Hello – Anyone home?

Where is everyone? TMTD used to be one of my favourite blogs – it had posts that were relevant, and participation was high if not always comfortable. Now it is comfortable, less relevant (the blog used to be ahead of me, now I seem to be ahead of the blog), and there is little feedback. The town square has become less a collection of voices and ideas and more a platform to shout your stuff in a one way dialogue – not because people cant answer back – but perhaps because they have no wish to. Why is that – did they get bored, were they discouraged, have they run out of things to say? The sad thing is that when the blog was very active it gave me a stronger feel of what TMTD was about and who the people were. More recently there seems to be a stronger HR/talent development focus to the website and even the blog, is this because these are areas of “expertiseâ€? of the bloggers, or is this more the focusing of the TMTD core business (is this the TMTD core business)?
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Samsung – The Perpetual Crisis Machine

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,1097317,00.html

“The biggest barrier to management innovation is the ego – a self that never changes�. These are the words of Jong-Yong Yun, the man accredited for taking Samsung from being a follower in the technology industry, to a leader through his management style and approach to innovation.

This in-depth article in the latest European edition of Fortune magazine describes Samsung’s focus on innovation and the success that they have achieved as designers, innovators, manufacturer, suppliers and change masters in an industry constantly watching over its shoulder.

The one thing you need to know about Great Managing, Great Leading and Sustained Individual Success – by Marcus Buckingham

I’m a Marcus Buckingham fan, but then I’m generally a fan of anyone that thinks the same stuff I do, so I am about to start giving away copies of the book to all my colleagues. This book should not be recommended reading, it should be compulsory reading for all managers and leaders.

The book (buy it online at Amazon.com and Kalahari.net) explores the difference between great leaders and managers, he believes that great managers and leaders are born and not made, although he acknowledges that they can learn some of the skills. He cautions leaders not to try and be managers if they are not interested in individuals but to focus on their strengths as leaders of many and cuts to the core of what successful managers and leaders need to know. Such as:

The 4 skills you must learn to “not fail� as a great manager
1. Select good people
2. Define clear expectations
3. Praise and recognise
4. Show care for your people

He defines managers as being people that are interested in the individuals and that they are not about transforming people but about realising the potential and strength of the individuals.

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Anxious life of the “Ipod” Generation

This article was in this weekend’s Sunday Times about the challenges facing Gen Xers in the UK and how it is influencing their working choices. Not quite what they had planned….

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1743391,00.html

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Communicating in the connection ecomony

A few days ago I got a bit of flack on the Quality debate. I’m bored with that topic, so I won’t go there, but a few interesting things came out of that posting (and a few in the past that have been turning over in my mind), that I felt I wanted share with you as a community, especially as understanding and promoting the connection economy is so integral to what the TT.biz community is about.

My biggest soap box in business is relationships. It is not necessarily about liking the person or relating to them, it is about trusting and respecting them. When you have that you can achieve so much more, less painlessly and more efficiently.

We all know that the connection economy is about forming relationships, often with people that we may never set eyes on. So how we interact with them on the forums available to us, determines how successful that relationship will be. That means the tone of the emails, the blog posts etc will determine what sort of relationship you form. When we say something – are we smiling, are we frowning, can it be interpreted in another way? When I first started using the chat forum I hated those “silly� emoticons (I am so not a frilly funky nick nacky person), but I soon started to realize that I need them to convey what I was saying. I am very assertive and can be very intense, so unless people can see my face, they don’t know whether I am being serious or pulling their leg, especially those that know me.

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Lessons from Boomers

Over the past few weeks as I’ve been engaging on this blog I’ve mused over a lot of what I have seen and read here. At times there is a bit of “us” and “them” between the Boomers and the Gen Xers, and occasionally posts from Boomers, which seem to be slightly apologetic for being Boomers.
There are some very strong personalities and opinions on this blog, so it occurred to me that there is a risk that people will hold back from engaging and contributing for fear of being seen as irrelevant or out of step with fellow bloggers. If that is happening it would be unfortunate as the contributions of these Boomers can and do add to the general understanding that Gen Xers need, as well as a form of knowledge transfer and mentorship. We may not like what we read, but we need to recognise that Boomers laid the foundations of this world we live in and to undermine that would be both stupid and naive.

Here are some of the lessons I’ve learnt from the Boomers and the University of Life. Some may seem clichéd – my experience has taught me that all are valid.

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Policing ourselves

This week I received two emails – I get many in a day, but these two stand out because they reflect the phenomenal power of the internet and the connective economy; one in a positive way, and the other in a very dangerous way.

The first one was the ICE message – for those that have not received it – ICE – In Case of Emergency – is a “name� that it is suggested you load onto you mobile phone with a number of next-of-kin and should anything happen (bombs, accidents the like – very topical in the UK as you can imagine) the rescue teams will be able to contact next of kin quickly and easily. The other was an email of an email/letter that was supposedly written by Moeletsi Mbeki to Bob Geldof about the ills of Africa and the corruptness of the African Governments (and the wasted effort of Live 8). I am not going to go into the debate of whether the original author was correct in his (or her) argument or not as this is not the appropriate forum, however what distressed me was two fold. Having just read an article by Moeletsi Mbeki in the Sunday Times magazine, I am pretty confident that the author of the email was not Mr Mbeki. Sending inflammatory comments such as those held in that email perpetuate the negative perception that the world has of a continent that is actually moving forward despite all the odds against it. It also finds itself sent all over the world when the opening lines are “letter by Moeletsi Mbeki brother of Thabo Mbeki, the South African President, to Bob Geldof re Live 8�

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Happy Birthday Blogging Tom

Tom Peters has just celebrated his sites first birthday. He sums up the power of blogging and the blogging community very well. Check it out on http://www.tompeters.com/.

How are you selling your business?

In the past few weeks I’ve been grappling with the single biggest weakness I have in my personal business “toolboxâ€? – SELLING. I can write you the strategy, I can tell you what buttons to push, I can put together a marketing strategy that will sell ice to Eskimos, but I would rather go jobless than pick up the phone and call someone “coldâ€? to sell them my business’ services – which may be the reason that I never really could hack it as a network marketer. It is not that I have a lack of confidence in my ability to do the work, to the contrary, I know that I am very good at what I do, and for the most part, work tends to be coming to me these day, so what is it that makes selling services and products so difficult?

I get 5-10 phone calls a week at home trying to sell me double glazing, kitchen units, electricity etc. I don’t think I need any of those products, in fact I am pretty sure I don’t need any of those products, so the calls are a nuisance and I tend to start my phone calls after 7pm with “if you are selling something I am not interested�. At work I get companies phoning me to try and get business – recruitment agents trying to dig around and find out it there is work for them and who the competition is, stationary suppliers offering to take you out to lunch, software providers and consultants hoping you will switch products etc. It all makes for some nice lunches, a few trips to the theatre, and some mighty fine Christmas presents, but none of that adds value to my business, and quite frankly, mostly it makes me uncomfortable – I feel almost guilty for wanting to fob them off and become resentful of their phone calls for making me feel this way. So what are these people doing wrong, do I really not need their services or are they missing the mark when it comes to selling me their services and how does this influence my own sales pitch?

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Trying to catch a train

I have been meaning to write this blog since Friday, in fact it has bothered me constantly that I have not yet written it, esp when I see the volume of pieces that Graeme churns out, so I am making the assumption that he does not ascribe to the belief that we need sleep to function normally. Perhaps that is a paradigm shift I need to make.

A number of things caught my attention on Friday. It started with a brainstorming session in the office on new business. Then I rushed off to catch a train to London to meet someone. I was hot and bothered and so were half of Woking as we queued behind the only ticket office that was open on one of the busiest routes in England. Standing around were ticket inspectors – 3 to be exact, waiting to check our tickets, but with only one very slow counter and no machines working, they were really just standing around.

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