The Facts, While Interesting, Are Irrelevant

This week’s letter takes a favourite saying from a former colleague in Hong Kong as its title. He knew that the spin of your story is what sells. Repeating facts that are accessible to anyone does not stand out.

Remembering this got me thinking about other important messages I’ve absorbed from colleagues over the years.

Officers Never Run

My Hong Kong colleague had served in both the Royal Airforce and Navy. He liked to remind me that officers never run, because it panics the troops.

It is important that leaders portray calm, regardless of how worked up they are inside. A manager who is measured 90% of the time and loses it on occasions, is a bad boss. A few years ago I worked with a CEO who behaved this way. The team walked on egg shells in fear of triggering his occasional anger. This contrasted with the man’s self-image of a dignified, elder statesman dispensing wisdom to his troops.

Some people argue that unexpected behaviour carries extra effect, such as when the vicar swears. This is not my experience. People are labelled by odd behaviour and become the sweary vicar, or the boss who might explode.

I am prone to showing displeasure. I try hard to remember that problems exist to be solved and solutions create new problems. Rather than blame people, I try and understand why they made mistakes. A manager’s job is to facilitate the best performance from their team.

You create harmony when you abandon the mindset that everyone needs a kick up the backside once in a while. Treat people like adults and equals, even when they are not. This makes them much more responsive to the occasional suggestion for how to improve.

You haven’t told anyone till you’ve told them ten times

I hate repeating myself. Not listening shows a lack of respect. I get the irony, as I am hard of hearing and often ask people to repeat themselves. Practice what you preach.

A Head of Research told me that I had not told anyone until I had repeated myself ten times. When people are fed up of hearing your message, they remember it was you who said it. Annoying adverts work this way. It matters in financial markets, where everyone claims a good idea as their own.

Colleagues can be distracted. They have ways of working and others advising them what to do. Repeating yourself reinforces the importance of what you are saying.

An alternative approach is to show and tell. After we watch an instructional video four times, we can usually do the task. I rewind screen recordings when installing software or configuring systems, to force myself to concentrate. If you don’t want to stand over people, then give them a recording of a task.

Try this approach even when you’ve had little success delegating to someone. It works because a novel process shows you are open to new ideas. This alone may elicit an improved response.

You remember a bad launch not a late one

Innovators move fast and break things. When you start out posting on social media, or writing blogs, you can afford to make mistakes. No one is watching. Your fear of what people might think, soon becomes concern that no one thinks anything of what you write.

In the same way, startups can make mistakes provided they pivot to fix them. New technologies are adopted by customers who value being first. They understand that everything will not be perfect.

Established companies lack that luxury. Their customers want things that work. In six months they won’t recall if your new launch was a week late, but they will remember if it cost them money. The CEO of OTAS Technologies taught me this when taking extra care over releasing software updates.

This Easter, my younger daughter has been at home from university. It transpires we both bought clothes at Marks and Spencer of late. I took my mother there and she couldn’t find anything she liked. The business is transformed from the old people’s brand of a few years ago.

Before this, the company struggled with clothing launches even as it shook up food retailing. Food rose to around two thirds of group sales through focus on product innovation, quality and value pricing. It transpires these techniques also work in clothing, but not before the business cut its ties to an existing customer base in decline.

New businesses position themselves as different to what went before. There is leeway to experiment and be wrong on occasion. A similar principle works when repositioning a business. It is important to sell the change at least as hard as what is changing. Focus on the logistics, the transformation and how easy it is for customers. Don’t rush. Trust is built through transparency into your process.

Questions to Ask and Answer

1. How are you perceived by colleagues?

2. Does everyone know what your core principles are?

3. Are you open and honest about why you are asking for something?

Here are 3 ways I can help:

1. Book a consultation to talk about AI.

2. Read the deep dive into data science.

3. Explore use cases using accelerated computing.