Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: business advice

  • Inflating titles, inflated apirations

    Inflating titles, inflated apirations

    This story first appeared in Smart Company on 19 April 2012.

    “She listed her job on LinkedIn as my ghostwriter,” reflected the journalist about his publishing business’ Gen-Y staff member.

    The journalist’s lament reflects an unexpected corporate risk in social media; that of employees giving themselves grandiose and sometimes damaging job profiles.

    Over the last 20 years, title inflation has been rife in the business world as corporations and government agencies doled out grandiose titles to soothe the egos of fragile management egos.

    So it isn’t surprising that many of us succumb to the temptation to give ourselves a grand title online.

    In the journo’s case a young graduate working as an editor in his publishing business listed herself as his ghostwriter, risking a huge dent to his credibility among other the lizards at the pub or the Quill Awards.

    That business journalist is not alone, in the connected economy what would have been a quaint title on a business card or nameplate is now being advertised to the world.

    Making matters worse, we now have tools like LinkedIn and other social media sites to check out a business’ background and who are the key contacts in an organisation.

    So what your staff call themselves is now important. It can confuse customers, cause internal staff problems (“how come he’s an Executive Group General Manager?”), damage business reputations and quite often put an unexpected workload on a relatively junior employee.

    In your social media policy – which is now essential in any business that employs staff – you need to clarify what titles your people can bestow upon themselves.

    As well as making this clear to new staff, a regular web search on your business that includes all of the popular social media sites should be a regular task.

    Just as economic inflation can hurt your business, so too can uncontrolled title inflation. Watch it isn’t affecting your operations.

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  • Culture beats strategy

    Culture beats strategy

    Writer and business consultant Joseph Michelli says”Culture beats strategy, in fact it eats it for breakfast and lunch”.

    This was one of the key points in a recent webinar about online retailer Zappos and its customer service culture.

    Joseph’s right, the culture of an organisation is the ultimate key to its success, if managers and staff work “according to the book” and declaring “it’s not my job” then you end up with a siloed organisation where management are more interesting in protecting and growing their empires over helping customers.

    With Zappos it’s interesting how it appears easy the integration into Amazon’s ownership has gone and this is probably because both have service centric cultures.

    Both companies seem to have avoided employing Bozos as Guy Kawasaki famously put it a few years ago.

    Your parking lot’s “biorhythm” looks like this:

    • 8:00 am – 10:00 am–Japanese cars exceed German cars
    • 10:00 am – 5:00 pm–German cars exceed Japanese cars
    • 5:00 pm – 10:00 pm–Japanese cars exceed German cars

    Guy’s German car observation is spot on. When I was running a service business, one measure I used for a potentially troublesome client was how many expensive German cars were in the executive parking spaces, it was usually a good indicator that an organisation’s leaders are more interested in management perks than maintaining their technology.

    Another useful measure was where those cars are parked, a good indicator of management’s sense of entitlement is when executive parking spots are conveniently next to the building entrance or lift lobby while customers expected to find a spot anywhere within ten blocks.

    It all comes down to culture and when management are more concerned about parking spots and staff about free lunches, you know you’re dealing with an organisation where the customer – or the shareholder – isn’t the priority.

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  • It’s all in the timing

    It’s all in the timing

    This morning I sat in on a corporate breakfast and heard a well known presenter talk about social media for business owners and managers.

    The advice was terrible and what was valid could have come from a 2008 book on business social media marketing.

    But the room loved it and obviously the client – a major bank – thinks the speaker’s work is worthwhile. He has a market while many of us who’ve been covering this field for a decade don’t.

    Timing is everything in business. Earlier this week stories went around the Internet about how Microsoft could have invented the first smart phone.

    Microsoft could well have done it, they tried hard enough with Windows CE devices through the late 1990s and there was also the Apple Newton and the Palm Pilot.

    While all these companies could have developed the smartphone in the 1990s it wouldn’t have mattered as neither the infrastructure or the market were ready for it.

    Had Microsoft released the smartphone in the mid 199os it would have been useless on the analogue and first generation GSM cellphone networks of the time.

    Customers were barely using the web on their personal computers, let alone on their mobile phones, so the smartphone would have been useless and unwanted.

    Ten years later things had changed with 3G networks and real consumer demand so Apple seized the gap in the marketplace left by Motorola, Nokia and the other phone manufacturers with the iPhone and now own the market.

    Apple weren’t the first to market with a smartphone, just as Microsoft weren’t the first with a Windows-style operating system and Facebook weren’t the first social media platform.

    Those who were first to the market stood by while upstarts stole the market they built.

    Plenty of people have gone broke when their perfectly correct investment strategies have been mistimed – “the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent” is often proved true.

    That’s the same with the speaker this morning; he’s not the first to discover social media’s business benefits but his timing is impeccable.

    Being first is no guarantee of success if your timing is wrong.

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  • Is small business too pessimistic?

    Is small business too pessimistic?

    The MYOB March 2012 Business Monitor report is a disturbing document; not only does it show how low confidence is among Australian business owners, it also portrays a group that are making sacrifices for an uncertain future. Is this what small business has come to?

    One of the most disturbing aspects of the survey is how long company founders go without a break. With one third reporting they had not taken holidays since starting their business, this statistic is constant regardless of how long the operation has been going.

    As somebody who went a decade without taking a holiday, I have a lot of sympathy for business owners in that situation.

    What really jumps out is the pessimism of business owners – a quarter don’t expect the economy to improve for at least two years and only 39% expect their revenues to rise.

    That business owners would be so negative about the future is disturbing; they should be the most optimistic.

    It’s also interesting that more than half are disappointed with levels of support from the government, does anyone expect different?

    Quite frankly, if you want money or support from the government then get a job with the public service. I tried that for a few months and there’s plenty of pessimistic people there.

    That small business owners are becoming as disillusioned as public servants is a concern for our economy and society. Hopefully it’s not a permanent condition.

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  • Hubris and risk

    Hubris and risk

    Today is the centenary of the Titanic’s tragic sinking. In many ways, the RMS Titanic described the 20th Century conundrum; a blind faith in technology coupled with a struggle to deal with the consequences of those innovations.

    It’s worthwhile reflecting on the hubris of those who believed their technology made a ship unsinkable, or those who believed their shipyards would never close and – probably most relevant today – those who believe the sun never sets on their empire.

    Technology can liberate our lives which is shown by the fact the average American, European or Australian lives far longer and better than even kings did two centuries ago. But we should never assume these improvements don’t come at a real cost to ourselves, the environment or the ways of life we take for granted today.

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