HOW MUCH DO YOU REALLY WANT IT?

Last week I talked to a number of successful and remarkably talented people. They had a few things in common. They were all incredibly busy and were enjoying themselves.  More interestingly all of them were going through a non-stop process of self-examination regarding their strategy for sustaining their success.

Whilst I like the philosophy of Dr Steve Peters the renowned sports coach - “life’s unfair; they keep moving the goalposts; all you can do is try your absolute best” - I’ve always been a sceptic about using sport as a way of counselling people in business. Winning a gold medal, or winning a test match are not the same as succeeding in business. For one thing the measurement of success is more complex. As one of my superstar successes confided to me “business is all about psychology…you are as successful as people think you are.”

Here are four strategies to help achieve that:-

Be different. When Alan Bennett won a scholarship to Oxford he played the game of being a contrarian brilliantly. If you ever saw the History Boys you’ll understand. Be noticed for being radical. The same applies to all success. Being the same as everyone else is a poor strategy.

Be patient. Sam Walton who created Walmart took time to get going, opening his first store in 1945. Not until 1962 did the steamroller that we know today really power forwards. By then he’d made a lot of mistakes and learnt even more. Patience in Sam’s case was a virtue. Something we see little of today.

Know your part. When success happens despite oneself it’s time to throw away the management guide books. Peter O’Toole, a legendary drinker, got plastered and awoke at 530 pm appalled to have missed his matinee performance. He rushed to the theatre abjectly and apologised. They looked puzzled. “But Peter you played the part and were splendid then you shot off saying you felt a bit tired.” Can that really be true? I hope so.

Be like Jack Welch. The legendary powerhouse from GE whom they called “Neutron Jack” for his ruthlessness in eliminating workforces whilst leaving the buildings that had housed them intact. He put it like this. “I want my executives to demonstrate simplicity, speed and self-confidence.”

Keep on asking yourselves hard questions. In a fast-moving and intense world of work do not rely on yesterday’s formula for success. Be prepared to try new approaches and whatever you do keep on introducing new products and ideas; because if you can’t create news you should be prepared to become history.

And there’s one other thing - be shameless about enjoying yourself. If you hate what you do you won’t do it very well. As someone put it so vividly “getting in early and opening the shop is such fun.”

Maybe that sense of opening up your shop is the first step towards having a really positive open mind.

IN PRAISE OF GOLD MEDALS

I want you to imagine it’s the Olympics (again) in which there are two streams of competitor, A and B.
A are the real high flyers and B are what we’ll call average. It’s been noted that stream A are getting disproportionately more medals, faster times, greater attention from coaches and greater funding attention.
It has been decided this imbalance must be adjusted. So less attention is going to be spent on nourishing the potentially best talent and the less promising are going to be helped more. We’ll put our money on the guy in orange.

The result?  Whilst the number of medals won has gone down dramatically we have a great deal more 5th and 6th placed athletes. Which just goes to show that being fairer improves things for more people.
Rarely has a piece of work irritated me more than the recent report “Rebalancing our Cultural Capital”…. on three counts:

1. Until I’d read it I would have broadly agreed with the proposition that the rest of the UK got a poor deal when it came to sharing out funds. London it could be argued was getting not just the cake but all the cherries too. But on reading it my mind was changed mainly because the argument was based on a basis of equity not quality, on spreading the butter over bread both fresh and stale and that won’t do.
2. The argument that London is a population of 8.2 million is a little misleading. Add in tourists and it’s some 24 million. And they need adding in because tourism counts and that’s where the return on investment in the arts is irrefutable. It’s the quality of London that generates the tourist revenue (interestingly the most cited reason for tourists coming to London is going to the theatre).
3. The rather careless use of data should concern us. Anyone indicating a calamitous trend in share of funds for the rest of England from ACE – from 19.6% in 1980 to 17.8% in 2012/13 – using a vertical axis going from 16.5% to 20% deserves to be rebuked. 

Simon Jenkins in the Standard praises London theatre saying “it rules the world” but adds a caveat a bit limply “The reality is that London is where ministers live and minsters look after their own”. Others have said “there may be a point of sorts here but it’s the same old hammer and the same old nail isn’t it”.

Quite.

The more gold medals in artistic terms that London wins the better and the more inspiring a role model it is, or should become, and the more rewards are reaped by everyone.

But there’s a fourth reason I fell out with the report which is this. The story is not about how you cut the cake but how big the cake is in the first place. For successive governments to be embarrassed about the elitist nature of culture and the arts and accordingly give it small crumbs to spend – less than Financial Services used to get and about a quarter of what we spend on intelligence and spooks.

No you won’t find it below. Not important enough.  Under other.
 .

To be fair it gets a bit more than the Statistics Authority which may seem unjust given how inspiring government statistics can be.

Ultimately, I think for little Britain to have the greatest city in the world thanks to a large extent to its brilliance in the arts and culture, vindicates the imbalance that exist and because of the celebration that creates it should make the less favoured rest of Britain lift their game too.

Written by Richard Hall and first published on the Business of Culture website

DREAM-TAKERS, SHERPAS AND TWO FIRST HALVES

I was at a conference about “sporting excellence” last week run by Noggin the people-performance people. You never know about these events do you? Lots of sports people comparing discus throwing with strategic planning - Olympic medals being shown around and stories of daring-do.

Yet there was some really great stuff here.
I became convinced “thriving” was the greatest state of economic grace we individually, corporately and nationally should aspire to….doing well, “doing just what we should do”. Gardens thrive; they don’t win; they don’t go for super-growth (and when they do they fall over.)
I listened in amazement to the juggernaut flattened Gold medallist James Cracknell  (cycling across America for fun he was very nearly killed by a truck) who described the winning strategy of the rowing four – “make sure your worst is better than their best”. He also talked about the recovery from his near death experience and the negativism of some doctors. “Don’t let the dream-takers get in the way” he said. Dream-takers are the enemy of our ambition and excitement.
Many of those talking were very good mentors and coaches with some telling insights. I loved the idea that we spend too much time on autopsies…it’s true that in business much too much time is spent on the past. But it was listening to Billie Bragg on the radio that I heard a blinding definition of mentors as “sherpas”-   helping the people they mentor get to the top of their particular mountain.
And talking of climbing – the extraordinary rock climber Mike Weekes gave advice for life that we should all take. In climbing he said (and most people get this wrong) do the easy stuff fast, only take time over the really hard stuff. And don’t hang on for grim death – this is a fingertip, light touch business. Like life.
Finally the hugely impressive Jeff Grout,  formerly Sir Clive Woodward’s business manager, who described the Lion’s discovery when winning the World Cup,  that they always started the first half better than the second half in matches. So they changed into completely clean kit for the second half thereby playing two first halves. Here’s an obsession with detail and changing the weather in their minds.
Grout said, have ambitions, set performance goals and then step by step set up processes to deliver the goal. If the process is right the outcome will follow.
But I’m still thinking about the weather in my mind…what a great concept.