Category: Talent

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As you head out into the market to find food to feed your business, what drives your success?

I believe it’s all about your passion, honesty, openness and owning your story.

So what’s my story in trying to find success in what is a challenging and disruptive world, and why do I use nature and landscape images to illustrate my journey?

What I’m looking to do, is link my passions and what inspires me .

My core passion is all about what is around us.  From an early age I’ve loved being out and about exploring the world around me.  My education took me to agricultural college to study conservation and environmental management, and then I headed to university to read agricultural business studies.  My passion took me to the US where I worked for Utah State Wildlife Resources as a ranger, and then onto the Massachusetts Audubon Society where I studied Box Turtles.

Then the direction of my journey took a significant turn when I found a business card on the floor of pub and decided to call the person.  By taking ownership of my journey, I found my second passion – helping individuals and businesses to be relevant.

For the next 20 years I owned my journey which took me to nearly 90 countries on 6 of the seven continents – sadly there are not many businesses seeking support in Antarctica!

My journey allowed me to meet and visit with thousands of business leaders and the opportunity to listen to their stories.  I’m hugely grateful and fortunate for the experiences I’ve gained on my journey to date.

In April 2020 I lost control of my journey, and to some extent my story, when others decided that I was surplus to requirement.  12 months earlier I’d decided to leave a role where I’d been for over 10 years and which I’d loved, but I felt I needed a new challenge.  Do I regret my decision to leave?  Absolutely not.  I’ve learnt more about myself and the world around me since leaving, what in hindsight, was my comfort zone and look to challenge myself.  Since last April, the opportunity to learn has only increased as I’ve looked to build my own business and ‘Brand Me’.

Many talk about B2B, B2C and other derivatives of these.  My focus is on H2H.  People do business with people they know, like and trust.  By being open and honest about your passion(s) and story, can only help to connect you with others and to explore opportunities.

I hope my story resonates with many, and encourages them to reach out to explore how we might partner and share our journeys ahead.

So back to the question of why do I use nature and landscape pictures to illustrate my story and journey? 

Firstly, I want to combine my two passions.  I truly believe that we can all learn so much from both the beauty and wildness of nature, and understand how we might be impacting it in an ever increasingly negative way.  Individuals and businesses alike, need to become more sustainable to remain relevant to those they share, employ and serve and the world around them on their journey ahead.

Secondly, even if for whatever reasons you don’t agree with my views, hopefully the images I use will allow you to escape your here and now, the confines of the four walls around you and your Zoomed out/Teams filled days and encourage you to simply stop and enjoy the images that don’t normally appear in a business context on social media platforms.

Regarding the picture of the Northern Carmine Bee-eaters used on this post – if you haven’t seen it already, I strongly recommend you watch BBC’s A Perfect Planet – Weather.  Whatever your views on the relevance of our impact on the world around us, the story of the Bee-eaters is one that I believe resonates to the challenges we’re all facing in navigating our place and relevance in the world of today and tomorrow. 

We all need to change the way we live and work to deliver our long term relevance.  To achieve this we all need to own our story and journey ahead.

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The building of diverse teams/workforce is key for the future success of any business

‘There’s inherent value in a diversified workforce. Diversity gives you access to a greater range of talent and broader world-views that would otherwise be completely missed. This provides insight into the needs and motivations of your whole client base, not just a particular segment of it.’ Julie (Jules) Carman from the Sage The Practice of Now 2020 Report

There are no shortage of research that suggests #diversity of thought and opinion, or being around people who are from different cultures/backgrounds, empowers teams to be more creative, diligent and hard-working. The building of diverse teams/workforce is key for the future success of any business (particular for #accountingandaccountants and other professional service sectors) and this can only be achieved by having a clearly defined and lived to common purpose and hiring people who will thrive under the core values of the business.

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Does your business stand out from the crowd by having a clear purpose?

McKinsey & Company found that purpose can be an important contributor to employee experience. They found that business with clear purpose had higher levels of employee engagement, stronger organisational commitment and increased feelings of well-being.

While business leaders prioritise the commercial value of purpose, employees see purpose as a way to bring meaning to their work and understand the contributions they are making to the company, as well as society.

A PwC survey found that 79% of business leaders think that purpose is central to business success. Even with this level of importance only 34% of leaders make and align decisions to their organisation’s purpose. The survey found that Millennials are over 5 times (Non-millennials over 2 times) more likely to stay when they have a strong connection to their employer’s purpose. Again only a limited number of business leaders (only 27%) of help employees connect their own purpose to the work of the company.

All too often leadership do not place enough focus and importance on purpose. This is especially the case within the professional service sector. Never has there been a better time for business’s to have a a clearly defined purpose and truly live it.

#management#branding#yourjourneyahead

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Meetings for meetings sake – think before you schedule one!

A Martin Luenendonk article published in Forbes last year stated that 37% of meetings are considered to be adding no value to the organization and that the average middle level manager spends around 35% of their time in meetings.

According to a study by Bain & Company organizations spend about 15% of their time in meetings.

Research by Infographic showed that 91% of employees have daydreamed during a meeting, 39% have reported sleeping during a meeting, 45% have felt overwhelmed by the number of meetings they had to attend, 73% have done other work during a meeting, and 47% of employees have complained that meetings are the number one time waster at the workplace.

The above were prior to Covid-19 and the associated changes in working practices and the en masse move to Zoom, MS Teams and other platforms.

Prompted by a Bob Harper post https://lnkd.in/dsCS_zU I do ask myself what these statistics would be today.

Clearly video conference resources have supported the continued connection and collaboration of teams. However, without a strategic approach to the new way of remote/flexible working and the continued use of these online communication tools, there is every chance that even more valuable time is being wasted in having meetings for meetings sake. #workingfromhome#strategy#yourjourneyahead

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Does your business really get what the new way of work will be?

Does your business really get what the new way of work will be? I recently saw the following guidance regarding potential interview questions that could be used at this time:

1. What have you learned about yourself during the pandemic?
2. Can you do the job while working from home?
3. Are you willing to eventually work from an office?
4. How have you been spending your time?

If I was the interviewee and was asked these 4 questions, when (hopefully) asked whether I had any questions by the interviewers I would simply say ‘why do you think I should want to work for a business like yours that clearly has no idea of the new working world?’

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