You want more sales? Then fire the Andy Murrays and hire the Rory McIlroys!

In most sporting competition there is little to choose between the top competitors in terms of physical strength, athleticism and indeed inherent talent. The difference between winners and losers often lies in their personal ability to cope with the mental stresses generated by four rounds of golf in a Major tournament or four sets of tennis in a Wimbledon semi-final.

Rory McIlroy’s disastrous collapse in the final round of the Masters at Augusta was interpreted by many as an inability to handle the pressure. While desperately disappointed however, Rory didn’t see it that way and his upbeat never-say-die post-tournament responses won him the admiration of all.

Rory learned. Rory stayed calm and resolute. Rory’s attitude was mature and he went on to win the US Open by a mile.

By contrast, after a tremendous run in Wimbledon Andy Murray was comprehensively defeated – again – by Rafael Nadal. When, after winning the first set, the match started going against him he openly demonstrated a tantrum-led grimacing attitude that was only surpassed by the ungracious surliness of his post-match negative body language and downbeat comments.

Andy repeated the attitudinal mistakes of the past. Andy ranted. Andy’s attitude was juvenile and was a dead giveaway to Nadal – and indeed future opponents - that he was rattled and would crack.

In most business competition there is little to choose between competing companies in terms of product or pricing or service. The difference between winners and losers often lies in the upbeat never-say-die reactions of your sales people and their ability to bounce back from disappointment and go on to make the next big sale with a positive, calm and resolute attitude. Hire Rory; Fire Andy!

BP and Obama – playing the demonisation game

Yes we can!

I shared the world’s excitement at Barack Obama’s accession to the position of “most powerful man in the world”. I like his firm but inclusive and tolerant tone. Whatever the difficulties and trials of his presidency, I feel that overall he will do much good and in due time there is a strong chance that history will judge him well. I really hope so.

Or can we?

Recently however, he has disappointed me by demonstrating that for the sake of populism, even the leading statesman of our time can sink to tactics of demonisation worthy of the redtop press.

When a person or organisation such as BP, or indeed an industry such as banking, is being tagged as “evil” by strident, aggressive accusers, look carefully behind the rhetoric for the real issue from which they are trying to divert your attention or for other underlying motives. Barack Obama’s hammering of BP and demonisation of Tony Hayward raises my suspicions.

What is the president really after?

I have a feeling that demonising hyperbole has a close correlation with the demoniser’s own insecurity, guilt or evading of personal responsibilities. While it may appeal to the rabble and buy a few short term votes or serve another devious smoke-screening purpose, in the long run it only undermines the credibility of the accuser. It seldom stands the test of rational appraisal. Barack, what are you up to?

BP and mistakes

BP made mistakes in the Gulf. Companies and people make mistakes every day. You make mistakes, I make mistakes, property developers, bankers, politicians and even presidents make mistakes, but to turn BP or any of us into public enemy number one is generally way off the mark in terms of fairness or truth. BP is no more or less evil than Exxon; banks, bankers and indeed property developers are no more or less evil than the general populace. Demonisation serves no worthy purpose.

Demonisation and you

In the cut and thrust of your business, by all means argue, by all means criticise where necessary - but never demonise your opponent. As an example, in these cash-strapped times many business owners are unable to raise finance and demonising the banks has been a frequent response. It won’t get you a loan and you are using your intellect and effort in a fruitless unprofitable rant that shows you up in a poor light.

Rational dialogue

Instead, whatever your negotiation, whether with a bank, supplier, customer or competitor, take a rational approach using the following pointers and explore the opportunities in a measured dialogue. Be the calming influence.

• Of paramount importance, be aware of how your own past behaviour and circumstance may have contributed to the present state of things,

• build confidence on a basis of respect. You are not the only righteous party

• take a long view – you have to work with these people in the future,

• recognise your counterpart’s own pressures and try to address their problems while solving yours,

• focus on building a partner relationship to solve your problem

Confrontation or coalition

In his demonising response to the tragic oil spill in the Gulf, Barack Obama failed BP – and himself - on all these vital points and in due course it could cost him dearly. No matter how strong the temptation, don’t take the same futile demonising response to the business crises that may hit you in these volatile times. Stay rational.

And a word of hope

It is of course early days, but in Britain we are seeing coalition at work between political parties who not so long ago were demonising one another.

As with Barack Obama, whatever the difficulties and trials of their term, I feel that overall they will do much good and in due time there is a strong chance that history will judge them well. I really hope so.

Passionately play to your strengths – Don’t obsess on your weaknesses

Recession biteback 2

Grumpy old Will’s first recommendation in coping with the recession was to encourage imitation, not innovation. Suggestion number 2 is to play passionately to your strengths and broadly ignore your weaknesses.

Feedback

Regular feedback from colleagues, whether informal or in 360 appraisals, can be generally helpful in improving individual performance, but if the results are handled wrongly the process also carries serious dangers.

Reaction

Chief of these is the intuitive and tempting kneejerk reaction to listen to well-meaning advice - perhaps even instruction from your boss - to focus on improving your areas of weakness. But this course is not the way to bite back against recession.

Strengths and weaknesses

By the time we reach mature adulthood, whether through nature, nurture or environmental circumstance, most of us have developed a couple of real strengths or things that we are “very good at”. These distinctive competences are likely to have taken us to whatever is our current level of success; and yes, all of us also have weaknesses which we should certainly acknowledge.

Performance improvement

However, the generally pervasive focus on improving performance by dealing with weaknesses, while helpful to some degree in bringing you up to a level of homogeneous comparability with the struggling masses, never ever produces the marked differentiations and uniquely valuable capabilities that you can attain by enhancing your existing strong points.

Specialise

Don’t aspire to be goodish at everything. There are folks who are highly talented in the areas where you are weak. Leave them to it. Move on and lift yourself out of the pool of satisficing mediocrity by cultivating your distinctive performance strengths.

The way ahead

Aspire, achieve, deliver, study, learn, invest and specialise in your own strongest expert areas. Your boss and colleagues don’t know better this time. Bite back. Stand out from the crowd. Be better – at something! Be yourself and be different.

Recession bite-back - Imitation, not Innovation. Copy, copy, copy

Grumpy old Will is on a mission - the next few blogs are all about recession bite-back through positive action.

First, the gloom

Fall-out from the credit crunch has shaken the economies of formerly strong nations and severely curtailed the confidence and future-view of businesses and citizens around the world. In America and Europe, hundreds of thousands of failed companies and millions of unemployed people are at the sharp end of a universal feeling of gloom.

The reality

Taxes are rising ominously, public services are in line for severe cuts, credit remains tight and the optimism generated by pre-crash years of growth has almost completely evaporated. Individual incomes, living standards and company profits are being savaged. Here in Ireland the recent NAMA announcements demonstrate the truly shocking state of the economy and the years of struggle that lie ahead.

The threat to each one of us

In order to survive, our early ancestors dealt with severe physical threat either by flight or hiding. Fight was the last resort and in that savage environment was seldom successful. The cornered animal will fight back, even against all odds, but will only do so when the other options are unavailable.

Today we all face severe economic threat; as individuals it is here for us in the form of falling living standards; as business executives, managers or employees it is here in the insecure future of our organisations, large or small, public sector or private sector.

Where do we go from here?

The reality is that, in the face of the all-pervading threat, our options for flight or concealement are quite limited. And with the boundless opportunities available to us due to the current massive changes in consumer attitudes worldwide, to hide or run away are pretty spineless responses. So, bite-back and fight!

Now is the time to bite back. And bite back with cool, calculated, aggressive offensives.

Innovation myopia

My first focus subject for bite-back is imitation. Yes, imitation, not innovation. Innovation is rightly being heavily promoted by governments and economic development agencies in the West, but it is being encouraged by these well-meaning cheer-leaders in a form that will lead more to bankruptcies and disappointment than to value-creating activity. Oded Shenkar at Ohio State University says that "Imitation is more valuable than Innovation" and I wholeheartedly agree with him.

Clear-sighted imitation

We need a clear understanding of what innovation for tough times really means in the context of personal, corporate and organisational recovery.

The expensive idealised blue-sky R&D that hopefully produces the next big breakthrough, however worthy, takes far too long and is far too costly.

Much more effective is the thorough, disciplined search for imitative, productive, differentiating change, from the smallest adjustment right up to reinvented business models. In the context of scarce resources it is less rewarding to focus on cash-consuming product innovation breakthroughs than to invest effort in incremental imitative development.

Stigma

Innovation is seen as an honourable positive activity at a polar opposite to imitation, which is stigmatised as somehow unworthy, second-class and an approach taken by unoriginal thinkers. But innovation and imitation are not polar opposites - they are close cousins. Research shows that over 90% of the value generated by innovations is captured not by the innovators but by the despised and reviled copycats.

Scientific research on imitation

Early science regarded imitation as a low-level activity generally associated with child-like or animalistic characteristics. Later experimentation discovered it to be a complex, demanding process requiring a high level of intelligence; in the 1960's Ted Levitt of the Harvard Business School was an advocate of imitation's strategic use as a business discipline on a par with its close relative, innovation.

Mindset

The mindset that largely ignored Levitt's sage advice fifty years ago still exists today. And this applies to individuals as well as organisations. I know of "Directors of innovation" but I have never heard of a "Director of imitation". I have attended many seminars on innovation but I have never encountered a conference on imitation.

Have a rethink; stop trying to innovate your way to improvement and enrichment. Imitate. Bin your innovation strategy and spend your time and money on an imitation strategy.

Copy, copy, copy

Look for existing activities and approaches that work. Tweak and copy. Look at other situations and industries and take what works there for your own use. Copy, copy, copy. Yes, it was wrong at school and you were punished if you did it. But imitation is not stealing. Get down from that ill-informed high faux-moral stance and get real about biting back.

Of course do not infringe patents or steal intellectual property, but that is not much of a restriction as most products, processes, practices and ideas are not protected in any way.

Copy, copy, copy won't win you any awards, but you will bite back at the recession with a strategic response that gives you and your business a much better chance of future success.

War of Attrition meets War of Aggression

War of Attrition

Michael O'Leary's great Cheltenham performer is set to star on the big stage again at this year's festival. While facing stiff competition and the weakness of advancing age, War of Attrition has delivered in the past and has little left to prove.

As they return from meeting with President Obama on St Patrick's Day, the name of this superb horse is a reminder to the First Ministers in Northern Ireland of the short-term and longer-term pressures they will face in reviving our structurally untenable, long-neglected and currently weakening economy.

Devolution

To the relief of most citizens, the Hillsborough agreement is fully in place and "normal" politics can begin to operate in this region for the benefit of all its people.

That is, the politicians - all of them - must now take responsibility and address the true economic realities facing Northern Ireland.

The War of Attrition against the economic wellbeing of the population arguably started with the havoc of the Troubles. While structural effects have since been repaired and the reputational damage is fading, the legacy is an unbalanced, dependent, essentially insolvent economy with a relatively weak private sector.

Denial

Up to now, despite repeated warnings by economists and commentators, politicians and people have either occupied themselves by focusing on partisan political posturing or thanks to the credit, property and retail boom, underpinned by seemingly reckless government generosity, deluded themselves that life would continue to be financially OK.

But while these delusional diversions should be all over now, denial is still widespread and evident throughout our society. The war of attrition still threatens.

War of Aggression

There is an urgent need to create a completely new paradigm for action to meet this war of attrition facing our economy. Our current approaches, including the Barnett report even if it were fully implemented, only scratch the surface.

The war is real and demands a War of Aggression in response. The First Ministers must give a lead.

Betting

100/1 against the First Ministers and Executive leading the creation of a new War of Aggression initiative.

200/1 against an initiative reaching a conclusion within 2010.

300/1 against a material initiative being implemented by 2012

400/1 against "War of Aggression" ever happening

Sadly, on past form War of Attrition looks like the bet!