Using Experts - an update

A Board Meeting yesterday at the charity I chair re-enforced my last post about using experts.

I spoke with the Chief Exec before the meeting and one of the things we chatted about was the design brief from Bull Rodger. Neither of us is an expert in marketing or branding but both of us were, to be honest, a little disappointed that the work was outlined to take longer than we had hoped (and we conveniently moved past the point that Paul and Bull Rodger are doing the work pro bono...).

On to the meeting and our Trustee who does have expertise in this area looked at the proposal and said something along the lines of "Wow! This much work in that time. Brilliant!".

So. The lesson I am trying to learn better is this. Try not to make arbitrary judgments in areas where you know too little to make that judgment. Alternatively - shut up until you know what you're talking about...

Using Experts

I spend quite a bit of time working with lawyers and other professionals and telling them that they need to use experts to help them run their businesses. This week I've had a reminder that I need to do this too.

The first reminder was a comment from a friend that my own web site was no longer up to scratch. My site is very simple and I had been using iWeb to author it. Apple stopped supporting iWeb some time ago, sadly, but I had stuck with it - meaning that the pages it built were not optimised for new browsers, for HTML5 or for mobile devices. I knew that there was a problem with my site on Firefox, but had been trying to pretend it didn't matter. My fried - who does this sort of thing for a living - held my by the lapels and explained (loudly) that it was no longer ok. I (finally) took his advice and re-designed the site using a new product to me - Sandvox - which has produced a new, clean, site that works well, so far as I can tell, on every platform. Let me know what you think - www.mar-aon.co.uk.

The second reminder was in connection with a charity that I chair - www.livingrainforest.com. We are re-organising the charity and giving something called The Trust for Sustainable Living prominence. My good friend at Bull Rodger offered to help us with the rebranding of the TSL identity. Foolishly I had thought that we would meet and he would draw a new logo. As I often say to my clients - it's not as simple as that. Quite rightly, he needs to understand the charity and its context and its objectives and then he will be able to design an identity that will fit us properly. The Director of the charity pointed out that I had introduced the expert and so we should listen to him.

A valuable lesson - listen to the experts. If only someone had told me earlier...

Lessons from different sources

Over the weekend - a bank holiday weekend in the UK - I was, amongst many other things, reading a new blog by musician Imogen Heap (W.I.P The Book of Heap). As could be expected of a creative person, she writes fluidly and well about her hopes both for her blog-come-book but also about her life.

At one point, she writes a list of things she is planning to get a grip of, and I copy a section of her list here:

- more inspired conversation.
- Collaborate creatively often.
- Plan less, do more,
- Find my dream team and delegate.
- Fold my days around one form of exercise. So could be a walk, a swim, rock climbing. Who knows.
- find sustainable love. To share all these nice times I’m going to have with.
- READ more and learn to read quicker and better.
- Find another word for more.
- Other stuff I haven’t thought of yet.

It struck me that her list - and I have cut down the some of the points to be a little more succinct here (the full list is, of course, in her original posting) - is not a bad "to do" list for businesses, whether starting up or not.

How many of your conversations last week were "inspired"? Perhaps I was lucky and a couple of mine were. I'm sure that we could all benefit from looking for inspired conversations. "Find my dream team and delegate" - there may be a whole book in there. I think that may be the essence of business for the entrepreneur."Creative collaboration" - absolutely. Look for people to work with not only from your field. Look for exciting people who may have a new perspective on your business. "Read more" can only be a good thing - and don't restrict yourself to reading business material. "Find another word for..." can be a good way of looking at anything anew. As for "plan less, do more" - I am guilty of this and will follow the example of doing more often than planning (particularly with regard to marketing and networking).

Do not ignore "find sustainable love.." thinking that it has nothing to do with business. We would all be worse of without the support of the people we love and who love us.

So there you have it - lessons for business, care of Imogen Heap. If nothing else, she has a good plan in place.

p.s. if you'd like to know more about Imogen (and I recommend it since she is a wonderful musician), then here and here are good places to start (and, no, I don't work either for or with her).

Lessons from the Apple Store

On the back of the report in the "London Evening Standard" (see here for the copy), in which it declares the Apple Store in Regent Street to be the most profitable shop in London at £2,000 per square foot, I was thinking about why this is and what lessons can be learnt.

Anyone who knows me will already be rolling their eyes and saying "Apple people..." with a sigh. I admit that I am an Apple user and a great fan. Apple have, however, taken a new route in their high street shops and one which would appear to be working.

The difference is customer focus. Give people a chance to see and use the Apple equipment, so the theory goes, and they will embrace it - and, more importantly, buy it. First of all it doesn't look particularly like a shop and has plenty of helpers at the front doors to engage with anyone needing guidance. In depth knowledge and help is available throughout the shop. Free seminars are put on all day, every day, to introduce the Apple software to both new and experienced users. Visitors - and a great number of people who come into the shop do not buy anything (this time) - are made welcome and can use any computer to access the internet or make use of the free wifi throughout the store. Above all, they have knowledgeable and committed staff working there who are trying to help customers and who are quite happy to say "I don't know" to a question - but immediately find another member of the team who can provide answers.

Of course it is easier for Apple than for other computer or software sellers since they control both hardware and software - but I think their real secret is to make a visit to the Apple store to be a pleasurable activity.

How many other businesses are there that do that - whether businesses that we work for or businesses that we consult to? How many of our customers would consider dealing with our firm as a pleasurable activity?

As in retail, so in professional services. Provide an excellent service, have committed and knowledgeable staff, and keep the needs, requirements and preferences of the clients at the forefront of all decisions. Simple!

Lessons for Business

The expenses saga continues with our politicians, and seems to get worse at every step. Are there lessons for businesses in this sorry tale? Yes, I believe there are - but they are quite simple, straight forward lessons which I would hope that everyone knows. Sadly, the MPs' story seems to suggest that, once again, the bleeding obvious does need to be stated.

Lesson 1: Ethical standards rather than complex rules.

If you do not believe that the people who work with and for you have high ethical standards, there is no point in setting up complex rules to try to control them. Standards and principles work,in my opinion, although it may not be obvious why. There is often a delight in writing new rules to cover new situations. The difficulty with specific rules is that, if there are many of them, the lesson for staff can be "if there is no rule against it, then you can do it". By having a simple principle such as "Behave responsibly" or "Act in the best interest of the client" there is enough vagueness to persuade staff to err on the side of caution. 

I worked with one organisation which moved from a set of reasonably well understood financial principles to a 60 page set of financial regulations. Financial efficiency went downhill - partly through the complexity of the rules and partly because of the "work to the rules and only the rules" way of working.

Lesson 2: If you have done wrong - admit it and go immediately

We can all make mistakes. If a member of staff - no matter how senior - has "made a mistake with their expenses" for example, they should admit the error and then resign. This may sound as if the punishment is more serious than the "crime", however the alternative is to say "it's ok to fake some of your expenses so long as you are an important employee and we don't think it's too serious". To me this sounds rather like tempting staff to take a chance. Zero tolerance has the advantage of being easy to understand.

I worked in a hotel company which had a published zero tolerance for drinking on duty. Every member of staff knew about the rule but we didn't think it was that serious. One Saturday evening the General Manager was acting as Duty Manager, and late one night was standing at the bar drinking a small glass of beer. The Area Manager happened to visit, saw the GM drinking and fired him on the spot. We had no problem convincing staff that the rule was serious after that.

Lesson 3: Transparency is easier

The more things are kept private and secret, the more people are convinced that the reason for the secrecy is because they are being disadvantaged.

Staff expenses should be available throughout a firm (and to the shareholders or partners depending on the structure) - this leads to better behaviour from everyone since they will not only need to justify their expenses to their line manager, but to the firm as a whole. Why should anyone be ashamed of legitimate expenses? The same can be applied to most expenditure. Even salaries can be published by way of salary bands - it works in the UK Civil Service, so why not everywhere.

By considering lessons for our own workplaces, perhaps some good can come out of the mess that our MPs have made of theirs.