The ‘expert’ pundits around the globe are now predicting a long, slow haul out of the current economic crisis. Previous ‘expert’ predictions of the turnaround in the second half, third quarter. President Obama is, however, sure of recovery in spite of the dire jobs data – seems that the “recession is slowing” but where is this bottoming out that we’ve all repeatedly heard?

Billions of dollars have been poured into world economies. Millions more into civic projects. Yet, just as with Madoff’s ill-gotten loot, the whereabouts of all this money is still in question.

So, just how can the small business get itself out of this recession sand trap?

For some, the sand trap is the scariest place on the golf course. Sand traps have the ability to intimidate even the most skilled players every now and then. No-one intends to get the ball in there and very few people relish the thought of playing out, but the experts all agree on at least one point with regard to getting out. Follow-through!

There are rules in golf that make this particular shot more challenging because you are not allowed to touch the sand near the ball before making the shot. You judge the need to open the clubface (to slide the club beneath the ball and sand for greater loft) or to close it (to ‘dig’ through the sand to get under a deeper embedded ball) is by eye and experience. Judge this badly (or indeed, execute wrongly) and you might hit the ball thinly, taking too little sand, or thickly, taking too much.

The key is to commit to the swing and follow-through. Stab at the ball without follow-through and there’s a 90% chance that the ball will remain in the trap with the club abruptly stopping (especially in wet sand). Ideally you hit the sand directly behind the ball, allowing the club and the sand to carry the ball out of the bunker.

Like many golfers, business people don’t practice enough, and they certainly don’t practice the tricky shots. (Pop down to any driving range and count the number of people practicing in the sand pit in front of the bays.) So, every business down-turn becomes a novelty. Fear and panic set in quickly and we witness many people trying to hit the ball out. Cut prices, sell ‘hard’, slash costs. Does it work? For some yes, they hit the ball thinly and the ball ends up on the other side of the green and often, out of bounds. Some attack the problem hard and hit the ball thickly – taking too much sand and burying the ball deeper a few inches further along.

Those that get out well, judged the situation, chose the right tool for the job, adjusted their stance and clubface and then they committed to the shot, took just the right amount of sand with them and followed-through.

Maybe you just misjudged that first attempt. There’s no point berating the green keepers, the course designer, your tools, your competitors, or worse, your customers. Learn from the experience, stop complaining, quiet your mind, judge the new situation, take your stance, adjust the use of the right tool. Aim for the sand not the ball! Commit. Follow-through.

SIMULATIONS – BRIDGING FROM THWARTED INNOVATION TO DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY -

Gartner Research dubbed simulation the new “killer
application” in e-learning (Lundy et al., 2002) but even
assuming the best estimates for the adoption of simulations,
they represent a tiny proportion of the annual spend in
training and education. Considerable research has been done
to evaluate the effectiveness of simulations and, by and
large, the results suggest that simulations are effective but
there are doubts about even the most fundamental claims of
the efficacy of simulations (Feinstein and Cannon, 2002)
partly because there isn’t a clear, acceptable methodology,
partly because there is no real agreement on definitions, and
partly because there is little agreement on what should be
evaluated. Burns et al. (1990) consider the multi-fold
problem with evaluating experiential pedagogies stating that
there is firstly a need to compare the efficacy to ‘traditional’
approaches, and there is a need to compare alternative
experiential pedagogies competing to achieve the same
learning. Not surprisingly, they note a paucity of solid
empirical evidence regarding the relative effectiveness of
experiential techniques. Other authors (e.g. Pierfy, 1977)
note two particular problems with respect to evaluating
simulations or experiential techniques: the first being the
conceptual problems pertaining to definitions, domain
boundaries and the theoretical basis which underpin and
frame pedagogical research. The second fundamental
problem is that there remain significant methodological
difficulties including experimental design, constraints
within the organisations and institutions, time
considerations and ethical questions associated with any
comparative study.
This paper does not intend to argue in favor of one
approach, method or definition over another but to consider
why simulations have not yet emerged as training and
education’s “killer application” and how it may be possible
to bridge from being a thwarted innovation (Zemsky &
Massy, 2004) to a disruptive technology (Christensen,
1997).

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Trust is a leader’s and a networker’s bankroll. With trust, he or she is solvent, without it, he or she is bankrupt.

A trusted networker, like a trusted leader, has a thick bankroll of crisp bills. Every time you act inconsistently with your professed values, or break a promise, you must spend some of those crisp bills - when the bankroll is gone, so is the trust that others have in you. At this point, your personal appeals or persuasive arguments cannot buy back that trust. Once lost, trust, and the personal credibility it took to gain it, may take years to regain.

Trust & Credibility

Trust is much more than credibility. Credibility is a necessary precursor to trust - before someone will place their trust in you, they have to believe in you. Trust is when a person places something of value to them into your care an stewardship because they believe that you will take good care and, usually, return to them something of greater value.

As a leader, the ’something’ may be as obviously important as life - a military leader for example. It may be time or skills or an idea for a business leader. Whatever the situation, we place our trust in the leader. In turn, the leader trust you to deliver on your promise. The relationship is established beforehand, the leader’s credibility has been established and the result of this ‘transaction’ may reinforce or destroy trust.

In networking, the same rules apply. You might offer to introduce someone to a business opportunity. As the initiator, you must trust the person to be capable or risk your personal credibility and the trust your opportunity has in you. The individual you are introducing will also trust that you will genuinely do as you say and that it is a legitimate opportunity. Trust is a two-way street.

Establishing Trust
1. Be honest and open
The top leadership attribute of most admired leaders in Kouzes and Posner’s comprehensive survey is honesty. This isn’t just about telling the truth, it is also ‘doing what you say you will do’. And, it’s worth noting that honesty does not always imply that the truth is to your own liking nor the action something with which you agree.

Some networkers though fall into the ‘marketing trap’ - embellishing aspects of their business or person to such a degree that their honesty could quickly become suspect. It’s all very well having a fabulous 30 second ‘elevator pitch‘ designed to intrigue and excite others though if it is too far removed from honesty, you may soon be dealing out some of those crisp bills from your bankroll.

Trusted leaders are open and transparent - particularly ion this post-Enron world. The suspicion surrounding UK politicians currently has a lot less to do with their actual expense claims and a lot more to do with questions about why such claims should be so secretive. Openness also means being open to question. Your elevator pitch should (according to those far more expert in this) invite questions - your answers to those being a robust defense citing evidence that supports your pitch. Can you defend your elevator pitch?

2. Don’t hide bad news
Northern Rock has suffered a major fallout, in part because the leaders hid the bad news (or the potential for bad news), possibly even from themselves. As the bad news leaked out, savers who had entrusted their money queued to withdraw it immediately. To regain some trust, the UK Government had to spend rather more than a few crisp bills from its bankroll.

Advertising of financial or pharmaceutical products now carry a warning of the potential downside or side effects (albeit in tiny print or spoken at a rate few amphetamine addicts would understand). Should our elevator pitch contain such caveats? It would be honest.

3. Don’t over promise
Making promises you cannot keep? Why do politicians rate as the most untrustworthy of people? They promise the world and seldom deliver.

It’s a trap that many parents fall into. Talking to their kids about the exciting places they’re going to go and the fun they are going to have. From pimples - “you’ll grow out of it” to exhortions to study - “you’ll be able to do whatever you like when you graduate with honours”.

Networkers are prone to over promise - it’s considered perhaps an embellishment, a slight exaggeration or, the catch-all, marketing.

4. Walking the talk
Doing what you say you will do is probably the most critical component of trust. If any of the three points above are in doubt, there is little chance that you will be able to walk the talk.

How many times have you been to a networking event that ends in warm handshakes and empty commitments? When you say that you will introduce a friend to a contact, do it. If you say that you’ll pass on their contact information, do that. If you say that you’ll turn their business around and they will make 2 grand a month with just 4 hours work a week… Diligent follow-through sets you apart from the crowd and communicates trust.

Your trust bankroll is being spent every-time you:

How to rebuild trust

Even the greatest leaders can suffer a loss of trust. This may be the result of error in judgment or a mistake. Or circumstances may conspire against the leader (a favourite of politicians and ex-Northern Rock senior management).

Networkers are also prone to losing trust - perhaps the result of adverse market conditions or the failure of a supplier or partner. A respected and trusted networker can lose years of building trusted relationships through introducing a connection who failed to deliver on their promise. So how do we rebuild damaged trust?

Acknowledge the mistakes
When decisions turn out unexpectedly, the leader owes his followers an explanation. Inflated egos can make a leader quick to assign blame or make excuses, but a mistake unacknowledged is compounded.

A straightforward acknowledgment of the mistake should be the front end and made voluntarily. One forced (because I got caught) does nothing to re-establish trust. “I forgot to call” may not be something a networker likes to admit, but it’s more honest than making up a convoluted story of deceit that tries to shift responsibility elsewhere.

Apologise
Admitting that you are fallible, that what you did was wrong, that you made a mistake is an important step to accepting responsibility. Knowing that you made an error is one thing, admitting it to others, though painful, allows you (and often them helping you) to put the incident behind you and take action to avoid making the same mistake in the future.

Make amends
Find a way to make amends with people you have wronged. If you have harmed, make restitution. People often forget that undelivered promises frequently have cost the other party. If, for example, you agree to meet someone at 2pm, and turn up at 2.30 - you’ve just cost someone 30 minutes. Next time who will turn up and when?

You may not be required to do so, and it may be that circumstances conspired against you, and it may be that it really truly wasn’t your fault - but accepting ownership and taking responsibility goes a long way to thickening that bankroll of trust.

Trust is the bedrock of the bond between leader and follower, the bond that makes a network work. As a leader and as a networker, trust will make or break your success in any industry or circumstance.

Image by gainmoregolf via Flickr

Influence is a two-way street. Everything you do and say has some influence on others - you are part of their external environment. You even exert a small degree of gravitational force on others, indeed, you exert gravitational force on the planet! Not a lot admittedly, but your mass does attract other mass. You knew that you should have paid attention in science class now. Just as aside, it’s quite a useful factoid for use when you have gained a few pounds of weight - you do so in order to become more attractive! That’s put paid to the glamour magazines.

The same is trues for other people exerting their influence over you. Everything that other people say or do is a part of your external environment and that exerts an influence in turn over your behaviour.

The external environment beyond other human beings, also has some influence over you. The weather for example - when it is raining, it is quite likely that you would alter your ‘normal’ behaviour by carrying an umbrella, or wearing a rain-proof coat. You know for sure that the weather can have a major influence over your golf. When there is lightening, you would wisely move away from the fairways under the trees or into the clubhouse. Being struck by lightening is one influence that everyone can do without.

The problem with influence is that human beings have a tendency to assume that there is little you can do to change the way something influences you. Well, let me put this straight. You can and you do.
Let us take an example of something that influences us and we do something about it  - almost fight its influence on our lives. One that affects us all and that is our friend gravity. You see, gravity is ever present in our lives - there are a few exceptions but since that involves  travelling into space I think I can safely assume that does not include you. If, by chance you have travelled into space - my question is - how far can you hit a drive out there? Must be awesome.

Back to earth. Gravity is a pretty constant force acting on our bodies - in order to combat the effects of gravity we develop muscles and utilise energy to stand against it. Only when we are physically damaged - break a leg, twist an ankle, suffer paralysis and so on, do we truly appreciate how much effort is involved in keeping our body upright and moving. When we are reasonably fit and well, we think little or nothing of getting up from a chair and walking, and most of the time, we do all this unconsciously. We have programmed our brain to take care of operating the correct muscles, keeping balance, walking, and all the while supplying those muscles and cells with energy through breathing and circulating our blood. Now, if you had to consciously work out how to do all this stuff that we simply take for granted, you’d not have a great deal of time to think about much else - at least, not consciously.

What’s the point of this? Well, it’s simple really - there are many many things occurring in your life, including when you practice and play golf, that influence your behaviour. Some things we cannot change - gravity, weather, daylight, animals etc. and we can choose to what extent we allow such to affect us and our behaviours. We can choose to be at cause for ourselves or at the effect of the environment and others. In other words, I’m disabling your potential for ‘excuses’.

In How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins makes a case for why the fall of previously great companies does not negate prior research:

The principles in Good to Great were derived primarily from studying specific periods in history when the good-to-great companies showed a substantial transformation into an era of superior performance that lasted fifteen years. The research did not attempt to predict which companies would remain great after their fifteen-year run. Indeed, as this work shows, even the mightiest of companies can self-destruct.

Leading Blog: A Leadership Blog @ LeadershipNow: Confusing Principles and Approaches.

This should serve as a reminder, less that leadership research and the desire to stand by principles of good practice but there are three stages in the lives of leaders.

Great leaders and great companies begin as risk takers - they will push the boundaries and challenge the status quo. When the ‘fire in the belly’ is diminished and we rest on our laurels, we be come care takers os our business. This is especially true of any business or leader whose praises are sung from the pages of books, magazines, television or even movies. Soon follows the third stage of course, the role of under taker.

The day you or your business is identified as an example of excellence - be it a quote in a book, the cover of a magazine or a TV appearance is the day you need to sit up and take notice, forge ahead, learn from the past success and change.

The 2009 Learning and Development survey provides data on current and future learning and development issues and trends. This year we have explored the areas of employee skills, talent management, coaching and technology as well as economic influences and training spend.

CIPD - Learning and development: summary of key survey findings.

So, it appears that social networking use might make your grades suffer!
I wonder how they compare to students who spend that same amount of time watching TV?

This little snippet stuns me:

According to the research, 79 per cent of Facebook-using students believed the time they spent on the site had no impact on their work.

now that is dumb!

Facebook students underachieve in exams - Telegraph.

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What helps distinguish leaders and managers is about control and, quite literally, how “hands-on” you are.

When you first learn the game of golf, the chances are that you grip thew club tightly. After all this is basically holding onto a stick that you will swing through the air and hit a ball. Allowing the club to “follow-through’ - if you don’t hold on tight, the club might just go as far as the ball.

(I appreciate that many of you reading this may not have ever played golf, for you some alternatives, perhaps liken the tight grip of a golf club to:

New golfers have to learn how to ‘let go’ - to relax their grip. If a tight grip is a 10 on a scale, we want a 4 out of 10.

The same is true of leadership and the way we hold on to our people. Hold on too tight (micro manage) and people have little freedom to use their own skills and strength. Hold on too tight to the club, and it is the golfer doing all the work.

So the question is: “who should be doing the work?” The manager or leader or the member of staff? The golf club is weighted for a reason. If you allow the club to do the work, the swing and striking of the ball, becomes almost effortless. Relax your grip on your team and allow them to excel at what they do, and the work becomes almost effortless.

Once you know, as a golfer, that the club is designed to do the job of striking the ball and your job is simply to swing and allow physics do to its job, you can relax. Maintain just enough control to ensure alignment, direction and distance and the ball will fly according to the club used, and the size of the swing. If you want a long distance, you use a long club and a full swing. A short distance off the fairway onto the green requires a shorter distance club and a smaller swing. The power to achieve the distance lies in the tool being employed and the chosen swing - the rest is pure physics.

So what can we learn as a leader? Isn’t it the same. Make sure that you are using the right tool - the person needs the right skill set (and/or mindset) to do the required job. The leader’s job is to have a little control to ensure that the skills are employed in the right direction for the right distance - that’s about judging how far it is to the goal and translating that into the swing itself - in the case of people, the swing is influence and motivation… let the staff do the rest.

And just like that golf ball landing exactly where you both planned and wanted it to be for the next shot. You celebrate. Unlike golf though, praise your club and thank them for their effort. After all, they did all the work!

When we use this metaphor on our golf leadership workshops, the feedback is instant. Hold tight onto the club and the golfer has to use a great deal of effort and the ball often ends up being pulled, pushed, sliced or hooked - going two thirds of the required distance. Relax the grip maintaining directional control and the ball flies straight to the full distance of the club and swing used.

(For non-golfers… try this with a horse, hold tight, the horse will slow down even when you whip it! You dog on a short leash stays by your side whilst pulling your arm out of its socket! Your child dangles from your hand as you cross the road.)

Yet, new golfers on particular, find their grip tightening in more difficult situations. The very moment when they need to be most at ease, most truly controlling, fear envelops them, pressure builds, the grip tightens and the ball goes astray.

The same is true of business leaders under pressure. Listen to the media hype about the doom and gloom of the current economic situation and fear can easily creep in to the mind. Many leaders respond by tightening their grip on their people and their business, believing that the tighter they hold, the more control they have and the more likely they are to survive and pull through. Albeit, they expend huge amounts of effort, feel incredibly stressed, and more likely to explode a blood vessel!

Tough times in business are better served by leaders keeping a clear head, a loose grip, maintain direction and let your people do what they do best. Let’s face the truth here, even a behemoth the size of AIG can’t control the market, what makes you think that you can? My advice, ignore the noise (media doom and gloom), look for the opportunities and focus on the goal and it’s direction, choose the right club, loosen your grip and let your club do the work.

Loosen your grip and you’ll have more control.