Everyone knows that you cannot have heads without tails. Doing something new is like that. You cannot have success without failure so whenever you hear someone say "failure is not an option" what you are really hearing is "innovation is not an option".
Organisational change is an ongoing business necessity. Employees leave, and new employees are hired, new teams, departments, processes and structures are created as the company grows, and businesses adopt new technology to stay ahead of the curve. The challenge for anyone in business is to truly accept the urgency of the problem and of being hyper aware of the need to change. Once you can see how the way that you used to work has stopped working, then, and only then, can you dream up a new way, a better one.
A bully starts a fight - plays up in the office or online, gets pulled aside for his or her behaviour. Then the bully twists words, casts blame and somehow turns themselves into a victim. People around them back down, make amends, do what they can to assuage further tantrums and gives the bully another chance. And the cycle continues. Being a bully is a choice, but to some degree, allowing the cycle to continue is also a choice or at the very least a choice no-one truly wanted to make - a mistake.
Long term client relationships find their foundations in a proper arrangement. Here are a few examples...
The farmer's market: I want to eat local foods that taste great. The farmer's market wants to give me local foods that taste great.
Google: I want to find what I am looking for. Google wants me to find what I am looking for.
Apple: I want Apple to be cool. Apple wants to be cool.
The trick is to align your service provisions with the needs of your client.
Like any industrial revolution, none of what is happening around us is linear. It is all about the fits and starts. The mass market is replaced with a multitude of micro markets and now there is a long tail of choice for consumers of just about anything. eBay and Amazon connects buyers and sellers, manufacturing is outsourced, and online information exchanges puts us more in charge of our destinies than ever before. Everything is different now and there is a real opportunity for us all to run from the mediocre middle and develop best in class skills, to tell amazing stories, to easily spread the word, to be in demand, and to satisfy real customer needs.
The decades that brought us to ever increasing productivity and office jobs and an expanded middle class have come to an end. The internet is here and the world has changed. Now we have a gig economy, online news sites, different ways to watch TV and TikTok influencers. Things won't go back, this is the new normal.
The newspaper business, the car business, the record business, even the computer and phone business... one by one, all industries are being turned upside down, and it is happening so fast that we are having to adapt just as quickly. It's not nice, it doesn't feel fair, but it's here to stay and it is all we've got. The world has changed, the sooner we can accept it and make something of what we've got, the better.
There are two types of people in the world. Those who will try things and those who won't. Think about a buffet - some people happily load up their plate with a little bit of everything, going back for more if they find something they like and some people will actively avoid certain items and carefully compile their meal.
The truth is, at any point in time we either try new things or we don't. Those who won't are scared of making a mistake and are protecting themselves. The trick is to make people aware of you when they are in the mood to load up their plate.
I am always intrigued by the idea of a 10 year diary. I am sure I had one when I was a kid but never actually managed to fill it, and clearly lived those intervening 10 years. Whatever happens over the next 10 years, if history is any guide at all it will mean that 2022 will be a faded memory for most. What matters more than what has happened, is what we decide to do now. What will we do over the next 3,650 days? Here's to all the possibilities, to being good, and to betting that the future is bright for us all.
The only way that market research clients improve their business is by having the best fieldwork suppliers. It's that simple. Yes they can streamline their internal processes, train their staff to be the best of the best, sell their services to every blue-chip company in the world. But if they buy a poor quality fieldwork supplier it all falls apart. The power of the purchasing department's ability to make or break a project / researcher / company cannot be overstated. Whoever buys the best, wins.
Everyone understands the economies of scale. Bigger hotels can have more guests. Bigger factories make more stuff. Bigger hospitals treat more people. Bigger depots process more packages. But what about being small? If you want to make a profit less overheads and a cut down but refined offering will help. If you want to do the work of a great artist getting rid of worldly obligations and day to day administration will help you do that. Suddenly it is a breeze to produce that product or service line that is offered to just a few lucky clients with 100% of your unfettered attention. We need to re-think these economies... there's something to be said for being small and better.
There's a reason it's a sin. It used to be "thy shall not covet thy neighbours Ox" so in a sense this was all about keeping up with the Jones's. But on social media these days it is so easy to find someone taller, thinner, richer, more beautiful, more intelligent, more successful, liked a lot more, with more followers, online friends, and LinkedIn connections. And there's no doubt you are better and more deserving than them. Ultimately it is all futile. The people above you are better than you, so are the ones below you worse? So when you make it to the top is everyone behind you less than you? I don't think so.
1. It starts with you talking about yourself, and your plans and intentions, to those around you who care about you and have your back.
2. Then it moves into a promotional stage where others bring your message to the wider world (cue advertising agencies and social media postings).
3. From there you move to the journalists and the editorial team talking you up. Not always easy as they may talk you down so it's not without risks.
4. The final stage is when bloggers and content creators are spreading your message.
All this only happens if you are delivering something worth talking about so get busy doing what you do.
The job of a managing director is not to cross things off the list. Her job is to write the list, and then work out what comes next.
Whenever we assess ourselves it is so easy to be brutally cruel and unreasonable because most if us are filled with self-doubt and self-blame. Even the people who appear to so easily project these things on to others. How about we start treating ourselves (and those around us) just a tiny bit more supportively. What would happen if we took more responsibility in order to have the real authority next time. Now there's a thought.
There's very little point to an exchangeable, PowerPoint reading, acronym-spewing middle management type these days. The type of manager who is quick to bitch and whine but slow to actually deliver. But there is a point to managers who can bend the world to their will, with enough initiative and vision to really add value to any project. Be that manager.
The advent of technology and the internet means so many previous administratively burdensome tasks are now done by a PC or are outsourced to someone who does it better, faster and cheaper than you. We no longer have to phone for a taxi we just open our Uber app. If you want to know a fact you don't have to learn anything you can just Google it. So what are we now filling all that digital time with? Oh, I know. TikTok.
We all fail and successful people actually fail more than most. So the two things you need to do is first, stop avoiding the blame and throwing shade on others, and second, you need to make sure you sign up for the high profile and scarily important projects. Here are some tips that will help you fail your way to success:
If these tips scare you, you are getting somewhere.
Companies and resources that are owned by private individuals or entities who are free to trade contracts with each other ultimately leads to increased efficiency, greater production, and a plethora of innovation. But success leads companies to protect their assets and investments by doing everything to make their market "un-free". Locking in patents, long term pricing and building barriers to entry in order to safeguard their balance sheet. Such thinking is up against technology, forced transparency and more sophisticated consumers with regulation on their side. In the short term the monopoly seeking entity is more effective. But in the long term the free market will always win.
We all know that developers, designers and artists do their best work when left alone to get into the flow and stay well away from the humdrum of organisational management. No clockwatching, no meetings, no stress from project demands. Our creative people need to be protected from all sorts of wasteful nonsense. Managers need to think more about what it is to be a creative because we all know that creating things is more difficult than it ever was before. And most managers would probably benefit from a bit of isolation to do the truly challenging tasks before them. But the creatives amongst us need to learn to behave more like a manager. If they don't they are ultimately side lined and get cut out of the big decisions within an organisation. Neither creatives or managers insist their way is the best way, but nothing will be brought into the world if they don't fully co-operate.
There are times in our lives when we have very little information upon which to make a decision – sometimes there's absolutely no information and nothing but the hum of a white noise machine. And yet still you have to make a decision. So you can use your experience, your intelligence, you might even try and tap into metaphysics and the principle governing all things! But occasionally all you can do is toss a coin. If you want to make sure you're right do best of three. If there is not enough data, or there cannot be enough data, insist on a coin toss. At least that way you can save yourself hours of pontificating and admit to yourself that you are winging it.