll gates, we’ll assess where you sit in the waterfall  . . . ”

Kellaway's overall 2012 Golden Flannel Award’s "runaway winner" was Citigroup. Not only did they produce the best euphemism, they also won a prize for jargon that, like some of the earlier examples, completely gives the real game away. It declared from now on it would offer “client-centric advice.” Presumably, then, the advice it offered previously was otherwise directed?

You can now finish squirming as, much like the best satire, while it’s funny we know there’s a little bit of us that’s probably a bit guilty of similar sins. But the function of communications and public relations (PR) in general is that clarity is paramount – that means releasing your inner Hemingway in all your content generation.

That need not involve grinding out words whilst chomping on Cuban cigars and big game fishing. No, in fact it’s rather more his other passion - bull-fighting. It means writing short sentences, Anglo-Saxon words (if writing in English), no turning nouns into verbs, striking out superfluous verbiage (sorry, spare words) and bags of self-criticism. Ask whether the text actually says what you intend it to mean, or is simply a cacophony of extravagant sounds. Whether you are writing a book, a website, a presentation or a Tweet  - the same rules apply.

Read more →

A Bit Of A Brent Or Even A Complete Cnut? Time To Check Your Emotional Intelligence

`There is no `I' in team' goes the management-speak, a phrase so trite that it found its way dripping in irony into the sitcom The Office. Here, lead character and paper merchant Wernham Hogg’s Slough branch manager, David Brent, epitomised the very worst sort of insecure, narcissistic, self-absorbed executive. Nonetheless like all great comedy, The Office was satire on the truth and the reality that, in a rapidly changing world, 'playing the boss' is about as effective as King Cnut's belief that his mere imperious self-importance and authority could stop the tide in The Wash from coming in. It didn't. So much for the big 'I am'.

 

There is a huge difference between the behaviours of 'boss' and 'leader'. How might you identify however, heaven forfend, you are not a bit of a Brent never mind in danger of being regarded as the management equivalent of a complete Cnut? Of course it's about more than the fact that a boss says 'I' and a leader, naturally, says 'we' – an approach so clearly lacking in the book of Brent.

 

However, that's just the beginning. A boss commands; a leader asks. A boss drives employees; a leader coaches them. A boss depends on unquestioning authority; a leader generates goodwill. A boss inspires fear, whereas a leader generates enthusiasm. A boss looks for where to place blame and a leader sorts out the problem. A boss might know how something is done, but a leader takes the time to show others how to do it. A boss uses people; a leader develops people. A boss puts themselves first; a leader puts the team first. A boss takes credit and a leader gives credit. You get the idea, I hope.

 

Why is it, then, that many company and departmental heads – and even entrepreneurs – fail to be able to break out of this increasingly ridiculous and counter-productive posturing 'boss' behaviour? The answer is that they lack emotional intelligence.

 

You may have never heard the term, though I think you will a lot in 2014 as companies struggle to break through and maintain competitive edge in the digitally-enabled global economy. The five components of emotional intelligence, as defined by its originator Daniel Goleman, are: empathy, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation and social skills.

 

In case you're now thinking this might be lentil-knitting New Age flim-flam, it's worth sticking with it. Goleman compared those who excelled in senior roles with those who were merely average. He found that close to 90 percent of the difference in their profiles was due to emotional intelligence, rather than cognitive ability to build on the traditional requirements for success. These are: raw talent, a strong work ethic and driving ambition.

 

To start to get an idea of the level of your own emotional intelligence, you might start by asking yourself whether you like people. Do you ask lots of questions after you've been introduced to someone for the first time before talking about yourself? Do you know a lot about your colleagues or employees? Not just their jobs but their backgrounds and lives? If so, you are showing empathy. Highly empathetic people build strong relationships over time – another key indicator of high emotional intelligence.

 

To use Goleman's term, 'self-regulation' – that ability to withstand distractions and concentrate on the most important task at hand – is also one of the great foundations of emotional intelligence. In a noisy and uber-connected world, it's difficult to develop self-awareness and strong relationships if you are mentally 'all over the place'. In business, the devil is always in the detail. Being able to sense how others are feeling, particularly from their facial expressions and body language and acting upon these signals, is important. If you have high emotional intelligence you'll find your intuition about people and business is rarely wrong.

 

It's likely also that you have high emotional intelligence if you are inherently self-motivated. Were you ambitious and hard-working even as a child, getting on with stuff and taking responsibility for the sheer pleasure of it? If so, it means you were probably on the right track early on. How you deal with mistakes and setbacks says a lot about who you are. Individuals – entrepreneurs in particular – with high emotional intelligence know that if there's one thing they must do in life, it's to keep going. This includes 'doing the right thing' no matter what. This can also be regarded as 'authenticity', now also a crucial aspect of corporate identity and behaviours.

 

So, there you have it. You can congratulate yourself on your ass-kicking-I'm-the-boss-and-you're-not attitude. Either that, or grow some emotional intelligence. The choice is yours, but be sure to make the right one or soon others may soon be making choices for you.

Read more →

Your Generation Don’t Mean a Thing to Me

In decades of running business I've recruited hundreds of people (possibly thousands, I've long since stopped counting) many of whom have gone on to run their own firms or hold senior positions in major technology companies. I'm lucky enough to still be mentoring many of them, and these days, never a conversation goes by without the complaint that they can't find enough of the right people and that there is 'something wrong' with the current generation entering the workforce.

 

In 2014, the group with which there is currently 'something wrong' is Generation Y (those born between the mid-eighties and mid-nineties, that is). By 2025 this group will make up 70 per cent of the global workforce, so the need to focus on the recruitment of Generation Y is a no-brainer. The global skills shortage and increasing war for talent in sectors such as technology shows no signs of abating, and it will be a constraining factor on the growth of your business, should you let it. To put this in perspective, in its recent report The World at Work: Jobs, Pay and Skills for 3.5 billion People, McKinsey estimated that there could be a 40 million person shortage in the supply of highly skilled, university-educated workers worldwide by 2020. This means that firms have to fight hard to attract and retain the best of those that are available.

 

When it comes to hiring the best of Generation Y, companies are typically struggling. Generation X leaders (the group born after that of the Baby Boomers - roughly from the early 1960s to mid-1970s and the name of a punk band that ironically supplied me with the title of this piece) often find it hard to figure out the best ways to recruit, manage and retain Generation Y. This is because many simply don't understand what's going on in their heads and why they behave in the way that they do. Generation Y typically grew up as 'digital natives', never knowing anything else than having high levels of connectivity, mobility and attention span sapping interactive stimulation: TV, smartphones, video games, the Internet and social media and expect this to be replicated in the workplace. Very casual dressing, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), hot desking offices that look like their bedrooms, flexible and home working and a selection of other benefits such as in-office showers, Ride-to-Work schemes and Pizza Fridays are all expected. This may also come with a sense of self-centred entitlement that can be breath taking to Baby Boomers and Generation X alike.

 

Unsurprisingly, today's predominantly Generation X-managed recruitment communication and channels are rarely aligned with the attitudes, interests and media preferences of this target audience. So, to catch a thief you need to think like a thief and this creates the need for new strategies for recruitment, which are interactive, highly responsive, experience-based and focused on building relationships. One of the ways this can be achieved is to use intelligent web-based tools to listen and learn more about visitors to your website and to actively manage their targeting. Trovus, itself a product of UK entrepreneurs Ed Charvet and Caspar Craven , would be one example of the former tool, or French entrepreneurs Pierre-Loic Assayag and David Chancogne's Traackr for the latter and influencer targeting.

 

You can use this information to connect with Generation Y over social channels to ultimately provide them with relevant, timely information about their fields of interest which they readily display for all to see. When the time is right, you can provide information on opportunities in your organisation. Eventually, a trusted relationship will develop that will produce candidates who regularly visit your website when they are seeking a job. Such techniques help to raise awareness of your brand as an 'employer of choice' and will support relationship recruitment by helping a 'passive' candidate to recognise, trust and return to the company.

 

 This can be enhanced by creating dedicated recruitment microsites so your business can provide Generation Y-specific tailored content and by seeding this and other creative content across Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. This not only provides useful information, but along with the substance is the style which gives the impression of a young, dynamic and creative environment and one that knows how to reach its target audience. That's a very powerful message to send.

 

It doesn't have to be all digital and remote however. Don't underestimate the impact of involving your already-employed GenY-ers at jobs fairs or having them present at lecturing visits to target universities or recruitment seminars. This will speak volumes about your attitudes to people and their development. Also, consider offering internships and open days to selected students and don't forget to use PR to leverage all of these opportunities and as a communications channel itself.

 

Getting your recruitment right is the one thing you can do that will ensure your company has the best chance of succeeding. You need to take it seriously and tailor it to the audience that you want to attract. Increasingly, that's going to be Generation Y.

Read more →

Stuff and Puff: The Dangerous Game of Technology Prediction

One of the world's most dangerous pursuits isn't great white shark wrestling or tsunami surfing - it's predicting the future. Just look at past attempts to envisage how we live today. You'd find that most have been very wide of the mark.
 

Having some idea about how things are likely to shape up is, of course, a fundamental aspect of investment decisions. There's always only a slim chance of being correct. That, however, hasn't deterred that most upmarket of talking shops, the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council (WEFGAC) from taking a stab at it. The Council published recently what it believes to be the top 10 emerging technologies of 2014 that could reshape the society of the future.

The Council claims the potential breakthroughs 'show the boundless potential for technology to have a positive impact on society, from finding cleaner energy to new cures for disease'. Like some form of financial services advertisement, this is followed by a qualification, 'For these gains to be realized, we need the right regulatory frameworks, strategic alliances among innovators and market leaders, investment capital, as well as greater public awareness'. No s*** Sherlock. They might have as well included the necessity of world peace and the goodwill of all mankind.

For those of you who have been around technology and innovation for more than a few minutes, many of the predictions will be familiar. These have been touted for years as the future or cure for something. Still, it's worth taking a closer look at the list at least to separate the stuff from the puff.

1. The idea of body-adapted wearable electronics worn on the body or embedded in clothes. Such devices can track information, like stress level or heart rate and give people real-time feedback about their health. In postulating this gem, the Council appears not overly familiar with the products of Suunto, Polar and a host of other manufacturers. But, hey, it'll make another story for the Daily Mail around next year's London Fashion Week.

2. Nanostructured carbon composites. That technology apparently offers the prospect of cars being as much as 40 per cent lighter, stronger and easier to recycle, whilst offering the obligatory huge energy savings. Clearly, a much needed innovation in lightweight automotive materials, as the hapless owner of this bored border collie spaniel cross dog and Aston Martin found out recently.

3. The prospect of mining metals from sea or waste water. Even though the practice has been around for decades, new chemical processes are making large-scale desalination economically realistic for the first time, the Council thinks. It'll only be a matter of time until someone again suggests combining it with one of the other great unexploited but cyclically returning technologies - electricity from Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC).

4. Electricity grid-scale storage. The innovation is highlighted as allowing to save the surplus energy from fluctuating renewable sources such as sun and wind. Presumably it also means networks do not need to be over-engineered to peak demand levels.

5. Lithium-ion batteries based on tiny silicon nanowires. Such batteries could have a longer life, charge more quickly and hold up to three times the power of existing devices. Really useable electric cars will become more realistic and new generations of mobile devices could emerge as a result.

6. Screenless displays. A 3D image projected onto an object or into space can convey information that a 2D image cannot, such as a projection of a keyboard on a desk. Such projections are apparently close to becoming a practical reality. Now, where have we seen that one before and how many times? Cue: pictures of people in shiny costumes and wigs, staring entranced at coffee tables.

7. Using big data and specialised machine-learning algorithms. Building detailed and predictive models about people and their behaviours is now a reality. This idea of 'quantified self' can help in areas such as medical diagnosis and urban planning. There are, however, some more worrying applications a certain Mr. Snowden might want to tell us about.

8. Brain-computer interfaces. As technology advances, such interfaces could make it possible for people to operate prosthetic limbs using only their thoughts. It's very worthy-sounding, though I think we are going to have to be more imaginative about mass market applications before that one excites more than the BBC.

9/10. Human microbiome technology and RNA-based therapeutics. Substantially less puffy and with broader application is human microbiome technology, seen as an important source of treatment for serious diseases as well as for improving health. RNA-based therapeutics are based on the fact that like DNA, RNA plays an important part in protein synthesis and the transmission of genetic information. As such, RNA-based therapeutics could mean a new generation of drugs that could help find new treatments for cancer and other infectious diseases.

There you have it. Substantial business wheat or ephemeral PR chaff? Safe bet or huge risk? You decide. After all that's what entrepreneurialism is all about.

Read more →

When Strengths Become Weaknesses

One of the things I've always thought important as you grow a company is self-examination. Not a good feel around your personal places – although that's an important thing to do – but a process by which you look regularly at the challenges facing your firm and how equipped you are as a person to deal with them.
 

It's only natural for entrepreneurs to try to make the most of their strengths. After all, everything from common sense through to the theory of comparative advantage would lead people, companies and even countries to believe that they should concentrate on that which they excel.

Over the years, both the shiny, positive outpourings of business self-help books and earnest management texts have largely reinforced this idea. After all, one of the bestselling business publications of recent years is Buckingham and Clifton's 'Now Discover Your Strengths' (best said in one of those gravelly faux-American movie trailer voices, of course). However, ever the contrarian, I often think that what you are best at could be the biggest problem you need to overcome as you fight to keep your enterprise out in front.

Neglecting the big picture
The trap we can all fall into is that we become comfortable with the attitudes and skills that we have mastered and which have got us to where we are. In assuming 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it', we fail to face up to the fact that these may be found wanting if we are required to work at a higher level or deal with bigger challenges.

A classic example of the failure to do this is so often evident in early-stage firms which, although perfectly positioned and financed, fail to grow adequately. In most, you'll find the same problem – founder entrepreneurs that don't delegate and end up micromanaging those doing the job that they used to do, so neglecting the big picture they must address to get their enterprise to the next stage whilst demotivating those around them and exasperating investors at the same time.

Leaders who rely too much on the same strengths over time may also find that they develop tunnel vision, seeing the same solution to every problem. Arse-kicking bosses turn subordinates into useless ciphers and sycophants. Decisiveness in management morphs into bloody-minded intransigence, whilst caring and consensus-obsessed leaders institutionalise inaction.

Leadership in context
It's also true though, that the value of strengths is also context-dependent - there is a right place and a right time for every behaviour. Much as I admire Margaret Thatcher, I doubt if I'd wanted to have worked directly with the Iron Lady. Even those hardened souls that were her closest advisers criticised her for breaking 'every rule of good man-management', including bullying those weaker in her team, criticising her political colleagues in front of civil servants and refusing to give praise or credit when due. However, growing up in UK in the 1970s, I can be sure her driving, abrasive style was exactly what Britain needed by the 1980s. That said, it also led to her rapid down fall as those who she had cast aside over the years leapt to take their revenge.

Just as Thatcher was single-minded, so many successful entrepreneurs appear successful precisely because they focus on their strengths. Richard Branson has turned Virgin into a global brand by taking on big business Goliaths and winning with the attitude of a hippie David. I say appear because, of course, what rarely hits the headlines is his choice of great complementary and balancing personalities and executers of his vision that surround him on his successful ventures. He also has the skills of distraction that prevent the public lingering on his many failures that would be the envy of the most accomplished magician.

The difference between 'correct' and 'right'
To me, the word that is too often missing from discussions about strengths is judgment. I've sat on boards where every debate is reduced to numbers, as everybody involved in directing the business is desperate to appear rational and in command.

This approach is endorsed by business school academics because they want to get funded, and further reinforced when their MBA students become consultants because they want to prove that they are selling something more than just a model, opinion or even instinct. It's easier to look decisive and business-like when hiding behind a spread sheet because numbers are immutable, absolute – simpler to defend or blame when things go wrong. However it's not where the true value of a business lies.

To my mind, judgment is what matters most, no matter how hard it is to measure. There is a big difference between 'correct' and 'right', and judgement will tell you what it is. Ultimately too, it's judgment that provides balance, knowing when to reign in your strengths and when to let them rip.
Hence the importance of a good self-examination. Unfortunately the judgment that'll tell you what to do once you've poked about in your psyche is elusive, and difficult to learn and master. That's why it is the consummate business skill.

Read more →