“There is just one Greg Canty and he is special and don’t you forget about it” he said
“Just keep being the best ‘you’ that you can be” ..ok, I will.
It had been a while since I had chatted to him but it is always great when we do. He always leaves you feeling ten feet tall and better about yourself than before you had spoken.
I called him out of the blue just for a chat but he always has this knack of saying something that makes you feel better about yourself.
I remember years ago we had him over at the house for grub and at the time we were feeling a little but low because we were struggling to get some sponsors signed up for our Catwalks event. This was a high end fashion and beauty event that we used take on tour around Ireland.
I think he picked up that we weren’t as positive as we usually were and after a while he grabbed a flyer in his hand from a previous Catwalks event that we had run and he gave us one of his magical pep talks.
“Do you see this?” he asked “You and Dee created a national event from nothing. You have already signed up some top brands and its been a huge success to date. Never forget that it is only you two who could have pulled something like this off”
After he left we were punching the air, feeling special, full of motivation and determination, ready to take on the world … sure enough we signed up more sponsors.
We all need people like that in our lives, the ones who make you fell better about yourself, the ones who you can call if you need that little gee up …they are precious.
I remember a few years back being asked to give some LinkedIn training to the senior team in a large company.
When I was asked to give the training my contact stressed that I wasn’t to mention that it was a popular platform for job hunting and for putting your CV ‘out there‘. Apparently their financial department had recently been poached en masse and they were putting this down to LinkedIn so it was a delicate issue.
I carefully went through my presentation and removed any references to job hunting or it being a platform for hosting your ‘online 3D CV‘.
I duly arrived, started my presentation and just 30 seconds into the session the first question was fired at me “Isn’t LinkedIn just a great place for finding a new job?“!
It was clear I wasn’t going to get away with avoiding the ‘elephant in the room‘.
Personally I see LinkedIn as a lot more than a place for online CV’s.
It has been a fantastic way for me and Fuzion to highlight our services, to make new contacts and great connections and to really drive our visibility. We blog frequently and we push our blog posts on LinkedIn and it helps showcase out team and their expertise.
However I must admit that the ‘CV’ dimension and the increased focus on job adverts combined with the relative ease of finding and targeting possible candidates is starting to have a huge impact on employees and employers. It has had an impact on our business.
Unfortunately I feel it can be detrimental to both employees and employers and if we are not careful this will only get worse.
Temptation..
In the good old days (I started my first proper job in an accountancy office in 1982) we took a job and tended to stay with companies for quite a while. In many cases we worked our way up the ladder through a combination of experience and on the job training.
Generally the senior long serving team members would live and breathe the organisations they worked for and they tended to have a deep practical knowledge of them including the ethos and core beliefs that the places were built on.
When the job stopped interesting and challenging you, when you stopped learning or when the career progression stopped then it was a natural time to start looking for a new job.
At this moment you started flicking through the job pages in the newspaper on a Friday and you might even register yourself with an employment agency. It was a very considered process.
Now things have changed significantly ..every single day anyone with a LinkedIn profile (there are over 1.4 million people in Ireland) can receive a job enquiry, a little temptation is dangled in front of them and long before they have even considered looking for another job their head has been turned and they are unsettled.
Two of our team left in the recent past and the story was the same for both of them “You know me, I love it here. I wasn’t even looking but they contacted me and the offer was so good I couldn’t resist“.
While this is a detrimental issue for employers who now have to contend with much higher staff turnover it is even more detrimental for the individuals who are letting their heads be easily turned.
Before their full skill-sets are developed and they have a chance to grow in their roles they are off and starting again, never reaching their full potential anywhere.
Technology has clearly changed all of our lives and in the workplace these changes are very significant.
Avoiding temptation..
This new temptation is detrimental to everyone and we need to take a little control back to limit how detrimental it is.
For the individuals that are tempted have a really good think before you allow your head to be turned – is this temptation really the best thing right now for your development and your long term career?
For employers who are tempted – do you really want to take someone on who has their head turned that easy? This won’t be the last time their head will turn!
It couldn’t be the usual champagne popping have a blast carefree type of a day as my dad had to have a procedure at the Bons Secours hospital in Cork.
This was very strange as 50 years to the day I was actually born in the very same hospital – who could have predicted that?
We were with him first thing in the morning as the nurse came in to bring him to the theatre. As usual even though he was apprehensive about what lay ahead he couldn’t help being his usual charming and funny self!
“I’ll bring you down to the theatre Michael, will we get a wheelchair?” the nurse asked
My dad looked at her as if she had two heads – no way was that happening!
He bounced out of the bed and started joking with the nurse, relaxing my mum, me and Dee.
In the corridor he stopped her and he went into his usual routine, the routine he does with everyone, and one that makes us all smile. Even my six year old niece in the U.S. can recite this because he taught it to her when she could barely talk!
If you see me comin’, you better step aside A lotta men didn’t, a lotta men died One fist of iron, the other of steel If the right one don’t a-get you Then the left one will
This seemed so appropriate and defiant and he delivered it with clenched fists and a charming smile – nothing is going to beat this man and definitely not today!
“You’re lovely, I’ll go anywhere with you he says” and he linked the nurses arm.
We stood there watching as my fantastic dad (“pops” I call him) walked away from us with the nurse laughing and joking down the long corridor to a place that neither he nor any of us wanted to be on this March day.
I was curious about where the words for my dad’s little routine came from. They come from a song made popular by a guy called Tennessee Ernie Forde in 1955. His version became a huge hit and it was later covered by many artists including Johnny Cash and even Robbie Williams!
It was first recored in 1946 by a country singer called Merle Travis. The clever, catchy song is about a coal miner who has broken his back shovelling coal all his life. He never sees actual pay because the workers used get paid in vouchers, which they could exchange for goods at the company owned store:
Some people say a man is made outta mud A poor man’s made outta muscle and blood Muscle and blood and skin and bones A mind that’s a-weak and a back that’s strong
You load sixteen tons, what do you get Another day older and deeper in debt Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go I owe my soul to the company store
I was born one mornin’ when the sun didn’t shine I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal And the straw boss said “Well, a-bless my soul”
You load sixteen tons, what do you get Another day older and deeper in debt Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go I owe my soul to the company store
I was born one mornin’, it was drizzlin’ rain Fightin’ and trouble are my middle name I was raised in the canebrake by an ol’ mama lion Cain’t no-a high-toned woman make me walk the line
You load sixteen tons, what do you get Another day older and deeper in debt Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go I owe my soul to the company store
If you see me comin’, you better step aside A lotta men didn’t, a lotta men died One fist of iron, the other of steel If the right one don’t a-get you Then the left one will
You load sixteen tons, what do you get Another day older and deeper in debt Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go I owe my soul to the company store
There was no point waiting around so I went about my day, which included meetings, lunch with Dee and my two kids, Brendan and Ellen, a little clothes shopping spree in Brown Thomas and a drive to Dublin.
We got news that dad had recovered well from the procedure but he still isn’t quite out of the woods yet. Not quite what we were hoping to hear.
That evening we ended up having dinner at Leinster House with a good friend and some interesting people – the last thing on this strange day that I could have expected was people singing ‘Happy Birthday‘ to me there!
It wasn’t a perfect birthday but I spent it with people I love, I loaded some coal, I had an unexpected evening and I watched one of my all time heroes charming a nurse and defiantly saying “If you see me coming, you better step aside“
I left the accountancy practice because I knew I had gone stale, working on the same clients in the same environment and now I wanted to get stuck in and get more involved so I decided to move into industry.
I started with Moog, an American multinational at the age of 22 taking on the role of financial accountant, reporting into the financial controller.
I didn’t have experience of working for a multi-national before but I was a bright, enthusiastic qualified accountant looking for a new challenge.
For six months I was learning, soaking up this experience with fresh eyes and a new perspective and after that initial period I really got into gear and they got the best of me. The financial controller went off on maternity leave after I was there just over a year and I was asked to take on her role and mine – not a bother, I took it in my stride. When she came back I knew I couldn’t slip back to the supporting role so I looked for a new challenge.
I then took on the role of financial controller of a drinks wholesaler and manufacturer, a subsidiary of Guinness.
I didn’t have experience of working in the drinks sector before but I had worked in practice and I had been the financial controller in a large multinational. For six months I was learning and soaking up this experience with fresh eyes and a new perspective and after that they really got the best of me.
After a few years in this role I was going stale, I was repeating myself and the job was more of the same. I had always wanted to start my own business and I loved music so I recruited a manager and opened a few music stores around the country while I still stayed working. I had never worked in the music industry before nor had I operated retail stores but I brought a fresh perspective and bucket loads of enthusiasm to this new experience.
Out of the blue I was asked if I was interested in the General Manager role, which I gladly accepted.
I didn’t have the experience of managing a large business but I was a bright, enthusiastic person with a good understanding of the company and I had a solid background in finance.
For six months I was learning, soaking up this experience with fresh eyes and a new perspective and after that period they really got the very best of me achieving the best results ever for the company.
I then moved to Guinness in Dublin taking on a number of different roles, none of which I had done before bringing fresh eyes and a new perspective to all of them.
After three years I became the general manager of a subsidiary of Heineken bringing fresh eyes and a new perspective to the role. I really drove on the performance of the company but in truth I had done a similar role for the Guinness subsidiary and after three years I was getting bored and I should have moved on. I lasted two more years and left to join Deirdre Waldron at Fuzion, which has been brilliant.
Everyday in Fuzion we are faced with new situations and fresh challenges. We often work with new clients from different sectors and we achieve great results by bringing fresh eyes, new perspectives and enthusiasm and applying all of our collective experience and learnings to their challenges.
I have learned in my 32 years of working that to get the best of anyone in a role there must be some element of a challenge in it, something new the whole time that keeps them challenged, fresh, inspired and motivated and at the top of their game.
I have also learned that after a while of doing the same thing over and over people will get stale as that sense of challenge disappears. Despite having all of the experience and knowledge a big opportunity will be lost by not handing over the mantle to someone who knows less but has a sparkle, a freshness, a hunger and a desire to learn and take on a new challenge.
The next time you are choosing someone for a role or you are putting your project out for contract try to resist the safe temptation of going with the person or the company that have “done it all before” and instead look for the fresh perspective and grab that sparkle.
Typical..just as we are skint at the start of January and all the bills are flying in our Dyson vacuum cleaner decides to pack up. I guess its not too bad as the previous one served us well for over 10 years so we can’t complain too much. Having said that the timing could be better!
Off we headed on a Saturday afternoon (I can think of a lot better things to be doing!) to buy a new one and for me there was a simple choice to be made – what model of Dyson would we buy and at which store?
For me I had no intention of even considering a different brand of vacuum cleaner (I have to try hard to not say ‘Hoover’) simply because I believe in the ‘story‘ of Dyson, the spirit, the innovation, the person and I believe that this story will deliver a superior product.
While we were browsing the selection of Dyson’s on display at Harvey Norman’s a helpful shopper (another guy as it turns out – is it the men that do the hoovering I’m wondering?! …I used the hoover word didn’t I!) whispered in my ear:
“I’d buy a Miele if I were you. The suction is much better. I’ve had Dyson’s down through the years and they are only ok“.
Despite this sound impartial advice and my own experience I still wanted a Dyson. Even though we were surrounded by a wide selection of vacuum brands with lots of different features and price points I didn’t once consider even looking at them. I just wanted a Dyson. One of the Dyson models had a good offer on it, which simplified the task even further and before we knew it we were on the way home.
Opening and assembling the Dyson was a pleasure (relatively speaking!) with all of the parts cleverly clicking into place and inside the box I found a little booklet called ‘The Story of Dyson’.
It tells us that James Dyson is a curious inventor and shared some of his early designs including a Sea Truck (a high speed landing craft), a ballbarrow (a wheelbarrow with a clever ball that stops it sinking into the mud) a trolleyball boat launcher and an amphibious wheel boat.
Observing a sawmill he watched how a cyclone spun sawdust in the air and collected it in a chamber and wondered if the same principle could apply to vacuum cleaners that were using cleaner bags that constantly clogged the machines. After 5,127 prototypes he cracked it!
Since then he launched his range of vacuum cleaners, built a successful company and has constantly improved his products as well as introducing new ones.
Today Dyson machines are exhibited in museums in London, New York, Zurich,Sydney and Paris and the James Dyson Foundation runs workshops around the globe where young people solve engineering challenges in a practical fun way.
Dyson know they have a great story and they understand the power of this story so much that they include in it every box. This story is an integral part of their brand, so powerful that it had me not even entertaining a competitor product.
What you do, the products you sell and the services you offer are important – your story is what makes you unique.
The sweet spot of the holidays … When you have been off for a few days, enough to have been able to come down the gears and properly switch off and far enough from going back to work so you don’t have to start thinking about it again.
This rare time, when you are far from shore is special, you start to recharge, refresh, replenish and get to know the ‘other’ you and when your head is clear all manner of things can happen. These brief moments come along just once or twice a year and before you know it, it’s time to turn the boat around and head back to land.
The question is …what are you doing with this precious time?
It was about this time last year when I embraced the “hint” that was given to me by Dee and I found myself in the handbag section of Brown Thomas looking for a leather hand bag, which was stylish but small and tidy.
In the end I settled for a classy navy blue Marc Jacobs bag … that’s a good brand, isn’t it? The price suggested it was a good brand and surely she would be happy with it. Down through the years I’ve bought a few handbags in BT for Dee ..strangely (I know what you are thinking..) I actually like shopping for handbags! I love the leathers and the colours and the different designs and for the most part you can’t go wrong with a bag as a present…I think?
As usual I scored and on Christmas morning Dee was happy with her gift.
Marc Jacobs was born in New York City on April 9, 1963. After graduating from the High School of Art and Design in 1981 he entered Parson’s School of Design. As a design student at Parson’s, Jacobs was the recipient of some of the schools highest honours including Design Student of the Year. In 1984 he met Robert Duffy who is still his business partner today. These two have been really successful at building this huge brand, which as all of us knows doesn’t happen by accident
At the end of this summer (just 7 months on) the leather edges of the bag started to turn white – the piping on the seams of the bag were not leather but some type of narrow plastic and the covering was wearing away – this didn’t seem very Marc Jacobs so we returned it to the store assured that there would be no issue with a repair or a replacement.
After two months the bag was returned repaired. Dee was upset as it smelt musty so it must have been sitting in a damp repair shop for quite a while and the inner lining that had to be opened up to complete the repair was still torn.
She put up with this, de-fumigated the bag with perfume but within a few weeks you could see that the repair was not going to work as the seams were once again stripping away – back to Brown Thomas!
Our interaction with the manager of the store this week was interesting. She studied the handbag carefully. “Do you have a receipt?” It was clear from the repair paperwork that BT had already handled the previous repair. “The manufacturer has a 6 month repair policy, so we can’t really guarantee anything” hmmm.. “we never know how people will wear their handbags” ..in other words if you are the type of person who mistreats a bag then we can’t be responsible. Taking one look at Dee you would know this is a bag that would be looked after carefully.
We politely reminded her that we trust Brown Thomas and the expensive brands they are selling and that there is no way we should accept this level of wear and tear after just a few months. Surely a brand such as Marc Jacobs care about their quality? The manager elaborated “They don’t care! You can give out all you want, kick up a fuss but it won’t make any difference. They are so big and so popular they just don’t care”
That is just incredible – we did suggest that maybe Brown Thomas should stop stocking such a brand if that is what their attitude is towards the quality of their products and the customers who put faith in them. Glancing around the store you could see how much space was dedicated to this very popular brand – The Marc Jacobs brand is big business.
We did leave the handbag with the manager and she assured us that she would do everything in her power to get this brand to behave themselves and deal with the issue. I’m pessimistic and my prediction is that this will end up with Dee being handed back a worn out bag, which will never see the light of day.
When you are that popular and selling that much product is it easy to forget about the customer?
When a brand is so powerful do you do everything you can to stock them in your store even if they don’t really care about customers?
When Marc Jacobs and Robert Duffy met 30 years ago and started on their journey I am sure they were passionate about style, quality and their customers? Have they lost control of their brand?
When Hugh Brown and James Thomas started their store in 1848 I am sure the customer come before any of the brands they were stocking?
Maybe something might have changed since then ..
Customer’s aren’t just for Christmas and brands don’t necessarily last forever!
We are really great at celebrating our sporting, musical, artistic, and even our business heroes.
I guess this is easy when they do big things like win important matches, break world records, win gold medals, score big goals, win fights, appear in blockbusting movies, have hit albums, open new companies, win big contracts and create lots of jobs.
We need these heroes as they inspire us and they should be celebrated.
Last week I was really thrilled to see a ‘real hero’ being acknowledged and celebrated.
I first met Brendan Dempsey about two months ago after we had volunteered to do some pro bono work for the Bia Food Initiative, which is an incredible operation designed to take ‘surplus food’ in our retail system and to preserve and maximise the use of this for needy causes.
This food, which would otherwise end up being dumped is being preserved for great use through clever logistics, huge determination and an abundance of goodwill.
Brendan Dempsey, a well know volunteer with Saint Vincent de Paul for over 30 years has been operating his own small scale food distribution operation in his famous ‘clapped out refrigerated van‘ for quite a while now. In many ways his ad-hoc food redistribution service was the inspiration and model for the Bia Food Initiative.
When I met Brendan I first noticed the roguish glint in his eye – you got the sense that this very practical and larger than life character doesn’t stand on ceremony and according to himself he wouldn’t be the most popular man around as he “says it the way he sees it“.
After listening to the other members of the fantastic Bia Food team telling us how the whole scheme works, Brendan brought everything to life by sharing some of his real life stories. Apparently over the last few years it is the ‘new poor‘ who have been most affected and most in need of help. These were quite well off people who crashed badly during the recession and as a result were now broke and in many cases without the money to literally put bread on the table.
He shared one story where a child in one of families he delivered food to, tugged at his trouser leg and asked him “will you be my dad?“. I’m sure Brendan has experienced heart tugging moments like this thousands of times in the last 30 years but this didn’t stop the tears coming to his eyes as he shared the story with me.
We were doing the PR and event support around the official opening of the first Bia Food distribution centre in Cork last week (28th Nov, 2014) where we had speeches by various officials and sponsors. Tanaiste Joan Burton was in attendance at this feel-good event to ‘officially’ open the centre, which is the first of three to be opened. In the next two years similar centres will open in Dublin and Galway.
The little curtain that covered the official plaque to mark the occasion, was pulled back and the name of centre was revealed. It carries the name of a ‘real hero’ Brendan Dempsey, the quiet man who was standing to one side as all the speeches were being made. Needless to say this humble man was mortified and shocked as he clearly knew nothing about this honour.
For once it is fantastic to see a real hero honoured.
Are there others just like Brendan who we need to acknowledge?
We were having this big battle with a client about our approach to generating press coverage for her new business.
She has a fabulous new product, with some really unique features, which she has developed herself.
While the product is really good it will compete in a world of so many other products waiting for people to notice it, trust it, buy it, use it and then having the confidence to recommend it to others.
Something that makes this product really credible and special is our clients’ personal story. Her profession for nearly 20 years and the experiences she had in that time all led her to noticing a huge gap in the market and developing a product that would fill this gap perfectly.
When prospective customers consider the product on the shelf it will be considered on its merits as they see it. If they like what they see and are convinced by the features and benefits as conveyed on the packaging they might buy it.
We believe that when prospective customers hear her story (if we ever get the chance to tell it!) and understand the experience and expertise that went behind developing the product we feel they will trust it more making that purchase decision easier.
Our dilemma with our client is that she is insisting that we don’t talk about her. She feels no one will be interested and the product is good enough to stand on it’s own merits. This personal reluctance issue is one we come up against a lot and to maximise your PR you just have to get over it.
I gave her my ‘support beam‘ speech and went to great lengths to stress that we wanted the campaign to be a maximum success and the best way of achieving this was to put our best foot forward, which did most definitely include her personal story.
It’s a battle we haven’t quite given up on yet..
Will telling your story make a difference to your business?
Should you enter your business for an industry award?
I received a “Vote for Us” on-line request by a really nice individual from an organisation that we deal with regularly.
Their B2B initiative had been submitted for some European award and the mechanic for choosing the winner was the quantity of votes by the public.
A lot of competitions and award initiatives are now being operated in this way. In the last few months alone my email has been clogged with numerous requests to vote for different initiatives on-line.
With this particular initiative there was an extra twist to the voting as you can see explained below:
“Each person can cast ONE VOTE EVERY DAY (one per 24 hours) and it just takes a couple of seconds. We would be very grateful if you could VOTE for our initiative each day and/or on the various devices that you work on i.e. smart phone, PC, iPad, laptop etc. And it is legitimate to vote on each of the different browsers daily too, i.e. google chrome, internet explorer, safari, firefox etc.”
A major step too far – Not only was my vote requested but there was a further request to vote every single day on as many devices and browsers as possible!
With this particular initiative I received a number of emails, a number of times from various individuals in the organisation all asking me to vote.
Jesus …. what is after happening to the business world whereby “awards” are being decided by such meaningless criteria.
In this case the award will ultimately go to the team who have expended the maximum energy in chasing the widest possible network of contacts – I doubt this process has any chance of finding a deserving winner.
The winner will be the organisation that have wasted a fortune of time lobbying for votes as well as the time wasted by those who did the voting.
To make matters worse the winner and the other contestants who took the challenge of winning seriously will have run the danger of damaging their own brand as a result of so much lobbying (and quite frankly annoying people). If they don’t lobby (annoy) they won’t win – simple!
Very few people will take the awards seriously once they realise how the winners were chosen, in particular those who did the voting.
I don’t for one second blame the organisation who contacted me – The fault lies with those running and setting the rules for these competitions.
Anyone who is operating an awards initiative should protect the integrity of the competition ensuring that the awards go to the worthy winners.
Winning an award is great for any organisation and in Fuzion we encourage all of our clients to enter credible competitions, which will demonstrate that they are best in class.
If the winning of an award is meaningless then don’t even bother entering.
Thank you Pat Dolan..
Greg Canty Fuzion Blog 