Can You See the Business Opportunities?

As economic conditions improve, it will be those managers and organisations which can see the opportunities which will flourish. And what we see is a function of how we think.

We normally imagine that things work the other way round: that we see, and on the basis of the evidence in front of us, we alter our thinking. But without a certain level of understanding, we cannot interpret the evidence we are looking at. It is tempting to think that Galileo looked through his telescope and saw the evidence for the Earth orbiting the Sun. In fact, if he had not had the benefit of Copernicus’ theories which argued that that this was so, Galileo might have looked through his telescope and not understood what he was seeing. In other words, Copernicus thought it, then Galileo proved it – not the other way around.

What do most senior managers think? They think that they have been in management, and been successful at it, for long enough that they don’t need any further input to sharpen their thinking. Or they think that there is no-one out there who can develop their understanding in such a way that when they look at their business again, they see it with fresh eyes.

With most senior managers thinking this way, this in itself is an opportunity to gain an advantage. Where can you find a programme which will develop senior managers’ thinking, and create results as a consequence? Mitchell Phoenix have been developing the leadership and management capabilities of senior managers for over twenty years, opening their eyes to new possibilities:

Puts a completely new perspective on managing. A truly inspirational course.
Paul Skipton, Aalco

The course has allowed me to look at myself and others in a differing way and will allow both my own and others’ potential to be fulfilled.
Robert Hillman, Watts International

The course is excellent in opening your mind to managing your business, people, targets, time, etc and is invaluable in everyday use. I would recommend this to anyone who would like to develop as a manager and personally.
Paul Temple, Aalco

How equipped are you to see the opportunities – both internal and external - which will arise over the next period? How sharp is your thinking? Can you see
the way forward?

When Vision does not Equal Reality, Innovate

Mitchell Phoenix believe that organisations should Govern Change, which means anticipating and responding actively and flexibly to the changing circumstances in which businesses operate. In doing so, companies create an advantageous, profitable future for themselves. Blind adherence to past processes and procedures, failure to ask searching questions about our business and the environment in which it exists, and unwillingness to really listen to those around us are all factors which can prevent us from Governing Change successfully.

In Innovation and Entrepreneurship Peter Drucker explores a number of situations where there was an incongruity between business’s vision of reality – of what they thought was happening – and the actual reality which was unfolding around them. In the following three examples, Drucker shows how certain businesses identified gaps between their vision and the true reality, and then responded creatively to effectively Govern Change.

1. Incongruity Between Reality and Assumptions About It

When erroneous assumptions are made about reality, businesspeople are not concentrating their efforts on areas which will generate results. Those who see the true reality may also see the opportunity to innovate.

For example, in the early 1950s ocean freighters were thought to be dying. They were a slow, high cost method of transport. Why was this? The shipping industry had made an incorrect assumption – they had focused their efforts on reducing the cost of running fully loaded freighters at sea, by developing smaller, faster ships which ran on less fuel and required fewer crew. But the reality was that as a piece of capital equipment a ship is most expensive when it is not working, and ships were spending significant periods of time queuing at ports waiting to load or unload. This time spent queuing was the main reason why freighters were deemed to be so slow and expensive.

So instead of focusing on reducing the already low cost of running a fully loaded ship at sea, it was decided to uncouple loading from stowing, and container and roll-on, roll-off ships were born. Queuing time at ports was reduced, and freighters became more profitable. Crucially, the techniques for doing this were already in use in the railroad and trucking industries; they simply had to be applied to shipping.

2. Incongruity Between Perceived and Actual Customer Values and Expectations

No customer is as immersed in or committed to the product as the supplier, and therefore often what the customer buys is not what the supplier thinks the customer is buying.

Drucker argues that the prime motivation of those who work in the large financial institutions on Wall Street is to get rich, and that they therefore assume that this is the prime motivation of all their customers. He then charts the rise of a securities firm which appealed not to customers who wanted to become rich, but to customers who wanted to protect their money. These customers included local professionals, small businesspeople and substantial farmers. The firm’s strategy was based on protecting its clients’ money, and because of this only one eighth of its business was stock exchange business.

Drucker goes on to underline the power of those who see a mismatch between what suppliers think customers want and what they actually want:

“The big Wall Street houses cannot even imagine such customers [who want to protect their money rather than get rich] exist because they defy everything the houses believe in and hold true.”

If your competition cannot even imagine your customers exist, it will be difficult for them to steal your market share.

3. Incongruity Between the Rhythm or Logic of a Process

A manufacturer of lawn care products had a similar catalogue to its competitors, composed of fertilisers, pesticides and the like. All the competition promised ‘scientific’ products which had been extensively tested and would make your lawn look fantastic. Precise instructions were given on how much of each product should be applied to your lawn, depending on soil conditions and the desired effect.

Customers bought the products because of the promised benefits, and were receptive to the idea that each fertiliser had been scientifically developed to deliver those benefits. But when it came to actually applying the products, the logic of the process fell down. Customers found it difficult to be as scientific as they felt they should be in putting the correct amounts onto their lawns. Then one particular manufacturer produced a ‘Spreader’. This was a lightweight wheelbarrow with adjustable holes which would deliver exactly the right amount of product as the customer walked over the lawn. The ‘Spreader’ boosted sales significantly.


What can we learn from Drucker’s examples? Asking open questions about the environment in which we operate, listening, and remaining open to new ideas and approaches will all help us to capitalise on situations where the vision of what is happening around us does not match the reality. How close is the relationship between your vision of what is happening in your business environment and the reality? Which of your past processes and procedures are holding your organisation back? What can you change tomorrow in order to take advantage?

Can You See Opportunities to Govern Change?

Governing Change means seeking out opportunities to innovate and adapt to the change which is taking place all the time in our business environment. It means having the flexibility, creativity and resourcefulness to ensure that we are commanding change, rather than simply reacting to it every day.

Where can we find opportunities to Govern Change? A useful place to start is to look for instances in which our idea of what is happening - what we want or expect to be taking place around us - is not matched by the reality. Wherever there is an incongruity between our vision of reality, and the actual reality, there is a chance to Govern Change.

In Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Peter Drucker cites an example of just such an incongruity. A pharmaceutical company salesman wanted to go into business for himself. He looked for an instance where the vision of what people wanted did not match the reality.

He found it in eye surgeons’ experience of conducting routine cataract operations. The surgeons were highly skilled and felt comfortable in conducting every stage of cataract procedures except one. When they had to cut a particular ligament and tie off the blood vessels the eye was in danger, and surgeons dreaded this short section of every procedure. The surgeons’ vision of how they would like to feel and the control they wanted to have did not match the reality of this section of the operation.

The pharmaceutical company salesman considered how this might be done differently in the future, and soon found an answer. An enzyme had been discovered in 1890 which would dissolve the ligament in question. At the time it was discovered, science did not have a method of storing this enzyme for any length of time, and so it had never been considered for use in cataract operations. The salesman set to work and in a few months had discovered a preservative which would extend the shelf life of the enzyme without reducing its power to dissolve the eye ligament. Within a short space of time, eye surgeons were using his patented compound to make this short section of the operation run to their satisfaction.

What would have prevented the salesman from Governing Change? If he had not asked questions about established practice, if he had not really listened to the people he wanted to do business with, if he had accepted the received wisdom that eye operations had always been done like that, if he had not dared to challenge the established procedure, he would not have been able to find a solution. He did not need significant research and development funding because the enzyme had already been discovered. What he did need was a willingness to ask questions, to listen hard and to see how what was already available to anyone who cared to look could be used to advantage. This is Governing Change.

The Power of Silence

A couple of years ago I phoned a client who told me that I had just made him $40K. He was negotiating a pay off and wasn't satisfied with the first offer. He simply remained silent while the offer grew and grew. The generous fellow that he is credited his Mitchell Phoenix experience to the result.

I received an email from another client yesterday asking if I had watched "Into the Storm", a movie covering Winston Churchill's war years. On the Governing Change program there is a story about how Churchill became Prime Minister. Lord Beaverbrook, the newspaper tycoon, made Churchill promise that he would remain silent for 3 whole minutes before giving Halifax the okay. Below is the clip from the movie showing the power of silence. It is a 1min 22secs. (Thank you, Piers)

The Power of Silence

Hidden Secrets of Management Training – Look Inside the Box!

I recently added 20 yards of distance to every club in my golf bag with no effort whatsoever (and the chipping now is sublime). For the non-golfers out there, this is quite a significant improvement. For the golfers out there, send cheques to…

I have played the game for about 15 years achieved a reasonable standard and plateaued, content in the knowledge that I know enough to be competitive and to enjoy myself. Over the years I have taken, on average, two lessons per year, read copious amounts in magazines, watched my heroes on the TV, dreamed of faultless rounds, practiced my bad habits at the driving-range and, of course, played once a week.

I would say that I qualify as a golfer. My discovery was so basic, so fundamental, that I had classified it years ago as something I already did and, therefore, dismissed it from the long list of possibilities for making improvements. This raises the question; what else do we discount as known and, therefore, applied?

In my first year with Mitchell Phoenix I remember a meeting I had with the CEO of Ferranti and fell into the trap of proudly telling him about everything we did. After listening patiently he said, “Yes. We do all that. What more is there?” Years later I came up with the perfect response. At that moment, I was flummoxed.

In management, “What more is there?” The answers are likely to have been staring us in the face for eons; it’s just that they were part of the furniture. When things are taken for granted it’s hard to see their true value. This is what managers are up against and the challenge is to rediscover the hidden power of simple truths that have disappeared from consciousness.

I see Mitchell Phoenix management training programs as containing the kind of insights to bring about substantial gains personally and corporately with little effort. Some of these insights may never be uncovered in an entire career in management. If you want to add 20 yards to every club in your management bag re-examine your application of everything you know. Look inside the box.

Management Development or How to Make a Soufflé

The Four Pillars of Successful Management Development

Pillar 3: Structure

You are choosing a management development programme for yourself or others in your organisation. Of all the factors you take into consideration – the cost, the content, whether the course is residential or not, whether you’ll be able to swim and sauna before the gourmet evening meal at the venue –probably the last thing to cross your mind will be the structure of the programme.

Of course, you might discount a week-long programme on the basis that you can’t afford the time out of the office (or alternatively you might choose to shortlist it because you’ll do anything to get away for a few days). But beyond the length of the time commitment, what else is there to consider?

Management and leadership are activities which are done, not known. It is one thing to know the recipe for a soufflé, for example (any good cookbook or search engine can furnish you with the relevant knowledge), but it is something else to be able to walk into a kitchen and make a soufflé. Similarly, it is one thing to sit in a seminar room and receive input on how to lead and manage a team, and it is another to go back into the workplace and actually lead and manage your team.

You would not teach someone how to make a soufflé without asking them at some point to go and make a soufflé. There is little to be gained from management development programmes which do not demand that managers to go back into the workplace and apply what they have learned to create results. This is like training chefs but never asking them to cook, like coaching golfers but making sure they never go out on the golf course, like banning aspiring swimmers from getting wet.

The only structure which will produce a real return on investment in development is a structure in which delegates attend the first part of a programme, then go and apply what they have learned in the workplace to create results, then attend another section of the programme, then go and apply what they have learned in the workplace, and so on. This is the only way we learn how to do anything – from our own experience. If opportunities to accumulate experience – and a strong demand to create results – are not built into the structure of a management development programme, you can be certain that no real experience has been gained, and no results created.

After over 25 years in management development, Mitchell Phoenix’ Managing Director Kevin Yates is convinced that the only viable structure is a day a month. “A day a month is often as long as senior people can be away from the office,” he says, “and it keeps the focus firmly on the delegates and their responsibility to use the material to create results. The quality of the results which come back gets stronger and stronger as the programme goes on and participants gain in skill and experience, so that the results on day 6 are often much more sophisticated than those reported on day 2. The whole process is cumulative, and designed to spotlight the participants and how they are changing and adapting what they are doing in the workplace.

“On the other hand, programmes which are geared towards input for the delegates, rather than output from the delegates (ie results), are often more cost effective and conveniently accessed via a book.”

Few CEOs Cite Paint-Balling as their Chief Leadership Influence

The Four Pillars of Successful Management Development

Pillar 2: Robust Content

Few CEO’s Cite Paint-Balling as their Chief Leadership Influence

Rare quotations:

“I paint-balled my way to the top”
“karaoke made a leader of me”
“I now run all meetings on an assault course”
“all new employees have to fall backwards off a desk”
“the Captain and flight crew improved safety 14.6% by singing light opera”

One morning, walking back to your cubicle from the kitchen, you detect a subtle change in the atmosphere of the office. You look around and realise none of your colleagues are at their desks. A fan buzzes. On a notice board, sales targets flutter in the breeze. The first pellet catches you on the leg. The second and third thud into your chest, splattering blue and yellow dye. A fourth pellet smacks into the mug you are holding, and you feel a scalding sensation as you throw coffee all over your shirt and tie. “That leadership through paint-balling course,” you think to yourself, “has caused more trouble than it was worth.”

For comedians training is one of the most fertile areas of business life. The tenuous links made between a host of activities – from actors’ trust games to orienteering – and our working practices are hilarious because we can all recognise the scenario. Whether it is making the accounts team go through an army assault course or asking the production division to do a karaoke for leadership programme, everyone knows someone who has done something ridiculous in the name of development, or – worse still – has had to take part in something ridiculous themselves.

And, if you have spent your development budget on paint-balling, cooking and actors’ games, you should have gone to the pub instead.

If you want a development activity which is useful, rather than simply entertaining, what should you look for? After more than 25 years in development, Mitchell Phoenix’ Kevin Yates concludes that there are four pillars of successful development programmes. “Look for expert facilitation, an unwavering focus on the creation of results, a structure which will allow the creation of results, and tried and proven content,” he says.

What should this content consist of? First of all it should be usable in the workplace. Under pressure in a real life work situation, anything overly complicated, such as a theoretical ‘model’, will not come to mind or be used. Second, content should be useful, so that when it is applied it will solve a problem and/or generate concrete results. This means the content should focus on how to conduct the key activities managers and leaders undertake. Whether the focus is delegation, persuasion, motivation or anything else, concrete detail on how to do each of these things is vital. It is not enough to define the problem, the content must take us towards the solution and then prompt us to take action back in the workplace.

“Perhaps most important,” says Yates, “is that the content is based on strong, ethical business principles which senior managers can relate to, and on which they can build. They must see clearly how what is being suggested to them fits with the business principles they already hold, or with principles they aspire to and are likely to adopt.”