Saturday, September 30, 2006

Stressed out executives equals crashed out performance

With all the external pressures facing organizations arising from the development of the global knowledge economy, it is the failure to respond effectively at Board Level that is a direct cause of stress. Another easily assessed cause, and they are often linked, is poor quality recovery time.

Andrew is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He lives with Sara who is a partner in a solicitors practice. They have two children under the age of six. Consider that there are four types of time associated with a normal weekend:

1) there may be Sara’s time to do just as she pleases
2) there may be Andrew’s time to do just as he pleases
3) there could be family time with Sara, Andrew, the children and anyone else that the couple choose to include in their weekend
4) there may be intimacy, which is the time that Sara and Andrew choose to spend alone together, with no one else and with no interruptions. That’s how it was after all, when they first met. They made sure of that in those days.

If we have just 168 hours per week (that’s how it is in Hereford) to deploy our time and our energy, the question is how effectively do we use it? When work gets tough, guess which type of time disappears first in most relationships? Right answer = intimacy.

Other types of time disappear quite fast too. Working with Sara recently I said to her, “If you only had just one half an hour just for you next weekend, how would you spend it?” She answered, “I’d go visit my dad”

Wrong answer. That’s family time.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Transparency at the top of organizations

We have seen how important it is for directors to become more emotionally, intuitively and interpersonally intelligent in the Board Room – executive performance depends on this. Nonetheless there are challenges for all of us when we share elements of our personality, our thinking and our behaviour with others.

This process of transparency however, does carry a health warning with it.
When we share our tacit knowledge with colleagues, especially at the top of organizations, it will always result in business reward. However, at the sharing or the transparency stage, the process can result in either increased intimacy, a closer working relationship, or it can result in a parting of the ways. A parting of the ways can be in the interests of both the individual and the organization. In fact, the steeper the flight path towards the bull’s eye, the more important this transparency becomes.

Maybe it is politics that gets in the way of this stuff, and because politics in organizations will always be with us, perhaps it is how we go about sharing knowledge and information that matters.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Emotional, intuitive and interpersonal intelligences

A lot of personal development work starts with self. It seems to be a paradox that before we can really help others to fulfil their potential, we have to sort ourselves out first. It used to be enough to have an expertise, to be an accountant or an engineer or any kind of professional. But it’s not enough today. Now we have to try to be more. Where does this more come from?

Well, it’s partly to do with our personality, it’s something to do with how we use our energy and our time, it is definitely about our behaviour, what we actually do. It is to do with our particular types of intelligences, it is about how we think and what we have made of our experiences, the things that have happened to us in our life. It is knowing that complexity is declining in value and that simplicity is increasing in value.

And all this is especially so in the knowledge economy. If what we say we do is not actually true, or if we say what we think is not exactly how we think or if we say how we behave but in practice we behave differently, then in this world, we will be found out. And we will be found out quicker than ever before.

Our website says what we do or today perhaps it says what we did. Websites are a bit old fashioned when you can have a weblog, something that allows you to connect with people as you think. So if you think that you are an expert in low vision optometry for example, then when you write about your expertise, others will decide if you know what you are talking about.

So if we can’t cope with the speed of change in the world, or we can’t react fast enough to what is actually happening, then a Board Room is a pretty uncomfortable place to be.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Emotional intelligence and the Board Room

We were talking about trigger experiences on Saturday and how important it is for the Board to be able to react in an “emotionally, interpersonally and intuitively intelligent way”.

There is no doubt that the stronger the impact of the trigger experience the more important it is for the Board to respond in a powerful and timely manner. Part of the problem is that the greater the challenge, the more stressful it can be and then an appropriate response can be delayed, sometimes until it is too late. I would like to look at this in more detail when I get back from London tomorrow.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

‘Trigger experiences’ in the Board Room

People do ask about this ‘trigger experience’ idea that I write and speak about. A trigger experience is something big and powerful that happens, usually very suddenly. At a personal level it could be the abrupt onset of a serious medical condition or getting a puncture on some freeway in the middle of the night when it’s pouring with rain.

Essentially all trigger experiences require a similar response. We have to:
- think about what has happened
- decide what to do about it
- take action

With the advent of the knowledge economy these experiences are happening more and more often to organisations. It could be that:
- a long standing and valued customer suddenly takes their business elsewhere
- a major competitor arrives to take significant market share
- the business model that always worked in the past doesn’t work anymore
- knowledge and information moving at 186k miles per second is leaving us behind

As the product and service life cycle gets shorter and shorter the ‘y factor’ generation (those born since 1976) are simply doing things differently, seeing things differently, behaving differently from the baby boomers. (1945 – 1960) Yet it is the baby boomers that make up the majority in most Board Rooms.

That is why it is so important that trigger experiences are dealt with in an emotionally, interpersonally and intuitively intelligent way. That requires tacit knowledge and tacit knowledge is part of the Intellectual Capital of the organisation.

Friday, September 22, 2006

External facilitation for the CEO appraisal?

I was speaking to fifty FSB business professionals last night about the subject of, amongst other things, the CEO appraisal. We had some 20 minutes of questions at the end and one of them concerned the need or otherwise for external facilitation.

All organisations now work in a global knowledge economy where customers want more for less, where competitors can appear from nowhere and technology driven market places are changing as we speak. This reality means that we increasingly need an ‘outside in’ perspective on our organisation and even on ourselves.

The problem is however that all our experience of the world to date has been from the ‘inside out’. Individually, we experience everything in the first instance through our five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. We are programmed from birth to see everything from ‘first’ position: our own views, our own feelings, our own perspectives. And this worked well enough in the ‘old’ manufacturing economy, where demand exceeded supply, quotas, tariffs and the fixed assets on the Balance Sheet were the key to generating profit. A reactive paradigm worked well enough for most in those days.

In order to develop and sustain competitive advantage in the global economy where knowledge is the new asset, we have to be proactive. We have to get closer to our customers than ever before, we have to benchmark ourselves against world class competitors, we have adapt our offering to the changing demands of the market place. We have to learn to see the world from ‘second’ position.

In our work we sometimes use a sequence that can help us with this. A ‘trigger’ experience is something that happens causing us to think. When we think about that experience, we can make decisions and the decisions we make can lead to action. We all have trigger experiences but we all think, decide and act in a unique manner, using our tacit knowledge, the stuff that lives inside our heads.

Because of the speed of change in the world, there are a lot of trigger experiences available to anyone that runs a business today. Therefore the think, decide, act, sequence in the Board room requires a further element to be successful and that is transparency. This does not mean telling everyone everything, but it does mean sharing information that materially affects our progress.

We have to communicate and listen more effectively than ever, both individually and collectively. Invariably an external facilitator can help anyone to see things from better from ‘second’ position. That’s why we employ one to help us!

Thursday, September 21, 2006

The CEO appraisal

Once the Board has finally signed off the bulls’ eye, the process of appraising each director can begin. This always starts with the CEO because everything stems from the person at the top.

The structure of an organisation, its culture, the degree to which it is goal or target focussed, whether it tends to be marketing or finance led, the people policy, the ICT emphasis, everything stems from the top whether it is spoken or unspoken.

Ideally two other directors appraise the CEO with an external facilitator in place to manage the process. You need a room where there will be no interruptions of any kind for maybe three hours. Very little paperwork is required and certainly nothing to do with technology or spurious questionnaires. It is what people talk about that matters.

There are three stages to this process, and maybe just three sheets of paper to record comments and observations. The first stage is to review the CEO’s development points that arose from the previous appraisal. To what extent have these been addressed? Were any difficulties encountered? Have these development points been completed? If not, why not? What is to be done about this?

The second stage is the discussion of contemporary issues where anything and everything can be raised. This stage will include what the CEO has enjoyed about the job, what has been a frustration, how effective this person is with communication, handling conflict, dealing with crisis and so on. Literally anything can be discussed provided it is in the interests of the organisation.

Remember that we are talking about transforming executive performance, and that this work comes under the heading ‘developing trust’. You develop trust in any relationship by sharing a process of openness, honesty and integrity.

As the conversation progresses it is invariably the external facilitator that teases out the development points, one by one. Most people only really want up to three development points to be working on between appraisals. The reason it is the facilitator that formulates these in the first instance is because he or she will be working impartially, with no interest in politics or protocol or hidden agendas. This person can ask the difficult questions. These are things that are inevitably part of organisational life, but they get in the way of high quality appraisals. Everyone serves the organisation, including the CEO.

These development points can be anything to do with behaviour, personality, use of time, use of energy, types of intelligence, simplicity in the face of complexity, thinking paradigms, experience, skill, knowledge or even attitude. What is essential is that they link to the bull’s eye. If the bull’s eye is the statement of excellence for the organisation, then the development points for the CEO are their personal commitment to excellence. You only grow an organisation by growing the people and this always needs to start at the top. The steeper the flight path towards the bull’s eye the more important these development points are.

And then you can move on to each Board director in turn.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

OK so we have a bull’s eye

The magic of the bull’s eye process is that it takes all the directors, to discuss, maybe disagree, but to finally sign it off. Transformation number one arises from the very fact that this discussion takes place. Some leaders are so autocratic that they tell their colleagues what the organisation is doing, others keep it all in their head and discuss on a ‘need to know’ basis, yet others assume that everyone at Board level understands what is going on anyway.

The global knowledge economy is massively intolerant of all three approaches to leadership!

If the answer to question one (please see Sunday, September 17th post) is a statement of excellence for the organisation, the answer to question two is a statement of the collective ambition of the directors and the answer to question three is more or bigger or better customers, then the next job is to appraise the CEO.

TINA rules! (There is no alternative)

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Appraising the CEO

People sometimes ask why I appraise the CEO at the beginning of a consultancy assignment. Well I don’t do it right at the start. There is something that has to be done first and that is the bull’s eye.

The bull’s eye is a measurable statement of excellence for products / services, sales / profit aspirations and customers for the organisation. It is the answer to four simple questions. Question one = What do we want to be? The answer will be something to do with high quality products and / or exceptional personal service. The knowledge economy demands that we aspire to this level of performance.

Question two = How much of it? For a commercial organisation the answer to this question is usually a sales and profit forecast.

Question three = For whom? The answer to this question is customers. The steeper the flight path on the profit forecast towards the bull’s eye then this answer will be about more or bigger or better customers. And if this is the case, then this answer will also require a new marketing strategy.

Question four = By when? The answer is usually three years from now.

This unique ‘bull’s eye’ technique will clarify the direction of any organisation. The clearer we are about where we want to go the more likely we are to get there. This is the process of directors discussing, debating, agreeing and finally signing off ONE bull’s eye. The demands of the global knowledge economy require this degree of clarity of direction. Vague, wordy, meaningless mission statements and visions can all be binned when you have a bull’s eye.

Establishing the bull’s eye is just the first step in transforming an organisation but when we have one, then we can turn our attention to the CEO.

Friday, September 15, 2006

The Blogging imperative

Working with four different CEO’s this week, each one already successful and forward looking with their own business and in their own industry, I raised the subject of blogging and competitive advantage.

There was a similar initial reaction in all four offices. This was one of horror that the possibility exists that there is yet another call on the existing time allowance of 168 hours per week. Many want know incidentally, how to supplement that figure. As yet, here in Hereford, England, we have been unable to do this for any of our clients. Such is the speed of change that many leaders are having to look seriously about how they allocate existing time, energy and resources to the demands of the knowledge economy.

One way for a leader to work out whether to blog or not to blog is to put their topic of expertise into Google search plus ‘blog’. Take ‘low vision optometry’ for example. If this is your area of expertise, one press of the button will reveal all the other people in the world that are also writing on this topic. With a little bit of practice and by leaving your comments on their posting, you become drawn into the conversation. As time goes by you find yourself exchanging views on your topic with other ‘thought leaders’ in this industry. This raises your profile, raises your expertise and well, will it lead to competitive advantage?

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

The marketing imperative

We’ve been discussing the marketing versus finance perspective on running a business in several recent client meetings.

One CEO confessed to that he used to ask his PA to read all his Inbox in the first instance in order to vet the content. The PA would just flag up the ones that he was to read. Now we know more about how ‘tacit knowledge’ works and the importance of developing closer relationships with key clients, that has stopped. The CEO reads all his emails.

Similarly with blogging. Many say that “I just haven’t time to do it” but that misses the point. It is not whether we have time to do something in the business that counts, it is whether the business needs the CEO to be doing something or other. This is a world where we all have to review what we do, how we think and how we behave.

Regular blogging as with many other online activities requires a reallocation of resources. Do we do it? Ah well that is when we can revert to a financial perspective on the business. It comes back to the Research and Development Key Performance Indicator. We need to be able to link specific income streams to the new activity, we need to allocate personal responsibility and a timeline. Then we can make a decision.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Leadership and Web 2.0

A funny thing about leaders is that they tend to run their business from either a finance perspective or from a marketing perspective.

The former really don’t want to spend money at all if they can possibly avoid it. When under pressure they can usually be found juggling with the cash flow on Excel or fiddling with a profit forecast somewhere. They quite like purchasing and if they get bored they have a look at the administration process.

The latter love to spend money, irrespective of it’s impact on either cash or profit. They tend see the world and their business from the outside in, from the customers perspective. When under pressure they will buy something. They get really aroused by the words ‘marketing’ or ‘research and development’ and they love doing deals.

So which way is best? Well of course the answer is “neither”. You would expect a consultant to say that, but it’s the debate between the two approaches and taking each decision on it’s merits that usually produces the best answer for the organisation.

The only problem to this bland approach to business life is the sheer speed and power of the internet. There is so much is happening outside the business, for example:
· customers want and expect more for less
· competitors can emerge from anywhere on the globe
· market places are evolving as we speak
· technology can revolutionise business models at 186k miles per second

I wonder if this means that as leaders today we have to shift that even handed approach more in favour of the marketing angle. Perhaps if we choose not to, we could get left behind.

Blogging to create competitive advantage?

It could have been the National Speakers Association convention in Orlando that sparked it, but I discovered the power of blogging thanks to Kim Snider. Type Kim Snider into Google to see how she does it.

For all those of you that think there is too much competition out there, for whatever reason, blogging could be your answer. It allows you to:
· Display your particular expertise to a world wide audience
· Connect and discuss with other ‘thought leaders’ in your field
· Be contemporary because your blog can reflect what is happening now
· Transcend the traditional (!) static web site
· Continuously develop your thoughts and ideas

Remember that it is innovation and creativity that are the keys to competitive advantage in the knowledge economy. Please make a comment or two on any blog and that will raise us both up the search engines!

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Motivation without money

Richard’s comment inspires today’s blog. Two issues. I’ll take low budget organisations first. Low budget can mean that the business model itself is shaky, maybe it’s too labour intensive or maybe it’s materials intensive with margins falling or maybe there’s too much cost in overheads. Maybe lots of other things are wrong but the bottom line is that it’s low budget.

On the other hand, an organisation can be in the private, public or ‘not for profit’ sector and whilst all these have to perform in one variation of ‘a competitive market place’ or other, they face different pressures. ‘Not for profits’ can be under financial strains for a variety of reasons and here it is common to find leaders that are strongly motivated by faith, beliefs or values. That’s why they work there. These kind of leaders need to attract like minded people to work with them. Like minded people will put up with the financial constraints because they believe in what the organisation stands for.

Essentially all organisations need people that are congruent; people that have clear personal goals and values. Secondly they need people that are in alignment with the Bulls’ Eye. This is particularly important in the boardroom, because if you get it right here you can cascade this culture down through the organisation. Get it wrong and in the knowledge economy, you will be found out, sooner rather than later.

So how do find out about people’s motivation? It’s easy. You start by appraising the CEO, usually with other members of the Board. This invariably needs outside facilitation. The outsider asks the questions that no one else is brave enough to ask. At the end of this appraisal the CEO will have a couple of development points or maybe three, that are LINKED TO THE BULL’S EYE.

Remember that the Bull’s eye is a measurable statement of excellence for the organisation that has been signed off by the Board. The CEO ‘s development points are his / her personal commitment to excellence. You can only create an organisation that aspires to excellence if everyone else does the same at a personal level! After you appraise the CEO, you repeat the process with each Board member and they too have development points that are linked to the Bull’s Eye.

Ascertaining development points involves sharing tacit knowledge. When you share tacit knowledge through a process of transparency it ALWAYS leads to business reward. (This is the TK Factor ® business development process)
But there is a health warning that goes with this model. The process of sharing tacit knowledge will lead to either an increased intimacy between the participants OR it will lead to a parting of the ways.

So when you look round the boardroom table, yes you need a bull’s eye. Yes you need personal commitment and yes you may need to shake up the team. I hope that this helps Richard.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Leadership and Best Practice

The problem with ‘Best Practice’ for many leaders is that they find it boring. All organisations today, including my own, have a Key Change Project, even if they don’t know what it is. This project is most easily accessed by the Board discussing and eventually completing a Bull’s Eye measurable statement of excellence for their organisation. This can take a couple of days depending how much debate and disagreement takes place. However, once the Board have signed off their Bull’s Eye the next stage is to complete a SWOT analysis against that Bull’s Eye.

This is no ordinary Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats list. This is specifically against the numbers in the Bull’s Eye. The bigger the numbers are the more important his exercise becomes. In fact it is the weaknesses of the organisation, as volunteered by the Board, that are often the clue to the Key Change Project. Typically the Project could be ‘marketing’; it could be ‘structure’, it could be systems and procedures. Whatever it is, the way to implement it is the regular and consistent application of Best Practice. If the Key Change Project is ‘Culture for example, then typical weaknesses may include:
· There is no training plan for the company
· No staff surveys are conducted
· Regular appraisals, starting with the directors, are not done
· Meetings are poor and often start late
· There are no Key Performance Indicators

And so on. But Best Practice has been ascertained long ago, decades ago, so there is no need to go looking for it. No, it is not the information that is lacking but it is the application. Best Practice is not a ‘magic bullet’. You can’t do it once and hope that it will change the organisation. No it has to be done week in week out, month in and month out, year in and year out. It has to become part of ‘business as usual’. That’s why some leaders find it boring.

So what if you are one of those leaders? That’s no problem, you just need to find someone that really has the skills (the how to do), the knowledge (the what to do) and the attitude (the wanting to do). And when this person makes the job a habit, you’ve cracked it! Then you can get on with what you do best.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Mushroom management

I was out on the meadow collecting mushrooms this morning. It’s a big field along the banks of the river Wye here in Hereford England, probably two or three miles in circumference.

Anyway there were four others out too. They had picked up on the muggy, mild and moist weather that mushrooms enjoy so much.

Whether these people are oblivious to the new rules driving the global knowledge economy or whether they just didn’t care about carrying an empty plastic bag around with them I don’t know. The fact is however I was able to return home with a bulging bag of prime field mushrooms whilst they were still wandering round aimlessly.

And then it started to rain.

So how was this achieved? Well the fact is that I have spent some time studying this field and I happen to know where the three or four hotspots actually are. Two of them are right at the far end of the field, farthest away from the houses. So knowledge is always a clue to competitive advantage, but that is not all. I also happened to be jogging, ‘killing two birds with one stone’ if you like.

This meant that no sooner had I bent down to cut some choice fungi, and others seeing me, decided to move in my direction, I was off, away, across the field to the next hot spot. No one wanted to jog after me, and by the time I got to my destination, they couldn’t see me anyway.

So we can all gain competitive advantage in the knowledge economy by first of all acquiring knowledge and secondly knowing how to use it.

Bon appetit.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

The CEO and the ego

There has been an interesting posting on Ian Griffin’s blog dated 30th August 06. It’s all to do with the CEO and their ego. There are lots of ways to see exactly how much of a factor this actually is. In fact some people say that it really isn’t an issue providing that the bottom line is acceptable to shareholders.

Perhaps that is an old fashioned view when there are so many other interested parties in organisational performance. Charles Handy calls it the hexagonal contract where organisations are accountable at once to the environment, employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders and the local community.

A CEO that is able to see the organisation as a separate entity to himself is likely to acknowledge all these stakeholders in practical ways on an ongoing basis. These leaders often suggest that their role is more that of a facilitator than a dictator. High customer satisfaction scores, matched by high staff satisfaction scores together with a proactive, published strategy for improving both will usually corroborate this view.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

First time in the USA................

First time in the USA; first time at an NSA convention

Someone said, “What took you so long?” It might have been W. Mitchell.

Running a training and consultancy business in the UK for twenty years, living near the Black Mountains of Wales and right next to the beautiful River Wye, we get milk from the cows at the end of the road; we collect mushrooms from the field. What do we want to climb onto an aeroplane (airplane) for?

Well two things happened in our house last year. Firstly the teenagers started to rebel. Ursula at 15 said “I just don’t want another summer holiday in a tent in the Black Mountains”, and Alistair (13) agreed and invited me to “get a life”. Their mother smirked quietly on the other side of the table for she has always wanted to travel. She likes motorways, airports, and foreign countries. I regard a trip to Worcester, 27 miles east of Hereford as, well not quite a trip of a lifetime, but certainly a significant journey. I suppose you might wonder why she married me.

So there it was, three against one.

At about the same time I was invited to a Chapter meeting of the Professional Speakers Association (PSA) somewhere in Birmingham. Now that is 54 miles north west of Hereford so I had to think twice about making the commitment, but I was assured that I would enjoy it. To cut a long story short, I came home feeling a bit like Toad of Toad Hall after he had seen his first car. It was a mixture of excitement, amazement mixed up with a feeling of trepidation. You know that something has happened to you and that there is no way back. I knew I was going to have to become a speaker.

And so it was that a few months later I found myself wandering round Heathrow airport London, probably looking a little lost because there in front of me was Paul Bridle (CSP). Paul was striding round the foyer with the air of a man in control. He was waving here, waving there, he was even chatting to the staff working for Emirates, our airline for the day. Several PSA members were making a trip out to Dubai for a World CEO Forum and Paul was speaking there.

As we were going through customs it was my turn to dumbfound Paul. He asked which was my favourite airline and I replied that this was to be my second flight. He looked incredulous, rocked back on his heels and said “What?!”

Anyway Dubai led to Orlando just as camping in the Black mountains of Wales led to a family room at the World Center Marriott. When you step out at Orlando International Airport, you think that someone has made a mistake with the thermostat, but no it really is that temperature.

You step into a hire car and just as you push down on the clutch you realise it is in fact a brake. There is no clutch. All American cars are automatic. But at 56 I’m feeling pretty automatic myself after the flight. And so the car proceeds in a series of jerks for two and a half hours before we enter the premises of World Center Marriott. Two and a half hours? Yes, I think we took the scenic route. There were several times that the kids thought that they could see the hotel. After a while I knew they could because everyone in the car was screaming “there it is!!” but in between being flung into the windscreen and then waving apologetically to other bemused road users, we couldn’t actually find the entrance.

The room itself looked out onto the golf course and one morning when I was jogging sedately round, just before sunrise, I asked a golfer about the alligators. He said that yes there is a seven foot beast up near the tenth and another larger animal resides near the fifteenth. I said “thanks” and proceeded to confine my exercise to the tarmacadam for the rest of the week. On the Saturday an entire squadron of fifty golf buggies were lined up and it occurred to me that no one walks round golf courses any more, certainly not at the World Center Marriott Orlando.

When you first see the Crystal Ballroom you think just how much did this carpet cost? I mean it is no ordinary carpet but the ballroom, well I don’t think we have anything quite that size in the UK, certainly not in Hereford.

It was great to be there a couple of days early, before the Convention began, just to watch the build up. I was really impressed by the organisation, the teamwork and the friendliness of everyone dealing with the delegates as they arrived. Sharon, my wife was staggered when we signed in. Brian, Dulce and Sue were on the desk but no sooner than Sharon had given our names than Sue asked how Alistair and Ursula were settling in. We just looked at each other.

As the beginning drew nearer so the excitement and tempo began to build. We just went with the flow, looking forward to hearing some legendary speakers that we had encountered on VOE but not actually seen. Of course by the Saturday we were also gearing up for the Youth Leadership Conference. We had taken a flyer with the kids really, kind of saying that it would be better than a couple of weeks camping in the Black Mountains of Wales, but how could we know for sure?

At the Youth Opening General Session it was Michael Scott Karpovich that knocked us out. He very quickly gained rapport with parents and children alike. However, nothing prepared us to watch son Alistair being held upside down by one leg after just a quarter of an hour of ‘Karpo’s’ talk. What a great presentation it was and it set the scene for our two. By evening time they were buzzing and so it was that every night we were able to reconvene and share the events and excitement of the day.

Certainly it really enhanced our convention massively knowing that the two children were up and ready to go each morning, usually before us. We shared a room at the World Centre Marriott and that could have been a challenge, but such was the interest of each day, it was simply high quality family time. It’s not every day that my daughter Ursula and I find so much to talk about.

Back home now with a shed full of notes from all the talks we heard. There are cd’s to listen to and so much to put into practice. Beverly Babb sent me an NSA Operations Manual because I chair the PSA 07 convention in London. What a great help that is and we are already learning from it in time for our November 06 Convention at The Belfry in Birmingham.

So what do I do with the tent? The children have already been on the San Diego website; Ursula thinks she can book some cheap flights if we do it now.


Tim Kidson September 2006

Saturday, September 02, 2006

leaders and leading

Sometimes it seems to me that when an organisation is in its early, formative stage then leaders are very clear about what they are trying to achieve and how they are going to go about it.

As time goes by however, particularly with the unrelenting pressures of a knowledge economy, the organisation can take on a life of its own. Gradually leaders can find themselves out of alignment with what the organisation is trying to achieve.

This process can happen almost without anyone being able to rationalise the situation consciously. People are just aware of a nagging malaise that no one can put a finger on.

In fact it is common to find leaders that are comfortable with aspirations towards excellence for their organisation. This is often takes the form of a mission or a vision statement. However they are much less comfortable with their own personal commitment to excellence. This commitment of course, manifests itself in their development points from their appraisals.

Friday, September 01, 2006

Happy New Year

First september. I would like to wish everyone in the world who regards September one as the first day of the New Year a happy one.

Never mind the rest of the world. It's ok.