Brexiteers to the left of me, Remainders to the right – here I am stuck in the middle with you!

Whether you voted to stay, leave or didn’t vote, the topic of Brexit is very loud, very current and will be impacting on everyone’s life in the UK.  It’s one of the few topics that has caused families to feud, friends to fall out and businesses to re-evaluate. Even the so called ‘Experts on Brexit’ can’t agree and provide concrete answers.

While there are countless arguments, I’m not about to join in.  I’m in the middle.  Logically my head says one thing, my gut instinct says another and no one side of this has the definitive answer simply because there isn’t one.

There are, however, a lot of similarities one could draw upon and lessons to be learnt on how Managers and Directors should be leading their business.

If countries and continents were actual proper businesses so that the UK, together with every other European country were Subsidiaries of the Corporate EU and all of us voters are the shareholders of our respective subsidiaries, we’d be looking at this from a totally different perspective!

For example – just imagine if the politicians were Managers and Board members. Would we as shareholders allow them to behave this way or would they have been called to task ages ago?  How a board acts, the communication it sends and the resulting output it achieves all relates to their actions and it ultimately affects the share price and that so far, is slipping.  Could we be now facing a possible recession?

But it’s not just about the subsidiary – what about the board members in Corporate EU? They are also being deliberate in their actions. Looking at the situation from this new perspective, it’s as if they are communicating in a way as if to warn any other subsidiary off from wanting to demerge! My cynical view? Maybe, but as a shareholder, I’m worried because if there are other subsidiaries that want to leave, it’s usually a sign that there’s something much deeper within the corporate that we don’t get to hear about until it’s too late – maybe like Lehman Brothers, Enron, WorldCom… 

And then there’s the Holding Company – that tiny organisation that controls the Corporate company overall – erm..  in this case that would be the same notion of the “European State” that is now being put forward sometimes shouted and then quietly hushed. Back in the day, we used to call these kind of organisations Quango’s but still had the same meaning of even less people secretly voted in by only a handful of privileged few to control everything overall – so maybe my cynical view isn’t too much off the mark because they definitely couldn’t afford more subsidiaries to leave if they are intent on making it happen!  Now it starts to make sense – the will of the few to want to control so much at the expense of the many. 

If your CEO, board team or even your manager is acting like some of the current politicians, I’d bet you’d be re-thinking about your job or firing them.  And if you are re-thinking this then just think about the perception your clients are getting.  Communication is everything.  No client would like to be supplied by a company that’s not confident about its future and if you lose the trust o your top talent, how much would that cost you if they left?

For those organisations that have used this as a wake up call to revaluate how Brexit impacts their suppliers and clients and then done something about it means they are the ones that are going to be ahead no matter the outcome. 

Are you one of the many who think that because you don’t have EU as a market it doesn’t affect you? Wrong! New players will find their way to your market space because maybe their normal route has been compromised and they, like you want to continue business. 

If you are in the middle, then like me, you should be making your plans about the two possible future paths ahead.  Having a future or not having a future.  If were thinking Brexit or No Brexit, you’ve fallen into the trap of forgetting Brexit is just another business issue! Granted it’s on a much bigger scale but when you put it back into business context, it is just another business issue. 

As a good leader,  which I am sure you are as you have read this far, you should be thinking what you need to have in place to keep your business alive irrespective of Brexit or no Brexit. 

You should have used this as an opportunity to;

• check what skills you and your team need or strengthen
• re-do a basic SWOT analysis
• consider the BLINDSides – who could steel your clients away from you
• discover where new markets could be if needed
• Create a back-up plan
• what changes have to happen to keep to your supply chain unhindered or your client base robust
• seek out new information that could tip opportunities more your way and
• have a constant monitoring system to avoid any hypothetical icebergs on the horizon that could sink your business  

The fact that the issue on the table today is called Brexit should be just another business issue.  This should not be your iceberg. 

Use this as the opportunity to build a future, stronger, robust, forward thinking organisation and turn your organisation’s culture towards how to work for; the good of the stakeholders, the employees and the community surrounding it and you will find all your icebergs will become mere ice cubes because no one will want it to fail.

Being in the middle is a good place to be if you use it to build wisely. May all your icebergs be turned into icecubes!

'till later, 

Paula

Why being an Event Organiser is a tough job.

I didn't realise just how tough the Event Industry was until doing research into the typical experience Event Organisers and Meeting Planners go through when engaging speakers.

When I asked the question, 'Have you ever had a bad speaker?', I was stunned to hear the response: 'No.  I only work with good speakers.  I've been doing this for 15 years and I've never had a bad speaker apart from 2 years ago'.

Confused by the double statement, I engaged a little further and the conversation went something like this:

Me: 'How do you normally search for speakers?'

EO: 'I first go through my little black book where I keep the names of all the good speakers I've used'

Me: 'So that will be all the speakers you've used over the 15 years?'

EO: 'That's correct...'

Me: 'And...  the speaker you considered to be bad isn't in your book?'

EO: 'That's correct...'

ME: 'So basically you have everyone's name in your little black book who you've worked with apart from the one that you had two years ago',

EO: 'No.  Not everyone gets in,  only the good speakers do...'

Confused?

This is what psychologists call, 'cognitive dissonance' - it's a state of mind when a person is experiencing two conflicting thoughts at the same time, each struggling to be recognised and dealt with.

In this case, she had two things going on in the brain - a definition wrangling match over the terms, 'Good and Bad' speaker.  And then admitting if she had had a bad speaker or not.

Afterall, in this industry who's going to hire an Event Organiser if they admit to hiring bad speakers?

With this in mind, half of her statements start to make a little more sense....

But, it still doesn't account for the last statement because if she doesn't put in her little black book 'bad' and then says she only puts in the 'good', it implies that there must be another group of speakers who she's identified but unwilling to openly acknowledge as either good or bad.  In a polite way, the lack of a name for this category says it all as this is the 'nameless' category - those speakers who were 'mediocre, boring, forgetful, uninteresting, dull, samey, nothing new etc'.

Now things begin to make sense:  You can't admit to having bad speakers because no one hires an Organiser who hires bad speakers. 

So what happens when there is a bad speaker? Here's the kicker: it seems if the speaker messed up, it's somehow always ends up being the organiser's fault as they are not able to admit the speaker they hired was bad!  This attitude  perpetuates the cognitive dissonance many organisers experience at some point in their career which results in self blame rather than apportioning it back to the true source - the speaker was bad on that day. 

So I started playing around with the opening question to see if if something else was going on...

Results were reviling.

When I asked; 'Have you ever had a bad speaker?', I usually got the response: 'No'.  


But  if rephrased the question to: 'Have you ever had bad experiences working with speakers?' that's when I got a quizzical look and after a brief pause, 'Oh you mean like: them being late, or not turning up, or not sending their slides ahead, or or or or'. Suddenly the floodgates opened with war stories of the experiences they'd had.

Therefore there is a transference almost acceptance that bad experience is not the signs of a bad speaker and that it's this bad experience that is somehow always the fault of the event organiser because they must have failed to have done something even when it was beyond their control!
Cindy-Michelle Waterfield

So here's my question to you: Why keep quiet and accept a Speaker's unprofessional conduct when your client wouldn't accept you doing this to them and neither would you accept it if your supplier did this to you?  My next question: What are you going to do about it from now on?

Co-Founder of iwantaspeaker.com