I bumped into a good buddy of mine, Pat Sweeney recently and we were exchanging various nuggets of wisdom (of course!) and he started chatting about some wise fella called Cicero, that he is very interested in and studies quite a bit.
Cicero used talk about six mistakes that mankind keeps making century after century. I was quite interested in what these mistakes were and when he was alive.
It turns out Marcus Tullius Cicero was 3rd January 106 BC and died on the 7th December 43 BC. He was a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul, and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and was widely considered to be one of Rome’s greatest orators and prose stylists.
He seems to have had an interesting life – following Julius Caesar’s death Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony in the ensuing power struggle, attacking him in a series of speeches. He was proscribed as an enemy of the state by the Second Triumvirate and was consequently executed by soldiers operating on their behalf in 43 BC. His severed hands and head were then, as a final revenge of Mark Antony, displayed in the Roman Forum!
The six mistakes he spoke about were:
Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others
Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected
Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it
Refusing to set aside trivial preferences
Neglecting development and refinement of the mind
Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do
I was checking through my emails this minute and I was looking at the e-tender notifications about new projects etc.
One particular post caught my attention, which concerns me, which annoys me, which makes we worry that we are taking certain agendas to a stupid extreme.
“The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Ireland, intends issuing a public tender in 2016 for the provision (by one single service provider) of a national development programme targeted at nascent female entrepreneurs in Irish rural areas”
Programmes that encourage entrepreneurship in rural areas is a fantastic idea.
Programmes that encourage entrepreneurship in any areas is a fantastic idea.
Programmes that promote female entrepreneurship specifically are wrong, silly, discriminatory and it strikes me that we are totally losing the run of ourselves with the gender equality agenda.
The fantastic women that I work with every day don’t need any special “pass”.
It was August, 1991 and Ellen, our second child was due. It was a busy time in work at that time of the year with my role as Financial Controller as I had to get all budgeting finalised for the following year. We were part of Guinness so it was a complex process.
I knew that when Ellen was born I wanted a little free time to enjoy the moment(s) and to be there to look after my son, Brendan who was two and a half at the time. I worked day and night and weekends leading up to that time so that when she was born there would be no issue and I could take a few days off.
Ellen was overdue and a date was set for her to be induced. I informed my boss, Charlie of the date and he wasn’t very pleased as he was planning a management meeting on that date!
What could I do?
The hospital had a gap in their scheduling and Ellen was induced a day earlier ….my beautiful daughter arrived on the 21st August!!
My childminding role kicked in for the next few days. Two days later I popped into the office to check a few things and I was stupidly expecting a round of “congratulations” from all of my workmates.
Instead I got a serious look from the Sales Manager..”You’re in trouble“. I was dumbfounded at what I heard.
“What the hell could I be in trouble for and by the way it was a girl!!” I responded.
It turns out that because Ellen was born a day earlier everyone reckoned I could and should have made the “crucial” management meeting. I grabbed Brendan and we left.
A day or two later I was back in work and was summoned to Charlie’s office ..I don’t think I even gave him a chance to open his mouth.
He got it full belt “I always put this stupid place first and this time you can well and truly f**k yourself as it is one time I am putting my family first” and stormed out. I don’t think we ever spoke about the incident again.
Two years ago in Fuzion we had our first ‘baby‘!
A few months before that one of our team announced that she was pregnant. While it was fantastic news for her and her husband, it did cause an issue for the business. She was a senior member of the team and now we had to plan about replacing her with a quality replacement.
She would be out for 6 months and she also planned on taking the extra two months. I also learnt that while she would be out she was entitled to holidays and bank holidays, so effectively she would be out for 9 months. This would be disruptive to the business as well as costing us – it was the most expensive baby I ever had!
This is life and our business had to make arrangements and cope but it did strike me that this ‘issue‘ was one that we had to solve with her. Where was the guy in this equation? Was his work disrupted or would it carry a cost for them?
Maybe she was more than happy to put her career on hold for a while and take off that precious time with her new baby but maybe she might have liked to share this gift with her husband? No one had a choice.
I imagined a different world where her husband announced to his boss that “they” were pregnant and that he was opting to take half of the parental leave. This is how it works in Denmark so it isn’t such a stretch.
I’m a dad and I’m a parent and I would have loved to have those precious days when Ellen was born back again to enjoy…maybe more than a few days?
This company has been around for a few generations and have done absolutely everything to survive the recent tough times,
They employ nearly 100 people and insist on manufacturing their products themselves in Ireland to preserve the quality control and the ability to provide the best solutions for their customers at all times.
They have their own retail outlets and also sell through some stockists.
They purchased a similar business overseas for the sole purpose of acquiring more potential volume so that production levels are kept up and the production facility remains viable.
One of the survival tactics like so many businesses during the recession was to cut back on overheads and cut out ‘unnecessary’ costs.
Of course the first to get the chop was the Marketing budget… advertising gone, sponsorships gone, exhibitions gone, customer evenings gone and PR gone.
Despite chopping these budgets the wheels didn’t fall off the business (well not immediately) – of course it didn’t as the business had a long established reputation, good recognition in the sector and a big collection of legacy customers who knew all about them.
A few months went by and the sales dropped, a few more months passed and they dropped again and so on. While the sales did not plummet immediately the lack of promotional activity meant the business gradually disappeared from view.
An aggressive overseas competitor spotted the gap and entered the Irish market, got some fantastic deals on adverts and started to win significant business.
The client has a large business with big payroll costs, an expensive production facility and a retail network all requiring big sales volume to sustain and there is virtually nothing being spent on attracting new business.
This is the “priority trap“.
We were preparing a plan for them but we were warned in advance that the budgets for promotion were tiny – surely generating new business was essential?
If you don’t invest in ‘telling your story‘, promoting your products and getting those wheels turning you will eventually have no business.
Should the first priority for the business be promotion and not the last?
I found myself in the middle of a series of emails back and forth with a business colleague (I hate that word) who I have a really great relationship with.
There was some confusion about an issue and we clearly had a different interpretation of the ‘facts‘ and as result our explanatory emails to each other were not helping!
What I was saying to him was clarifying nothing and vice versa and as a result a little tension and frustration had crept into our communications.
You could see an edge creeping into the tone and the language both of us were using…. this was heading to a bad place. It would have taken very little at this stage to drag the tone lower and raise the tension and before you know it we both would have our swords and shields out ready to do ferocious battle.
In the blink of an eye a great and very productive and enjoyable relationship could be ruined forever.
Both of us thankfully avoided the awful trap and we picked up the phone recognising that an actual conversation was the best way to sort out the issue.
Step back, take a deep breath and make a decision to be a friend and not a foe… It’s s much better place to be.
We were back at this point again with a client of ours.
We were being asked by the media if our client would do interviews as a result of some really great news that we had pushed out in a press release.
Of course we had advised our client that this would more than likely happen but she was adamant that she did not want to do newspaper and radio interviews “I hate to be seen as blowing my own trumpet” and “won’t the media be quick enough to cut the legs from you when things go wrong?“.
These were really ‘hard set‘ beliefs that she had and there was no shifting them. As her communications advisers we had to push her and explain that doing these interviews would be great for the business and would help to achieve the objectives that they had set for us.
Her last comment really struck a chord with me – “Won’t the media be quick enough to cut the legs from you when things go wrong?”
To be honest when things go wrong everyone will question what happened and this is the general public and the media. Mostly you can’t predict when these things happen but sometimes you can. In either case you should be prepared by having carefully built up your reputation wall.
Reputation Wall
Imagine all of the good things that you and your organisation does – these things will help to start building a “reputation wall” for you.
Great products, excellent customer service, paying your suppliers on time, being courteous in business, being a responsible corporate citizen, looking after your team and doing charitable work are all fantastic things that help to build that reputation wall with your various stakeholders.
“They are a great company” is what you want people saying about you.
PR can help to accelerate your good news and with the help of some careful planning this reputation wall will be built even higher by reaching a much wider audience through the media and other communications channels such as social media.
Your reputation wall will hep you win business, get loans, get credit, get planning permission, get landlords wanting you as their tenant, attract great staff but this isn’t the only time it will help you.
In the event that something does go wrong (and it often does unless you are extremely lucky) your organisation will be seen as one that should be believed and trusted and as a result you will be forgiven for whatever has gone wrong. The higher and stronger your wall is the more it will protect you.
I explained all of this to my client and thankfully she did listen to me and agreed to do one of the radio interviews. I smiled as I listened to her doing her fantastic company proud.
Last night Fianna Fail issued a statement after the resignation of disgraced Councillor Joe Queenan (don’t you love the camera hidden in the box of tissues!)
The statement was as expected:
“Following the Primetime Investigates Standards in Public Office programme, a Spokesperson for Fianna Fáil commented, “Tonight the Party has accepted the resignation of Cllr Joe Queenan. Some of the behaviour displayed in tonight’s programme was shocking and completely unacceptable. The instances where there appear to be clear breaches of the law need to be fully investigated by the Gardaí and prosecutions brought where appropriate.”
It was an appropriate statement and it was very important that Fianna Fail issued it quickly but I do have a big question – why a Spokesperson?
Why do organisations like this choose to go this anonymous, nothing ‘spokesperson‘ route instead of grabbing the opportunity and demonstrating clear leadership, authority and direction?
We don’t want a ‘Spokesperson‘!!
Instead we want a leader, someone who speaks out, someone who is willing to take responsibility and put their name behind the statement and show clearly what is expected of their organisation.
We want a person who will take the interviews, face the music and show some conviction.
Next time you are writing a press release try to avoid the bland, cop out of the “Spokesperson said” if you want to show leadership and authority and you want people to take you more seriously.
I love the sketch (see below) with Ricky Gervais, Steve Merchant and Karl Pilkington about Christmas presents – it’s that time of the year again and the subject of corporate gifts is upon us!
I remember the first Christmas after we had entered the recession I was dropping a small hamper to a client as a ‘thank you‘ for the business during the year.
The strangest thing happened – he turned me away quite awkwardly and refused to accept the gesture of thanks “not under the circumstances” he said .. “We are in a recession“.
To me I wanted to simply show our appreciation for the work and I felt the gesture was valid regardless of how the economy was going.
That was really the end of the Christmas business gifts as we knew them and even the sending of physical Christmas cards became an exception.
It was noticeable last year as the economy started to improve the gifts and gestures of appreciation started to slowly reappear and I tried to pay particular attention to the ones that impacted on me and the ones that had less impact.
At best the gift gesture should be an opportunity to show appreciation and even strengthen the business relationship – at worst the gesture will make no difference to you and might even make you feel like you are on a big database!
The Thoughtful Gift
This one is a beauty where the person meets you and gives you something they have really thought about, which clearly had significance to you – fantastic!
The Christmas meal
This is a powerful gesture but it is a really time consuming one. With special relationships it is invaluable – if you can break bread together in a relaxed setting then go for it.
The Homemade Gift
On this occasion the person makes something for you … It doesn’t have to be big or extravagant but it was made by them for you. This is an incredibly personal gesture and very powerful.
The Gift for all
This is the gift that you know is one of many. It is great to get a gift but always better if you know it came with special thought and effort. If this is delivered with a personalised card it works.
The Charity Donation
This is definitely a nice idea (it could even be a goat!) but it does rob you of that opportunity of giving something to your client.
The POS gift
The gift of a calendar or diary complete with their logo only works if it is something of genuine quality – if not then it is probably more about them than you .
The Christmas Card
The card alone can be powerful if the sender takes the time to personalise it with a genuine message. Some card is better than no card. Personalising is time consuming but it makes all the difference.
The ‘thank you” message (email/text)
A personalised message (email or letter) with a genuine note of appreciation works well if there is no hint of it being generic. Written well this can be better than any card. This can even work as a text but make sure it is 100% personalised
The E-Card
The generic Christmas card sent by email was a real product of the recession – for me this is just jamming up my inbox and it has very little meaning. Some of these come with a note about Christmas opening hours, which is fine I guess.
I did notice that many of our business relationships weren’t acknowledged in any way – I don’t hold anything against any of these business partners but an opportunity was lost to say thanks and make these relationships stronger.
Christmas is that time of the year that gives you an opportunity for saying thanks and you shouldn’t waste it.
When deciding what gifts to give I wouldn’t worry too much about the monetary value, however I would go along with ‘it’s the thought that counts‘ sentiment and I would add Personalise with a capital ‘P when possible.’
If you want to show genuine appreciation then go for it!
Imagine he hands you his business card. You look at it and smile and say “You are Mickey Mouse”
Imagine she hands you her brochure. You look at it and smile and say “Ye are a Mickey Mouse outfit”
Imagine she asks you to check their website for more information. You look and say to her “Sorry, ye are Mickey Mouse”
He pulls up in his van and hops out after travelling to meet you and you say “Ye are a bit too Mickey Mouse for me”
You visit their showrooms and the enthusiastic sales person bounces over and asks if she can assist you in any way. “No thanks, you are Mickey Mouse” you reply
Did you receive our presentation they ask. “Sorry, but ye are too Mickey Mouse for us”
Can you imagine being that rude to anyone?
How could anyone say such a thing and while I have come across plenty of rudeness in my time you just wouldn’t hear anyone saying something quite so blunt and I guess, hurtful.
However the truth is we do actually say these things the whole time except (unless we have an odd condition) we say them quietly to ourselves. Literally the second we see something we process it and if it is cheap and unprofessional looking we immediately dismiss it as being “Mickey Mouse“.
We can quickly get into an argument that says “looks aren’t everything” and the point will be made that professional looking material is no guarantee of quality and professionalism. Furthermore, isn’t the proof in the eating as the popular saying goes?
All of this is true but from my experience anything that has come across as “Mickey Mouse” has rarely pleasantly surprised me and has never ended up being successful with one big exception!
That is Mickey Mouse himself who was created by Walt Disney in 1928 who knew a thing or two about creating fantastic brands.
If you are serious about what you are doing then don’t let your branding make you look Mickey Mouse!
It turns out Marcus Tullius Cicero was 3rd January 106 BC and died on the 7th December 43 BC. He was a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul, and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and was widely considered to be one of Rome’s greatest orators and prose stylists.
Greg Canty Fuzion Blog 