Tag Archives: leadership

Start sweating your own assets

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Stoker

If you want to make progress and hit goals in life or business, you’ve got to work hard. This post is about being more focussed than just doing more of the same and expecting better results and it is geared towards making more of ourselves and operating more effectively within the rapidly changing world we live in today. Under each of the headings – points I see as important on any journey where you are looking to improve – I’ve listed a few points of relevance that should be helpful to consider. 

Make more money – 

  • Get performance related pay and then perform
  • Improve your skills
  • Stop adding and start multiplying
  • Change company for a big rise

Manage people – 

  • Know what you need to achieve yourself
  • Set expectations from the start
  • Listen hard and proactively – get all of the facts
  • Acknowledge people’s feelings – they play a big part in daily work
  • Get solutions from those with problems
  • Stay calm and keep a sense of humour

Communicate effectively – 

  • Tell it like it is
  • Listen before you think before you speak
  • Keep your message consistent
  • If it really matters, do it face to face.
  • Encourage feedback and act on it

Be relaxed about stress –

  • Stick to your own agenda
  • Don’t do it if it’s not necessary
  • Simplify everything you do
  • Be happy to say no thank you

Lead from the front –

  • Work harder than anyone else
  • Set the example
  • Keep your problems to yourself
  • Tell the team what you expect from them
  • Listen to the team and respect their skills
  • Explain clearly what you expect and ensure it happens

Be more efficient – 

  • Start work earlier
  • Work in small chucks
  • Put time for you to think in your diary
  • Write the agenda and stick to it
  • Plan today and act tomorrow

Motivate your team – 

  • Incentivise everyone
  • Be tough when necessary
  • Train people properly
  • Listen to the team and get to know them
  • Give them space and let them get on with it

Impress your boss – 

  • Help them meet their key objectives
  • Give them solutions not problems
  • Listen to them and ask for the benefit of their experience
  • Get promoted above them

Stay a decent person –

  • Listen
  • Be generous with your time and talents
  • Don’t hurt other people
  • Say thank you
  • Give as much as you take 
  • Keep your conscience clear

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Ian Mountford is a Strategy Coach providing motivation and guidance to entrepreneurs, wannabe or fully-fledged. He draws from his own experience of building businesses from the ground up and spending many years helping clients to consistently achieve their goals and aspirations. Ian works with clients face-to-face and internationally.

Hiring advice from Ogilvy

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david-ogilvy

A quick list for you from the King of Madison Avenue:

“The qualifications I look for in our leaders are these:

1 – High standards of personal ethics.

2 – Big people, without prettiness.

3 – Guts under pressure, resilience in defeat.

4 – Brilliant brains – not safe plodders.

5 – A capacity for hard work and midnight oil.

6 – Charisma – charm and persuasiveness.

7 – A streak of unorthodoxy – creative innovators.

8 – The courage to make tough decisions.

9 – Inspiring enthusiasts – with thrust and guts.

10 – A sense of humour.”

All of these are highly prized commodities in the workplace and something I spend a lot of time looking for in people. Sadly the package is not found in all that many but those that do possess it are rare birds who fly very, very high.

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Ian Mountford is a Strategy Coach providing motivation and guidance to entrepreneurs, wannabe or fully-fledged. He draws from his own experience of building businesses from the ground up and spending many years helping clients to consistently achieve their goals and aspirations. Ian works with clients face-to-face and internationally.

Pursuing growth

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image

Making things happen in business and getting ideas off the ground is something that takes courage, effort and a decent level of ability no matter what you are doing. But pursuing and actually achieving growth is another step requiring a few different skills.
I attended a dinner this week where creative agency leaders discussed how to get more business from existing clients as one method and the ideas generated were very interesting. The talk was led by Louisa Pau – built and ran her own creative agency with a partner and sold it a few years back – and her insights were extremely useful.
The first was to create the actual/notional role of Head of Retention – this is a role that anyone can take but be sure that someone fulfills the requirement and delivers the goods in this area. Client visits, listening to their needs and ensuring that the basic question – can we help you in any other areas? – is always asked.
The importance of positive marketing messages and attention to detail in this area came next. Does your own website match those that you produce for your clients? Maybe not in the case of all creative agencies and in the rush to deliver this can often be forgotten – be sure to get it up to scratch.
And finally, construct contracts that consider not only the financial terms but the terms of the overall relationship with your client. Keep these updated regularly and it will keep you front of mind when new projects are on the table.

Rio’s real problems

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Have just taken @ninianna back to the airport via bus for her journey back to the UK, and travelled very close to some of the favelas that cover large parts of central Rio. These sprawling areas of basically slum residences where those under the poverty line have their homes are controlled in most cases by drug gangs, and the only rules that seem to matter are the ones set by them – law enforcers stay well clear. The film ‘City of God’ is set in one of the Rio favelas and if you haven’t seen it and are interested in this kind of thing be sure to check it out.

What I find hard is the City of Rio has done nothing to reduce the levels of abject poverty suffered by people living in these conditions. The homes in some cases have no windows or doors, and large numbers of a family live together in cramped spaces. There is obviously a strong, almost tribal, sense of community in these areas, but the conditions are not good. There are many deaths each year due to gang violence and the numbers are deaths are huge. I have heard that there are more killed in the favelas per year than there are in officially designated war zones! This is an incredible statistic to consider. So why is nothing done about this?

Most of the tourism sites in Rio are owned and run by the state, so all the income they generate is fed into the public sector. There is also a large amount of foreign investment, bringing with it significant tax income. But where is the expenditure on helping those in need in the city? I left with the feeling that the city has given up on those at the bottom of the pile. They should be doing A LOT more than they are. I heard of plans to build huge walls to keep the people of the streets away from the big Olympic and World Cup venues when these arrive in a few years time. What sort of a solution is this? A completely irresponsible one.

Another example of poor leadership, politics gone bad, a society in need and at breaking point, and no true, deep, long-lasting and sustainable solution in sight. There is a chance for someone to stand up and make a massive difference here. Break the stranglehold of the political puppets. I’m no expert on politics or the way that these things are done but I do know that in Rio it is desperately needed.

(written Tues 28 Sep 2010)