WE'VE GOT TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN

This is not just about cricket I promise. It’s about management and marketing.

There were two things I came across this week following the Kevin Pietersen debacle. The first was from my wife who having a very sharp sense of the zeitgeist said:

“It’s ridiculous they’ve fired him. He’s our top scorer and he’s cute.”

The second was in an article by Simon Barnes lamenting the folly of his departure. He quotes from an English swimming coach:

“He faced his swimmers and asked “who here wants to be mediocre?” It seems to me had the same question been addressed to the England cricket team they would have been holding up their hands.”

So to a non-cricket fan it’s talent, sex appeal and charisma that counts. And to a highly intelligent pundit the standards have deliberately been lowered to read “England lose harmoniously”.

Let’s lament the following disruptive influences – Ian Botham, Shane Warne, Fred Trueman, Ian Poulter, Nick Faldo, John McEnroe, Steve Jobs, Vincent Van Gogh and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The world would have been better, would it not, without these show-off virtuosos?

I used to work with a talented advertising man called Richard French. He believed the role of management was to manage the unmanageable. I realise now he meant me as well as others. Interesting that Pietersen, who ranks as a self-preening, adolescent genius – but maybe the best batsman to have played for England since Hutton – has divided the ranks so clearly between journeymen and stars. Of course he was a pain and a challenge. The sort of challenge Mike Brearley, the England Captain, faced with Botham in 1981.

If calm, reasonable, group-think HR ran the world none of the mavericks above would have been allowed near a cricket pitch, golf course, tennis court or boardroom. Because talent when it reaches the level of a Jeff Bezos (head of Amazon) or a Steve Jobs (late head of Apple), spills over into outrageous behaviour. Indeed one questions whether a Lloyd George, JF Kennedy or Bill Clinton would have been allowed anywhere near high office in the 21st century.

More to the point why do we all let people with such genius get backed into an isolated corner of disapproval from which disgrace or dismissal seems the best solution? The two jobs of management are to manage these unreasonable people with oodles of talent, not to be scared of them.

And to inspire winning performances whilst marketing is there to delight audiences with spectacular achievements.

I don’t think either course was necessarily best served this week.

In fact I think we settled for bronze.


 

MANAGEMENT IS NO LONGER JUST A BUSINESS TERM

We are all bombarded by constant lumps of management jargon and – going forward (ow!)  I can’t see the toothpaste being pushed back in the tube… (ow!!!!!) And yet management at work seems to have got worse whilst it’s been non-existent in most daily lives. People get fatter, grumpier, less content with their lives and less competent at changing this. 

But I think things may be changing and this is my plan to help that change.

I want to talk about three things:-  managing talent; managing time; managing expectations. 

Kevin Pietersen, the test cricketer.

Would this kerfuffle be going on if he’d been a footballer or a golfer? After all, many of them behave much worse than he’s done. Would Shane Warne has been allowed to carry on playing for England had he been English? KP’s probably the best batsman to play for us since Len Hutton. The job (as I discovered managing genius talent in advertising) is to manage the unmanageable, calmly get the best out of them through charm, cunning, alcohol and inspiration. And relax. This must be done if you want to avoid being mediocre. Read the biography of Steve Jobs to understand  ‘A’  talent.

Now school’s back for Autumn…. An even better anthem.

Time. It’s September. Back to school. New curricula. New form. New challenges.

Time. There isn’t enough of it. So simplify. Do fewer things well. Focus on less.

Time. We need to spend less of it working. More than 55 hours a week for 45 weeks a year and it’s almost certain that the extra hours are not just counterproductive but are likely to be damaging.

Expectations. The legacy of the Olympics is summarised brilliantly by India Knight:  

“Britain has discovered its smiley face. Don’t let it slip away”. I’m increasingly convinced that politicians do more harm than good and are to be ignored. The “Big Society” is a concept which proves the adage “be careful what you wish for “because post Olympics I feel I’m in a big smiley society in which the bumbling and whingeing Miliband, Clegg and Cameron are out-of-touch”– why is it the real bumbler, Boris, is the only one who seems real?

Manage your talent, time and expectations and perceptions and you’ll be better and feel better.

Back to school then. But remember one thing. Life is not neat. Things seldom work out quite how you expected. But you can manage if you keep things simple. That’s what management is all about after all.

www.colourfulthinkers.com

"What's the difference between a supermarket trolley and a non executive director?

Whilst both hold a vast quantity of food and drink, only the trolley has a mind of its own” (T.P. Blenkin)


T.P. Blenkin appears to be a Yorkshireman who is a cricket nut and given the excitement of the Third Test in South Africa this week that puts him in my good books but it’s this great aphorism that makes his reputation because, like a great Shane Warne leg break, it leaves those of us who’ve served as NEDs groping sightlessly.

In many respects being a non executive or a Trustee is a mug’s game. You don’t have the time or the proximity to the action really to smell what’s going on. You apply your best critical judgement but are also trying to motivate those in the front line to do better and feel good about themselves.

It’s a critical balance between being too nice and too nasty. I’ve seen NEDs apply the “I put their feet to the fire” principle and turn a competent executive into a quivering wreck. But NEDs at various banks and struggling companies like ITV or BA must wonder what hit them recently. Was that moderate remuneration worth that loss of reputation?

So I anticipate a new breed of Rottweiler non execs. and a consequent growing pressure on executives to justify virtually all they do. And I don’t see too much food and drink for anyone.
It’ll be just a basket with under five items most of which will be energy drinks to keep them awake so they're able to read all those documents.

“Mind of my own…I’ll show ‘em…Gentlemen. I’d like to revisit our strategy again just to be sure it still stands up to inquisition given changing market conditions”.

Groan.