Archive for the ‘Motivation’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Are you ready to Leapfrog?

January 28, 2013

Can you Leapfrog - Fuzion PRAccording to Wikipedia “Leapfrog” is a children’s game in which players vault over each others stooped backs.

I’m not sure about you but I certainly played it loads of times as a kid!

In Fuzion, Leapfrog is a real business game where you try to identify something you can do or some move you can make that will help your business jump to another level or even better to a new place.

Apple is a great example of this with iTunes or the iPhone.

At times progress can be small and steady and sometimes hardly noticeable – maybe at your next management meeting think hard and spend time with your team looking for that thing that will help you Leapfrog your competition or take you somewhere totally new.

Is it time to start leapfrogging?

Greg Canty is a partner in Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Cork and Dublin

Tags:, ,
Posted in Business Planning, Marketing, Motivation, Positivity | Leave a Comment »

Lance, Flawed hero and the Power of “Sorry”

January 20, 2013

Lance Armstrong“I’m sorry for what I have done” said Lance as he glanced across at Oprah with those steely eyes.

It was the most fascinating interview and you may not have have liked what was he was saying but he did come across as being honest..even to the point of admitting that he was and probably still is a “jerk“.

It’s hard to know how to feel about the whole episode – I had a big discussion with my son Brendan, about the whole thing.

He totally disagrees with me!

I’ve got a simple view of Lance Armstrong ..

The Sportsman

I reckon anyone who is at the very top of their game must be extremely driven and obsessive about what they do ..it could be soccer (Roy Keane, a typical example), ballet, politics, writing, anything. If you are not obsessive you just won’t be at the very top.

Lance Armstrong who admitted he operated a  “Win at all Costs” mentality rose to the pinnacle of a sport that has been riddled with drugs and illegal practices for as long as I can remember.

Did the authorities that run professional cycling allow an environment and culture that made these illegal practices possible?

My simple question here is – did Lance practice harder and do drugs better and more effectively than all of the other cyclists? 

The Cancer Survivor

Lance Armstrong - Cancer SurvivorHe beat the odds against cancer and once again he became a winner.

He even managed to commercialise his story and the cancer journey by capturing it in books that inspired people all over the world with his “don’t give up, win” mentality.

More than once I have heard people quote his book as helping them through tough and very dark times (just last week, Chris Donoghue, Newstalk presenter)

The Charity

Livestrong FoundationUsing the power of his iconic status he formed the Livestrong Foundation charity raising money for cancer research and once again inspiring sick people the world over with his drive and inspiration.

The Cheat, the Liar and the Betrayal

We all know at this stage how much he cheated (it’s not right, but were they all at it?) and we know what a great and convincing liar (over and over he did this) he is.

The very worst of all was how he betrayed close friends, colleagues and team mates and in many cases tried to destroy them professionally and personally to protect the huge Lance Armstrong brand that he had built. He even went as far as suing people who were telling the truth just to protect himself.

This part is truly unforgivable and despicable – I really don’t know how anyone could do this.

Maybe the brand was so big and invincible that no one could handle it? Could he handle it?

Lance Armstrong is an incredibly driven individual who scaled huge heights, achieved incredible feats and managed to do a lot of good but he is incredibly flawed and is guilty of doing some terrible things.

The Power of Sorry

Lance Armstrong & Oprah

I’m Sorry …

The great thing about having a public profile (the Sean Quinn interview with Vincent Browne comes to mind) is that you will always have an audience for “sorry” – in Lance’s case he was able to have the largest possible audience with Oprah.

He said “sorry” and it gave him an opportunity to connect with a huge audience. I watched it and I did empathise with him.

Not everyone will forgive him but many will …some other viewers might just soften their attitude towards him a little.

There is huge power in the word “sorry” – always use it..

Lance Armstrong, the flawed hero – have we seen the last of him? I doubt it!

Sorry!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion with offer Crisis PR services for clients from our offices in Dublin and Cork.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Charities, Crisis PR, Motivation, Personal development, PR | 4 Comments »

Exceptional Choices

January 13, 2013

Bridge in BallincolligAs usual we headed off for our early Sunday morning walk with the four legged one.

Just around the corner from our house we passed a hard working volunteer from the Ballincollig Tidy Town Committee who was busy, head down engrossed in the job of picking up bits of rubbish from the side of the road.

This always amazes me …this man and all the other dedicated volunteers get up on a Sunday morning and they pick up rubbish that other people have left behind.

“Well done” I say to him, just to acknowledge that I think what he is doing is great.

I can’t get my head around the exceptionally great and selfless choice that these people make every Sunday.

CouchWe continue our walk and take a route that runs alongside the river.

Just as we are walking over a gorgeous old bridge I notice an old couch that someone has just thrown over the wall. On closer inspection I notice that an old TV is on the ground next to the couch!

Can you get your head around how anyone could make such an exceptionally selfish and awful choice to just dump something in such a gorgeous spot, how someone could dump their stuff anywhere. How could they?

Why is it that the exceptional choices by great people are needed just to deal with the exceptionally bad choices of others.

Imagine how special our world would be if all exceptional choices were great ones..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Motivation, Personal development, Tourism | 2 Comments »

Bill and the New Year’s Resolution

December 31, 2012

sunriseBill is married to my cousin Theresa and they live in New Jersey with their three children.

In truth I don’t really know them that well as they live in the United States, but my cousin is a really good and kind person – she has always been that way, ever since we were young, when we did actually see more of each other. At most I’ve met Bill about three or four times.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few weeks thinking about my plans for the new year and some of the targets or goals that I will set for myself. I believe it’s really important to have a clear focus.

I use a little visualisation trick, which helps me along the process and crystallises some of my ideas that in some ways become my New Year’s Resolutions.

My visualisation trick is to write a diary post for the end of the next year “I had a Great year because …..” .

I simply list out all of the things that will make the next year a great one and during the year I will keep checking back on my list to see how I am progressing.

I don’t have this task completed yet but as I mentioned already, I’ve been thinking about it for a few weeks – as usual its going to be a list full of ambitious work “stuff”, which seems to be my total preoccupation these days.

Let’s face it –  you dare not take your eye off your work priorities for one single minute.

Bill passed away this morning after a long battle with cancer. Theresa and their three children were by his side.

I need to rethink some of the things on my list ….

Bill – Rest in Peace

Greg 

Posted in Family, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity | 15 Comments »

I had a Great 2013 because ….

December 18, 2012
Diary entry

I has a Great 2013 because ….

Well – how did you do?

Did you achieve what you set out to achieve in 2012?

Did you make ambitious plans and fall short of them or did you make any plans at all? – If you did, well done!

I don’t know about you but making plans and actually achieving them is always challenging and at the start of the year I find myself at the start of that loop all over again making promises than often will never materialise!

A few years ago I wanted it to be a little bit different and I had my own creative and quite practical idea, which was inspired by a book I read called “The Art of Possibility” by Benjamin and Rosamund Zander (a really interesting motivational book by the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and his wife who is an executive coach).

This idea is rooted in the power of visualisation – the principle behind this is that if you visualise what you want to achieve then there is a much better chance of it actually happening (unbelievers ….stop reading now !!)

Here goes ..

Take a pen and paper and simply write your diary entry in advance for your last working day of the year to come..

Imagine just before you switch off the lights in the office, before you head out the door to do some last minute shopping and enjoy a well-earned rest, you quietly write your diary entry.

It might go like this..

23rd December, 2013

Wow, that was some exciting and really fulfilling year!

It was a great year because I really achieved what I set out to both personally and professionally and even more besides because of those opportunities that cropped up that I wasn’t even expecting. At least I had my eyes open and when they occurred I spotted them and grabbed them.

I started the year with a few really clear goals including (go for it, be specific – list at least 5!)

I thought these goals were going to be really challenging, but I achieved these as I made a few important changes in my life that were necessary such as (be honest – what needs to happen for you to achieve those goals – your conditions for success).

It wasn’t all plain sailing and I had a few setbacks but I kept a clear focus on my goals, I kept a positive outlook and by digging deep and having a clear belief in myself and my abilities I managed to achieve them all in the end.

I’m glad I kept a positive outlook and kept my eyes open for those genuinely unique opportunities, which I know will only present themselves in this challenging economic climate – it made a huge difference to my business this year, which I wasn’t expecting.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,  2013 – Bring it On!

Your signature (make sure you do this)

Put this in an envelope, place it in your top drawer and have a peep at it on the first day of every month (set a reminder in your computer to do this) and see what happens.

We did this with our full team at the end of 2010 and 2011 and I can tell you it worked out quite well, thank you very much!

We will do it again this time round – I’ll let you know how we got on in about 12 months’ time.

By the way I’ve just spent a year driving a really nice new car – guess what was on my list at the start of 2011!

…what are you waiting for?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Tags:, ,
Posted in Ireland, Motivation, Personal development, Teamwork | 2 Comments »

Last work day before Christmas..

November 30, 2012

turning off lightsYou know that feeling on the last work day of the year  – you’ve worked hard and you are finishing off those last few bits before you shut off your computer, tun off the lights and head home for a well earned break after a tough slog of a year.

With a few weeks left in the year it’s natural to start easing off, it’s job nearly done and after all everyone is thinking about Christmas – we find ourselves switching down the gears and cruising till the end of year ….

STOP!! ….there’s good business still to be done, get onto people’s radar now, for next year so you can hit the ground running when it comes to January – picture how good you will feel turning off those lights after a productive few weeks –  now you can really go and enjoy your Christmas Break ..

Make the list of what you want to achieve before the break kicks in and get cracking!

Lights out ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Cork and Dublin

Tags:,
Posted in Marketing, Motivation, Positivity | 13 Comments »

Are you having meetings about meetings?

November 12, 2012
Meetings about Meetings

Another meeting ….

I remember sitting in a senior managers meeting getting all stressed out worrying about sales performance – the trend, annualised was worth a fortune to the company but I seemed to be the only one at the meeting getting all worked up!

Why was no one else getting as bothered as I was? They all seemed to be focused on some other issue that just didn’t seem as important to me. Let’s arrange a meeting to discuss this before our next meeting .. Oh my God!

This was Guinness, this was big business and it was management at the very highest level where the stakes were huge – what was I missing?

I had joined from a subsidiary company of Guinness in Cork called Deasy’s – we manufactured our own (quite profitable) soft drinks and distributed beer and soft drinks from the major manufacturers including Guinness. I had moved from the role of Financial Controller to General Manager, I had a lot of autonomy and now I found myself working in St.James Gate for Guinness as part of a large team.

My practical, work hard, do the (what I thought was) right thing, straight forward, no nonsense approach just didn’t seem to be cutting it at this level – in truth, I was struggling and getting very frustrated. I was starting to learn about the concept of meetings about meetings about meetings for the first time and it was driving me bonkers!!

The other thing I started to learn about was life in a large organisation and corporate “politics” and how these high stake personal power games were played out – as I said I was struggling with my very limited tool kit. At this stage in my career I needed to learn other skills to survive and thrive.

One of my big questions was how could these huge organisations succeed with such high stakes where potentially destructive personal politics could dominate and interfere with good constructive, positive work on an ongoing basis?

After three years of working with Guinness I figured out that “Success” happens in big organisations when “agendas” align.

A Senior Manager has a list of items that if he or she achieves them they will make them look good and advance their “personal” journey in the organisation. The Business has a list of items that are a priority and if these are achieved it will be successful. When the managers list and the business list align you get magic and progress is made – often this may not happen enough!

For a long time I thought that a corporate career was for me – I discovered I was wrong! Guinness was a great place to work, I made great friends in my time there, I learnt a huge amount but ultimately meetings about meetings was not for me ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

Tags:, ,
Posted in Motivation, Personal development, Teamwork | 11 Comments »

Chasing “Your” Dreams

November 11, 2012
Chasing Dreams

Chase “your” dreams

A few months ago I found myself having a coffee in town on a Saturday morning chatting with an old school buddy who I hadn’t see in thirty years. We had connected on LinkedIn and it was as if those thirty years had disappeared in a flash.

I always thought he was “sound”, one of the good guys and in truth not a whole pile had changed – both of us had done a lot of living in between but we were essentially the same two school mates – we had a good laugh recalling stories about our teachers and football matches we had played in. I had a photo of our “winning” team in some school tournament and there we were the two of us in our red kit!

Both of us have done well in our varied careers and he was in the early stages of a new online project – by the end of the conversation he asked if I wanted to come on board with the project utilising our expertise on some type of a shareholding arrangement. In a few years the plan was to sell the business and we would all make good money. Hmmm ….sounded good.

After this me met a few times and got down to business and delved into the nitty gritty of his project and our involvement in it.

While his project was really interesting to my surprise I found myself not being as enthusiastic as he was about it. Why was this I was asking myself?

Like every great “driver” he was pushing me for our plans and input. I did this of course but I discovered his project wasn’t my No.1 priority. My clients and our own projects motivate me and this project just wasn’t having the impact that I was expecting.

It wasn’t a client and it wasn’t “my” project.

My buddy needs more than 1,000% from me and everyone else involved in the project for it to be a success. I realise this more than anyone.

Before we damaged our friendship we gracefully concluded our arrangement and that was cool with both of us. We’ll meet again for coffee soon – probably in about another 30 years!

It’s important that we spend our time chasing our own dreams.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

Tags:, ,
Posted in Business Start Ups, Motivation, Personal development | 11 Comments »

Looking after the triangle?

September 9, 2012

Skyscraper workers

He was a really great sales rep working for Guinness out of their Cork office. He had been in the job for a number of years, was very efficient, very intelligent, very successful and was quite popular with his customers.

He was a great asset to the company with his knowledge of the local area, which was a big deal to Guinness as it was very competitive with both Murphy Brewery and Beamish and Crawford located in the city. In his role he would have had a lot of liaison with the various brand teams in Guinness.

This was probably the most competitive patch for Guinness in all of the country. The sales structure in Guinness consisted of sales reps, there were nine regional managers, three divisional managers with an overall Commercial sales director.

As he was highly rated a lot of pressure was being put on him to look for a promotion and move up the corporate ladder. Any promotion would have probably meant a change of location. To most of the team this promotion opportunity, with more seniority, more perks and a bigger pay packet would have been a godsend – our guy had no interest, he was happy in Cork and loved what he was doing.

When this rep’s name came up in conversation in management circles there was always a sense of a “black mark” and a little cloud of disappointment against him because he wasn’t seen as being ambitious enough.

My Triangle Theory!

Triangle Theory

At the widest point of the triangle there are lots of workers. Some of these are ambitious and push themselves up the triangle into more senior jobs with more responsibility.

Above them are even more senior managers and the business owners – at the very top of the triangle there are a select few who earn the big money, are adept at corporate politics and can handle the responsibility and pressure at this level.

Often these guys and gals will have sold themselves for the job, made the big personal sacrifices, possibly relocating themselves and their families and made work their ultimate priority.

For the triangle to work best we need satisfied, happy people at each level – for those who want to push upwards there are opportunities and for those who are happy with their lot they can stay doing what they hopefully enjoy doing.

Isn’t it better having lots of happy sales reps than a bunch of unhappy sales managers?

Sometimes you have to let the Triangle look after itself …

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing & PR firm with offices in Cork and Dublin

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Business Planning, HR, Motivation, Personal development, Recruitment, Staff training, Training, Uncategorized | 8 Comments »

Ray of Sunshine

September 7, 2012
Vision Express - Search for a Star Pupil

It’s all go !!

Our Dublin troop weren’t available so I found myself and Dee on a Saturday morning at 6 am with the car pointed in the direction of Belfast!

Our job was to oversee a clever Vision Express initiative at their store in Belfast – basically Vision Express were searching for a “Star Pupil“, a kid with a sense of style, bags of attitude and someone that was a star pupil in school.

We knew it was going to be a long, long day – after our “spin” to Belfast from Cork we had the initiative to oversee from 10am till 5pm.  The brief was to find 60 willing kids (with their parents permission of course) who would pose for pictures with a professional photographer and then answer a few questions. The kids had to be between the ages of 3 and 15.

With the help of a great promotional girl we had to grab up to 60 kids at the shopping centre, get their parents consent and then pass them to the photographer who had to do his best to encourage them to pose for photos wearing either their own glasses or some really cool ones that we had on display. Glasses have changed!

Once they were finished with the photos they had to choose their favourite (tough job!), which was then printed for them to take away. While helping them to choose their photos I had to ask them a few questions to discover their attitude about glasses and to find out some stand out moment from school.

Kids are great …. we had shy ones, bubbly ones and very honest ones!  “What was your proudest moment in school?” I would ask. Let’s put the question a different way “What day in school did you really feel good about yourself?” Some would look at you as they contemplated this question as if I had two heads !!

“The day we get our holidays” …. I must admit, good answer!

We did also hear about how proud they were on their first day at school, when they were made class prefect, when they helped a friend who fell in the school yard, when they were awarded the most improved child, when they did well at the sports day ….some great kids, all kids are great – it was fun, but it was tiring.

I was astounded at their attitudes about people who wear glasses – for many they are  now a “cool” fashion accessory and even those who don’t need glasses wanted to wear them.

Things have definitely moved on so far from when I was at school!

India - Ray of Sunshine After a few hours of standing in the shopping centre on a warm day my batteries were starting to flag and then I met the most special girl.

A concerned mother gently grabbed me by the arm and quietly whispered that her kid had a deformed (if I am using the wrong term I apologise) arm and hand that she was very self conscious of. She suggested that I might have a quiet word with the photographer.

I looked over at the girl being photographed and was surprised to see the most animated, confident and bubbly girl effortlessly moving from one great pose to another like an experienced model – surely this wasn’t the self conscious girl?

When I looked again I did notice one arm slightly shorter than the other and a hand that effectively had no fingers – no bother to this girl as she threw her arms in the air for some of her poses.

She bounced over to me, I’m guessing she was about 12.

“My name is …” – by a country mile she was the brightest and warmest kid I dealt with throughout the whole day. After she had chosen her pictures and answered the questions she helped her younger sisters through the same process. This kid was incredible, she had the most generous, fun spirit and there was the biggest ray of sunshine just beaming from her with every word and every smile.

Before I knew it I was home ..

Special girl.. thank you for the sunshine and making a long day so much shorter

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Motivation, Photography, Positivity, PR | Leave a Comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »