Whooah Biz

All too often people lose there tempers at work, it often feels like at that moment that it is the right thing to do.

You feel the pressure building and when you have shouted, or sent a bad email. You feel better.

A while later as more information comes to light you may realise that you were wrong in your first reaction.

Of course the damage is already done. It is very easy to break something much harder to build it up.

In my experience every time that I have kept my cool I have reaped the rewards, instead of just being seen as reactionary, difficult, or handle with kid gloves. Thoughts anyone…

I am not a big Radiohead fan. But imagine this link below was for some music that you liked. Would you buy it? try it.

http://www.inrainbows.com/Store/Quickindex.html

Simplicity you cannot go wrong. I think we have to push this kind of service. It is not the cost, but ease of use. Internet is an interactive process and hence requires work. Comments…

Email has brought many advantages to our modern lifestyle. Along with mobile phone texting. A recent survey found that one of the most popular methods of breaking up with your partner was the use of SMS. Emails are a great form communication, but they do really upon the senders skill to communicate his message. We have many great writers within our history who have been able to define many of the most difficult of emotions be that hate, fear, love etc. The problem for us mere mortals is that we must recognised that the limit of skill of email communication is to simple confirm factual information. The moment our emotions take over we run the risk or rhetoric situation and a relationship being strained. On a slightly more positive note if some was to come along with a course called Shakespeare the art of communication I would be interested. 

Balancing the many pressures that are involved with running a business is never going to be a simple task. On one side you want to be liberal and understanding to all those around you. On the other side the job needs to get done. Creating the right environment where all can flourish can be compared to modern politics. Whether expected or not the change has been significant in the last month not least just in the UK. Where the change of Prime Minister has raised more questions than one might expect. Surely the role of a leader is not to make personally differentiating polices from other leaders. May be when one looks closely it is the male testosterone of beating the chest that rules the tribe.
An example of this is with the rise of china as a economic power. China has grown significantly in the last 10 years. As it prepares to take its place on the centre stage. It would seem that when such an event occurs it is also necessary to have sufficient power to wipe out any one that disagrees with your ideas. China has embarked on a Military program second only to America. Powerful as these countries may be, they still appear as a social mess. China with no recognisable form of democracy and America with not even the basic social system to insure justice. Unfortunately neither of them seem preoccupied with these problems, much more concerned about who has the biggest tank, army, ship etc.

Is there any greater thrill in life then being challenged? Some might say that is the meaning of life. There was an experiment conducted on rats. Where they gave rats, paradise. (Not exactly sure what rat paradise would be like.) In any case the rats were made extremely comfortable. By the third generation they had stopped reproducing and hence died out. I think there is a interesting meaning in that story. Whether we like it or not, Most of us get challenged, As pointed out to me by a family member. It is dealing with that challenge with integrity that makes it interesting and of course rewarding.

A grey area could be describe as something you not quite sure about..… where should you be stepping? Grey areas appear in everyday life in all the work that we do. Obviously it is important they are kept to a minimum.  Because of their very nature we are sometimes never sure when we are hitting one, even more important what can one do about them? Well one method I tried was to ignore it and hope that is goes away, that turned out to be useless. A slightly more successful method was sitting down and  finding a solution that happened in this case to involve people and writing a procedure. But the principle is same. Making a procedure is a back up plan. And that is good for grey areas.

A couple of years ago a boss of mine pointed out that dyslexia is just another word for laziness. In some ways he is right, it is often perceived as being lazy. His argument was that he had overcome dyslexia by working hard. For some milder cases this is very possible. How can people live with dyslexia and what can companies do to help or more importantly how do individuals help themselves.

A very good example of dealing with dyslexia  is demonstrated by Richard Branson. He suffers from not just word dyslexia but also number dyslexia. To quote Mr Branson. ‘Nothing is impossible if you surround yourself with the right people’. This was his solution to the problem.  What I think is very interesting in this story. Is that he is probably the biggest Marketing asset Virgin have. In my view  while Richard Branson might not be the world’s number one speller he has quite clearly other qualities. In  the present business atmosphere we tend to look very much towards written qualifications. Which means that a lot companies have very little diversity.

Why is diversity important? Diversity is strength. This is best explained in the following situation. If you have a computer network all with identical systems. A virus comes along an you can guaranteed that everyone of those computers will get infected. If you have network with different systems. It is not possible for one computer virus to bring down you system. Companies are much same. Diversity makes a company stronger and more able to meet the challenges.

Emotional intelligence is not generally recognised as there is no real way to grade it. But it is a very important skill. When companies are thinking about a specific role. They may have to think more about teams. What is going to diverse the team what is going to make it stronger. I am not sure where this quote is from but it is very relevant to the situation. ‘If everyone is thinking the same, then somebody is not thinking’ Building teams is a complicated process. But it is the most beneficial where the different individuals complement each other  and are recognised for it.