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AIDS IS OUR LEPROSY

Today 8000 people will die of aids. Today 11000 people will become infected with aids (mainly women and children). 115,000,000 people will die by 2015 (just 7 years away)

Aids is our generations leprosy www.one.org

Yesterday I learnt how to cheat the church!

I'm serious. I went to the Global Leadership Summit and Andy Stanley said that he learnt to cheat the church and that we should learn to do the same. Anyway, as is the very nature of sort of day, we were subjected to a torrent of great leadership material. The challenge for me is now to incorporate my key lessons, into what I am being as a leader.

Bill Hybels - Life Cycle of a Leader

Quote
"4 Statement grid for key leaders. They must have
    - Intelligence
    - Be Energetic
    - Have Relational IQ
    - Have a win or die spirit"

"If we lead well, people live!"

Lesson
The life cycle of me as a leader (our influence) should go up and up to my dieing day.

Andy Stanley - Focused Leadership
What he meant by cheat the church was that we shouldn't cheat our family of our time, rather we should cheat the church of our time. It wasn't a money thing.

Quote
We spend more time in our organizations because we love progress and because we are afraid.  If I don't it wont ... is an example of being afraid.

Lesson
I need to play to my strengths and delegate my weakness, and the less I do the more I can accomplish.

Jim Collins - When business thinking fails the church

Quote
Building something great is not a function of your circumstance; it is a function of your choices and discipline.

Lesson
And this is reflective of my thinking this week, I need to ensure I continually develop to become a great leader and learn from other leaders.

Bono - An exclusive interview www.one.org

Quote
I have always thought smack in the middle of a contradiction is a great place to be.

Stop asking God to bless what you are doing. Find out what God is doing because it is already blessed.

Lesson
I am compelled to be generous with my resources. How can I lead others to do the same?

What is leadership?

• The manager administers; the leader innovates.
• The manager maintains; the leader develops.
• The manager accepts reality; the leader investigates it.
• The manager focuses on systems and structures; the leader focuses on people.
• The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.
• The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.
• The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
• The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the leader has his or her eye on the horizon.
• The manager imitates; the leader originates.
• The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.
• The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his or her own person.

I believe every business needs great leaders and great managers! Trying to segregate the functions of a leader from that of a manager is very problematic. Most people can have some qualities of leadership in one area, but not in others. Does that make them a leader or not?

I guess the key question as always is; what am I doing to become a better leader?

Quote from Warren Bennis

Agree, disagree, have a question? - Post a comment now.

What the FOGGLES?!

Imagine driving in your car, and being given a pear of foggles (sight limiting glasses that simulate fog or cloud). All you can see now is the instruments on your dashboard, but that’s OK because the person in the passenger seat is going to tell you what to do!

Well today I did my first real session of Instrument Flight for my Private Pilots Licence. It is isn’t quite as bad as doing it in a car because you have more instruments and the instructor has a complete set of controls but it was reasonably challenging none the less.

All flight training to this point has told me to look outside the cockpit where as instrument flight is the exact opposite. You take-off, don the foggles at about 600ft, fly around blindly (well just using the instruments shown) for an hour, then come back into the circuit, and take the foggles off just in time to land. I know went out to the western training area (because I requested it from ATC), but really I had no idea where I was.

It is harder than it sounds as your body can make you feel like you are level when in fact you are turning. For the most part I did ok. How do I know, well I didn’t get asked too many questions like; What altitude are we aiming for (meaning you at the wrong altitude) or how do you think that turn went (meaning you stuffed that turn completely!)

Flying Hours:       1.0
Instrument Time:  0.7
Aircraft:              Cessna 152
Registration:        ZK-EOQ (Echo Oscar Quebec)

42 Below Vodka sells out!

Susan Wood got all excited tonight about 42 BELOW selling out to Bacardi for 77c per share (a 33% premium). She seemed to imply that once again a Kiwi company made good and got the better of a big foreign national. - YEAH RIGHT.

The company said the offer was an opportunity for 42 BELOW to become a global brand. "I think we as New Zealanders should be pretty rapt to see a Kiwi brand become an icon in the luxury goods world. The brand has always been unashamedly New Zealand and now with Bacardi's help our country's vodka brand is set to become a major global force," Ross said.

Good on Geoff Ross for selling, it wasn't making money anyway and it would be a very hard journey into the international markets without further backing.

I can't help but wonder however if we will ever see some sharp, innovative, iconic New Zealand brands actually stay on shore and still make it overseas. Unfortunately that sort of company wouldn't get to appear on Close-Up!

For the record I haven't even tried 42 BELOW, but this post is not about alcohol, it's about Kiwi companies selling out.

What do Vision and Mission really mean?

Vision, Mission, and Strategy. Typing these three terms independently in to google returns over 1.5 billion hits. Even as a group of words over 20 million hits are listed. Little surprise that the observations of what these words represent is as varied as opinions on life itself.

Most experts say you must have Vision and Mission statements. If your people don't know where they are heading they will get lost. It's difficult to disagree, unless you have read vision and mission statements for companies and then talked to the people on the ground to see what really happens.

So I thought, just to add to the confusion, I would give my inference on Vision and Mission, to which I am sure many people will disagree.

FIRSTLY - Whatever you do it must be relevant!

Vision - Is timeless, it is what you want to be, and what you are. For agóge it drives what we want to be in 10, 50, 100 years time. "We will live people matter..." is a philosophy rather than a goal.

Mission - Is timebound and specific. It is what you want to do and achieve now. Mission is a fighting term in my mind, this is where we are taking the battle. It is a broad goal that changes as the business grows and adapts.

Strategy - Is the translation of the Mission into specific actions and goals. It is the determining of what you will do when and how to fulfill your Mission and Vision.

So why do I put all this down in this post? Well because this week is a focus week for me, a week in which I base myself away from the office to read, think, reflect and review how things are going. Not just work, but people, and me. As I have engaged the brain this week, I am really happy with our Vision and Values, but I think our Mission and Strategy is very much lacking.

Is the agóge mission clear and the strategy compelling? I think not.

Choose the best Maneuvers

“The story is told of the battle of the Midianites near Mt. Gilboa. Gideon, during his personal reconnaissance of the enemy, noticed that their sentries were nervous.

To create panic in the enemy lines, Gideon planned a night attack with a relatively small force. Each of his 300 men was issued a trumpet, a pitcher, and a torch. Convinced that the Lord was on his side, he gave the battle order. The men lit the torches, hid them in the pitchers, slung their trumpets, grasped their swords, and quietly went to predetermined positions.

When the Midianites changed their watch at midnight, Gideon gave his signal. His men blew their trumpets and waved their torches. In the resulting panic in the Midianite camp, tribe fought tribe while Gideon and his Israelites stood and watched. And thus the battle was won by the strategy of an observant commander who understood how to confuse the opponent.”

With some stretch here are some thoughts that could apply to business competition.

• Personal reconnaissance gives the leader a feel for the right plan of attack, too often leaders don’t have a clue what is happening in the market place.
• Gideon did not attack a larger army head on, rather maneuvered to their weakness.
• He was clear on the actions required of his men. They all worked as a team.

Above all it comes down to using the right maneuver for the situation. He was mobile, flexible and superior at the critical point of attack.

Quote of “Sun Tzu – Strategies for Marketing”

Homer helps Helen

I don't normally rant on about NZ Politics but today I can't help myself. The government today announced that they are going to build a new supreme court for just $65 Million!

Rick Barker in an interview on TV3 justifies the price by saying that he "could have gone to a Lower Hutt caravan park and brought some caravans" but he felt the supreme court needed better than that.

"This is a building of great significance to New Zealand as it will serve our country for at least 100 years. The design incorporates the old and the new. Once constructed the Supreme Court will be an architectural legacy," Rick Barker said.

What is with that? Comparing $65,000,000 to $20,000, almost the same number... This is how he justifies the 3 fold increase in cost.

Go Helen! Your advisors are doing really well.

Helen and her advisor (Rick Barker?)

PS. The new court house will have bullet proof glass right through to the court room, so you can see the "action" from the street. Wow, can't wait!

Choose the best Maneuvers

“The story is told of the battle of the Midianites near Mt. Gilboa. Gideon, during his personal reconnaissance of the enemy, noticed that their sentries were nervous.

To create panic in the enemy lines, Gideon planned a night attack with a relatively small force. Each of his 300 men was issued a trumpet, a pitcher, and a torch. Convinced that the Lord was on his side, he gave the battle order. The men lit the torches, hid them in the pitchers, slung their trumpets, grasped their swords, and quietly went to predetermined positions.

When the Midianites changed their watch at midnight, Gideon gave his signal. His men blew their trumpets and waved their torches. In the resulting panic in the Midianite camp, tribe fought tribe while Gideon and his Israelites stood and watched. And thus the battle was won by the strategy of an observant commander who understood how to confuse the opponent.”

With some stretch here are some thoughts that could apply to business competition.

• Personal reconnaissance gives the leader a feel for the right plan of attack, too often leaders don’t have a clue what is happening in the market place.
• Gideon did not attack a larger army head on, rather maneuvered to their weakness.
• He was clear on the actions required of his men. They all worked as a team.

Above all it comes down to using the right maneuver for the situation. He was mobile, flexible and superior at the critical point of attack.

Quote of “Sun Tzu – Strategies for Marketing”

Leader vs Manager

• The manager administers; the leader innovates.
• The manager maintains; the leader develops.
• The manager accepts reality; the leader investigates it.
• The manager focuses on systems and structures; the leader focuses on people.
• The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.
• The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.
• The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
• The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the leader has his or her eye on the horizon.
• The manager imitates; the leader originates.
• The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.
• The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his or her own person.

I believe every business needs great leaders and great managers! Trying to segregate the functions of a leader from that of a manager is very problematic. Most people can have some qualities of leadership in one area, but not in others. Does that make them a leader or not?

I guess the key question as always is; what am I doing to become a better leader?

Quote from Warren Bennis

Don & Helen get back to work!

Now absolutely tired of Don & Helen getting stuck into each other. Wouldn't it be nice if New Zealand had a Level 5 leader running the country. One that cared less about themselves and their ego's, and more about the Country itself! It seems every real issue is linked to the Exclusives at the moment. I stole this from David Farrar's blog.

Nat: Labour broke the electoral act spending limit
Lab: But you meet with the Exclusive Brethren

Nat: Labour won't pay back the $800,000
Lab: But you meet with the Exclusive Brethren

Nat: Labour has the largest current account deficit in history
Lab: But you meet with the Exclusive Brethren

Nat: A Labour Minister has been savaged over his marina decision by a Judge
Lab: But you meet with the Exclusive Brethren

Nat: Prisoners are getting flat screens TVs which cost four times a normal one
Lab: But you met with the Exclusive Brethren

I get uneasy when I look back at a week in business and feel like we could have done more to build the future. It would be nice if our countries MP's would stop wasting millions upon millions of tax payer money mud slinging, and started focusing on building a better NZ.

Furthermore why, why, why do the media continually put so much coverage in to it. In other news "A flaming object was hurled through an elderly woman's kitchen window, in yet another Wellington arson attack."

Last word to Brash, "The public are sick of this garbage.  It's time for Labour to get back to the issues."

It's time for someone to actually step-up and lead! And I'm not sure either Don or Helen are up to it.

What Origin Pacific lacked

It has been said 'The best way to make a small fortune in aviation is to start with a huge one'. I am sure that Mike Pero might have personally learnt this lesson after sinking $10 million into Origin Pacific. The full-blown disintegration of Origin Pacific last week, confirmed New Zealand’s domestic aviation market has become fully mature.

No one, other than a huge multi-national, has the resources to compete with Air NZ. They, along with Qantas who choose not to do regional, are the Super Powers [see previous post] in the domestic market and there is simply no room for ‘secondary [ugly] powers’, like Origin.  In the ‘business guerrillas’ camp we have small niche operators like Air2there, Sunair and Sounds Air. Each has very niche markets that Air NZ simply doesn’t care about or is too small to enter.

BIG question - Can you become BIG without directly competing with the Super Powers?

Short answer - No!; but the road of business is littered with companies that tried.

There is a place for specialists with a niche market, but ultimately they have to be prepared to stay as “guerillas”.

If you are not happy being a guerilla, then sooner or later you are going end up in the middle ground. To stay there and grow to be BIG, you will have to take it to the Super Powers. Once you reach the never never land of the Secondary Powers, you now must compete in price, service and features. If you can’t compete in that position for a prolonged period of time and if you can’t continue to grow month on month, you are near stuffed!

Now here’s the challenge if you want to be big, somehow you need to grow and yet maintain the nature of guerilla warfare. Making very strategic decisions about the markets, even specific customers you want, the service you will offer and the prices you will charge. If you can continually move the battle front, the Super Powers will struggle to fully understand what you are up to. They will respond with a defense that is already irrelevant as you have move to the next battle field and target.

In my opinion Origin was doomed to failure before their first flight left the ground. They tried to behave and act like super powers, then align themselves with super powers like Qantas, rather than establishing profitable niche markets and attacking and growing through guerrilla warfare.

Agree, disagree, have a question? - Post a comment now.

Origin Pacific falls from the Never Never Land

'The best way to make a small fortune in aviation is to start with a huge one'. I am sure that Mike Pero might have personally learnt this lesson after sinking $10 million into Origin Pacific. The full-blown disintegration of Origin Pacific last week, confirmed New Zealand’s domestic aviation market has become fully mature.

No one, other than a huge multi-national, has the resources to compete with Air NZ. They, along with Qantas who choose not to do regional, are the Super Powers in the domestic market and there is simply no room for ‘secondary [ugly] powers’, like Origin.  In the ‘business guerrillas’ camp we have small niche operators like Air2there, Sunair and Sounds Air. Each has very niche markets that Air NZ simply doesn’t care about or is too small to enter.

BIG question - Can you become BIG without directly competing with the Super Powers?

Short answer - No!; but the road of business is littered with companies that tried.

There is a place for specialists with a niche market, but ultimately they have to be prepared to stay as “guerillas”.

If you are not happy being a guerilla, then sooner or later you are going end up in the middle ground. To stay there and grow to be BIG, you will have to take it to the Super Powers. Once you reach the never never land of the Secondary Powers, you now must compete in price, service and features. If you can’t compete in that position for a prolonged period of time and if you can’t continue to grow month on month, you are near stuffed!

Now here’s the challenge if you want to be big, somehow you need to grow and yet maintain the nature of guerilla warfare. Making very strategic decisions about the markets, even specific customers you want, the service you will offer and the prices you will charge. If you can continually move the battle front, the Super Powers will struggle to fully understand what you are up to. They will respond with a defense that is already irrelevant as you have move to the next battle field and target.

In my opinion Origin was doomed to failure before their first flight left the ground. They tried to behave and act like super powers, then align themselves with super powers like Qantas, rather than establishing profitable niche markets and attacking and growing through guerrilla warfare.

The ugly one wants to grow up...

It has been said many times that the best defence is a good offence, and interestingly enough I think that this may well answer a comment to my last post.

So how does a company that sits in the small (guerrillas) section move from there to the ultimate goal of being 'big' without passing through the medium size? ...

Firstly, I think that it is important that the market that you are small or ugly in, is not fully matured. If it is you need to create or enter a new market. Secondly you must continue to grow, and by grow I mean primarily organic and then acquired. The most effective way and decisive way to grow big is to seize, maintain and exploit the initiative in a market that is either not fully matured or is a speciality.

A current example in the NZ news at the moment is Pumpkin Patch's result. They started as a small business and have grown to be a big business by NZ standards. They now have branches in Aust, UK and have launched into the US. Their strategy is to continually grow and add stores (similar in principal it seems to Michael Hill). They are continually on the offensive pausing only when entering new countries to get the delivery and marketing right. Once they nail that they rapidly grow again.

So to answer specific questions drawn from the comment …

• Medium sized - You need to pass through ugly to get to big, but I think you can actually get to big in one market and then realise you are small in another and expand again.
• Too long - Too long is measured by growth. If you don’t have growth into new markets and products and regions you will become irrelevant. This, in my opinion needs to happen at least every 6 months, if not 3 months.
• Risk – yip. Once you get to a crtical mass that Big brings the risk reduces significantly
• Acquisition – I think organic when small primarily with the aid of acquired.

By being on the offensive causes the competitors to react, by being defensive it causes you to stop growing. If that happens you are destined to be ugly (the never never land) or a guerrilla.

Some interesting lessons in this line of thinking for me and my role over the last couple of days.

The big, the small and the UGLY

The leader must take up a strong position, inspire others to follow him, discover where the enemy is weak and attack there. – The precepts of Ssu Ma Jang Chu – 400BC

In general, the marketplace looks like this;

The Super Powers (Big)
They own the territory, set the rules, and, like the 400kg gorilla, sleep anywhere they want. The big dogs get the biggest pieces of meat. The superpowers are in the production business – they are as concerned with protecting their position on the high ground as they are with gaining new ground.

The Secondary Powers (Ugly)
Their job is to get bigger so that they do not get smaller. They often achieve this by knocking off a lot of small companies rather than attacking the major powers. It’s easier to eliminate the weak than to attach the strong.

These secondary powers are in a vulnerable middle ground. They are facing attacks from both the big buys and the guerrillas. As an industry moves to maturity, the marketing action polarises to the big at one extreme and the small specialists at the other. The never-never land where you never want to be is a medium-sized company in a mature industry.

The Business Guerrillas (Small)
In third place is everyone with a small market share, specialists in a big market. These firms biggest threat is the 800kg gorilla.

What interests me from this quote of “Sun Tzu – Strategies for Marketing” is the never never land. In New Zealand I think it is fair to say that some markets have either fully matured or are very close. This leaves very little room for The Secondary Powers.

Take the shakedown in retail, there are very few medium sized businesses. They are either stores that are a part of one big group, or small boutiques that specialise. Recruitment world wide is a mature market, huge multi-nationals or smaller specialists.  In NZ at present there are a few Secondary Powers, but I am not sure that is a great place to be.

Within transport and logistics, I believe that the Courier Market has neared maturity, Freightways, Express Couriers and the rest. 3PL/warehousing continues to mature and make entry very difficult without being specialists.

Interestingly enough, the Transport industry is only over the last few years starting to show signs of maturing. There are more acquisitions, mergers and off-shore investment. There still remains a significant number of Secondary Powers. The challenge for them in the next few years either become big, or settle for being specialist, staying in the middle ground is never where you want to be!

Home Invasion

BOOM! The door flew open, they burst into the house and within seconds seemed to occupy every space. The noise told of chaos and energy blended into one. Immediately the tranquillity was replaced with a racket that would rival a sonic boom over Canterbury. Then I realised they were searching for me, I knew I didn't have long till they found me. After an extended period of silence I knew my time was up. My family just got home.

Was that 1 1/2 hours I ask myself? Where did that time go? I was planning to make it productive time, nailing a few things before my week began but instead I had surfed the net randomly and enjoyed for the most part, the silence. On this occasion my thoughts were not clearer as I lacked the disciplined thought that should accompany silence to make it productive. It was relaxing nonetheless.

I am reminded that I function better when I have times of silence and solitude. I seem to live with audio cluttering much of my life through radios, tv, mp3 and people. I love music and audio and conversation but there are times when I need to mute them and have space to focus my thoughts.

When I have times of quiet I usually manage to assimilate my small thoughts and ideas that I continually have and make them into a coherent and better thought-out plan. Without times of silence, solitude and disciplined thought, I don't see the big picture, the related priorities and I become driven by the small things. Yesterday during my time of silence I just relaxed. Today, as I head to Wellington, I will make some thinking time happen and see what happens...

Driving through changing landscapes

The expectation of change is gone, the heavy machinery that once littered the road side has moved on, the surprise changes in road layout are no longer. Finally after spending enough money to feed a small third world nation for a year, and after 10 years we have a 4 lane road from Long Swamp (just north of Huntly) connecting to the 4 lanes at Mercer, then snaking all the way into Auckland and beyond.

An element of excitement and anticipation made the drive interesting and revealing the first few of times I trundled up to the city of sails and homeward on the new road. Now that excitement is replaced by familiarity, the unknown layout and speed limits changes are replaced with the undemanding and effortless click of cruise control. For years I was excited by the prospect of speed and ease and time-saving which are all rewards that the new road has brought, yet now it feels like something is lacking. It feels like Auckland just grew, stretched its arm deeper into the Waikato and took the liveliness out of the roads, replacing it with repetitiveness and simplicity.

I miss the ever shifting landscape that construction brings and how it often provided a welcome divergence in my thinking to questions and opinions about their efforts and floundering.

The new road is fantastic but without the interest and excitement that continual change brings, it is now is just one more piece of road.

Even when driving it would seem I need change, adore change and miss change.

What is initiative?

It's an interesting question isn't! What is initiative? Can you train people to have initiative? Can a person be held accountable for not displaying initiative? Does the culture of your company breed initiative?

An old philosopher Albert Hubbard says this "THE WORLD BESTOWS ITS BIG PRIZES, both in money and honors, for but one thing. And that is Initiative. What is Initiative? I'll tell you: It is doing the right thing without being told"

Hubbard tells the story Andrew Rowan said to the President,

"There is a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can."

Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How "the fellow by name of Rowan" took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and having delivered his letter to Garcia-are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.

The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?"

Garica wasn't told how to act, or where to look, who to contact, he just took the letter set out and made the right thing happen. Read the whole story if you have time.

Seth Godin calls it being a torchbearer and says this

Now, I'm not talking about working hard, or being dedicated, or putting your mission first. Being a torchbearer has nothing to do with how late you work at night, or whether you give your cell-phone number to your boss. No, I'm talking about the people with that rare skill, the ability to dig deep when the need arises -- to get past the short-term pain and to pull off an act that few would have believed possible. In the new economy, people are doing things that have never been done before. Faced with the unprecedented, in an environment that's unstable, many people say, "It can't be done." The torchbearer is the one who does it.

I love Hubbard's quote. I think initiative is doing the right thing without being told. I think training helps, culture is important, accountability is paramount and these things can help people fell comfortable with taking initiative. I also think some people have been trained their whole lives to lack initiative and they must now retrain. Eventually it comes back to a readiness and ability to initiate action, the right action. Ultimately it comes back to the individuals deep resolve to do the right thing every single time. If that desire is not there they will never carry the torch across the finish line nor find Garica.

Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.

THREE RULES OF WORK

"Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity"

Quote from Albert Einstein

Well meaning people

There very few normal work days that I can recall like I do the 12th September five years ago. I had recently been given a job which meant I made the sluggish journey to Auckland three or four times a week. Typically I travelled before sunrise, but this day was not a normal day. As I steered the bulky green station-wagon north there was an endless chatter about only one topic on the radio. In the shadow of the Sky Tower I get out of my car to a radiant blue sky and hear some jet engines whine in the distance which immediately connected my thoughts to the sky in New York just hours earlier. What if?

Five years on and the anniversary of 911 brings with it repeat after repeat of the planes flying into the building or the towers collapsing. How hard it must be for the families of the dead to see those images again and again and again. Time after time the media replay the murder of their loved ones on TV. Oddly however, year after year we are drawn to the images, to the viewpoints, to the speculation of what is next. The world is not the same place it was when around 2800 people died in the US that day, merely ask the citizens of the now "liberated" and "democratic" state of Iraq, who have lost over 40,000 civilian family members in this war on terror.

The world is not the same, nevertheless it is exactly as it has been for thousands of years. Well meaning people and governments and religions are doing things that they think will make the world a better place, while all the time forcing their rules for living on the rest of the world. We see it in Christianity all of the time, people go around telling people how to live, or more to the point tell them what not to do, and forget that perhaps God made us for relationships. I heard this pastor friend of mine talking about the bible over the weekend and what it tells us about loving our neighbours. He sort of said that we have to be deeply compassionate for the needs of people around us, and how the question is not who is my neighbour, but who can I be a neighbour to?

All this got me thinking about creation and I wondered if most well meaning Christian people have missed the point. What if Christianity could be summed up like this? Love God and love People with everything you have. What if this whole Christianity thing is about relationships, deep, authentic, caring relationships? Imagine if people with nothing to offer could actually have a relationship like that with God, then He taught them how to truly live and to have deep, authentic relationships with people.

You know what, I think that would be the kind of Christianity I would want to be a part of...

Interview Questions

A timely reminder for people recruiting Drivers and Forklift operators.

Juggler Interview

Circus Manager: How long have you been juggling?
Candidate: Oh, about six years.

Manager: Can you handle three balls, four balls, and five balls?
Candidate: Yes, yes, and yes.

Manager: Do you work with flaming objects?
Candidate: Sure.

Manager: ...knives, axes, open cigar boxes, floppy hats?
Candidate: I can juggle anything.

Manager: Do you have a line of funny patter that goes with your juggling?
Candidate: It's hilarious.

Manager: Well, that sounds fine. I guess you're hired.
Candidate: Umm...Don't you want to see me juggle?

How often are people placed into work without actually seeing if they can do the job?

Quote from Seth Godin's Blog

Agree, disagree, have a question? - Post a comment now.

The grand strategy

"It is the translation of the grand strategy down into what people do every day, and be caring about what they do that is the single biggest challenge that faces every company." And I suggest every leader. It is certainly one of the biggest challenges that I face on an ongoing basis. I find this quote from a CEO who took part in the Covey 4 Disciplines course stimulates me often to assess how I am going as a leader. Frequently accepted wisdom would say just set the big goal, go for it, let the people do the work. Often however this doesn't cut it.

Last week while discussing a project it became apparent that we had not yet thought through a key part of the new project. There was an inherent risk that we get to project completion and then find we had missed some key thinking for the process. It is not the first time, nor the first project that this has happened with. Being more than a little deflated that such a critical component had been looked over, I head into this week with a hankering to nail off my part in leading and delivering great projects, and this brings me back to the quote.

It has three parts, "grand strategy", you need to have one prior to doing anything else; "translation of the strategy into what people do each day", this is about breaking our goals down to a level that people understand exactly what to do; "caring about what they do", this means really caring and caring can only really be shown by spending time with them. Three parts, and as I critically review myself, I am doing decidedly averagely at all three! I have therefore planned a focus day to clear the head and determine again what is wildly important.

I am encouraged that 'translation' and 'caring' are the single biggest issue facing every company and leader. I am not the only person to struggle with this dimension of leadership. We have all worked for leaders, even stunning leaders that fail to continually set clear goals, help you break them down and care about how you are going as precisely as they should.

To conclude, a friend txt me a quote from Churchill in the weekend. "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm" - Hitting failure after failure enthusiastically - hmm.

AGOGE MEANS BEING

It means more than just saying something, or telling others to do something, it means 'being what you say and teach'. I want to be true to the word Agoge, and true to the way I live my life. True to the company and people that make up Agoge.

Quote from Andrew

I'm a little fire engine 'Flick' is my name...

Imagine being an Airport firefighter in Alaska, on Tuesday I meet a guy who had done that job. In fact imagine being an airport firefighter anywhere. Generally it would be monotonous existence, clean the fire truck, drive down the runway to get for foreign objects (these are not people who stowaway...), do the odd plane crash drill, but then generally you sit around waiting for a plane to crash, nice! The job almost contrasts that of a domestic firefighter who fights fires, attends motor vehicle crashes, cleans up floods and nails roofs down. In their spare time they educate kindergarten kids, check buildings and hydrants, and play table tennis.

For the record if I had to choose I would be an airport firefighter, after all I would get to see heaps of planes and that perk compensates significantly for the boredom. To be candid, I feel like a domestic firefighter at the moment, bouncing from one fire to another, attending to accidents, cleaning up issues and nailing things down. In my spare time I try to educate some people, work on the building and have some fun. I feel like I 'flick' from one thing to another.

My dilemma is this; it is not my agreed function to be a domestic firefighter and being one comes at the expense of strategy and leadership development. When I don't develop leaders and give strong leadership, my team are ill equipped to lead their teams, when this happens we all seem to get more involved in fighting fires.

Anyway back to another day at the fire station...

NEWSFLASH - Just heard that Noamz had her baby! How cool is that!

PS - If you want to check out the pre-launch developments for the logistics opinions page go to my.agoge.net\logistics

New idea, new space

I downloaded and listened to a Skypecast with Seth Godin yesterday on the way to Tauranga. On it he talks about 'small being the new big' and the application of that philosophy to blogging. He was basically saying that you need to find a small niche space for your business blog and just go about doing it. At the time it didn't actually ring true in my head.

This morning I wrote an editorial for the FTD magazine. The trick with an editorial is to write it like the editor has written it, and then refer to yourself in the third person. Below is an part of the article.

Is the transport industry in for some tough times? It appears so, particularly with higher fuel prices and a shortage in staff and drivers.

But Andrew Nicol, director and founder of agóge Logistics, disagrees. "We have total control over the success or vulnerability of our industry. The choice for us is simple; either sit on hands and do nothing or take action! Being PROACTIVE and having VISIBILITY are vital to ensuring our industry continues to experience profitable growth."

Blah blah blah...

Let me tell you, it is really hard to write in the third person after you have been blogging for a while. When I blog I just give you a view or opinion and publish it. I don't have to make it newsworthy or elegant.

After I had finished I took a shower, which is where I do all my best thinking, and thought that we should set-up a blog for NZ Transport & Logistics Opinion's. Get guest authors and do maybe 1 or 2 posts a week. The cost to administer it is nothing, yet it may add heaps of value and be a place for candid opinions and ideas to feed our industry. Seth's idea and my writing an editorial come into one and a new space is born.

Now that I have the idea, I know I need to host it. Hosting it under the sub domain of 'agogeboy' just doesn't feel right for customers and general public, so I decided to shutdown 'agogeboy' and relaunch with 'agoge' via typepad.com. You would think I would have done that the first time, but I didn't really have a clue what I was doing. It also gives me the opportunity to host other people and internal blogs under different names.

So I am at a new location agoge.typepad.com or www.nicol.co.nz for my personal blog. Our transport blog will be launched in the next few weeks. It will be at www.agoge.net, I will keep you posted.

TIME SLOWS

"Scientists have played with atomic clocks, matched exactly, setting one in a plane to fly around the world, and another motionless, waiting for the return of its partner. When they reunite, the one that traveled rests milliseconds behind the fixed one. The faster you move, physicists have found, the less you experience time."

Quote from "Painted Deserts"

Benefits vs Features

Mark (a marketing guy) and myself were talking through a product launch we are about to do soon. I was chatting to him about the benefits of this new service that my team and I had put together. He diplomatically tells me some good benefits, but others are just features. He was right of course, and somehow in my haste to nail things I missed it. I thought I would check out some blogs and found this one with a rather good example.

"The lesson [about benefits] was hammered home for me a few decades ago in my first career. I was representing my employer, International Harvester at the International Plowing match. I was on tractor displays. My job was to explain all the features of the new tractors to the farmers.

I had memorized the details of the tractors - horsepower, PTO power, tire options, etc. I even prepared some cue cards with this information in case I forgot.

But I was jolted into realty when some farmer with crooked teeth stared at me after my dissertation about horsepower and said, "Can she pull a three-furrow plow in sandy clay?"

The question shocked me. I didn't know the answer. And I realized that that was the important question. I didn't know the answer and the company had not prepared me for it. They had given me facts - not relevance."

My lesson. I really need to get in front of some real customers to make sure we are not just talking about features, while they sit there thinking about getting stuck in the clay.

Quote from Benefits vs. Features - George Torok

Undercover surveillance at Starbucks

Starbucks is a rip off! $5.60 for a below average Mocha which pails in comparison to the Macho you get at "The Naked Grape". The Grapes' Mocha costs less, is interactive (yes, I say interactive) and tastes awesome! I sit at a table on the outside corner of Starbucks at Bayfair so I can read and watch the world go by, while I wait on Karina.

As I start to read I hear the family two tables back from me are speaking Spanish. I think of Costa Rica again, and this is the fourth circumstance that has reminded about it in the last week. I wonder if Costa Rica is beckoning me or if it is just like noticing a certain colour and make of car, merely because a friend has just brought one.

I intermittently read my book, sip on a bad mocha and watch people. I love watching, learning and contemplating people. Here are a few of my decidedly unscientific observations:

• Men either go to the mall alone or with their partner, NOT with other men. Kind of makes sense I don't recall ever ringing Robbie or Alf and asking if they want to go shopping with me. Thinking I should do this one day as it could be hugely entertaining.
• Teenage boys go in packs of 2 or 3. They are at the mall for two reasons only, girls or food. Shopping is not on their mind, if it were they would shop alone or secretly with their mums.
• Almost all of the people I saw texting were alone, I only saw one person texting who was not alone and that person was obviously with her mum.
• Older women dress to make themselves appear young, while the teenage women dress to make themselves appear old.

As I considered what my eyes were telling me, I thought about how we are relational beings, people made to interact with other relational beings, then this morning I finished 'Through Painted Deserts'. One of the few profound lines in Don's book says "Relationships between people indicate something of the nature of God - that he is relational, that he feels love and loss."  - an intriguing thought.

People Masquerading as Tiny Little Envelopes

It was to be a challenge to the scale of biblical proportions! One man versus a multitude of people masquerading as tiny little envelopes on his screen. All of the envelopes are open, which was an indicator to the man was at least checking them for urgency and shaping the view that they could wait. Gone already of course, are the envelopes that couldn't wait or simply required but a handful words and minimal thinking to conjure up a response. Eradicated are the countless daily spam that arrive offering him all kinds of advances and enhancements to parts of your life I dear not mention.

What lingered in my inbox were the hard emails. Emails I actually had to reflect on, process and even make a decision on. Emails that required more than an effortless one line answer or that simply were not a priority for me. These emails needed thought and in many cases well crafted responses. So yesterday I spent the best part of the whole day clearing emails, and handling the related requests. Some of my time was spent at Machina drinking a mocha and a flat white, the rest of my time was at work nailing detail to reply with.

Now here is the point! Email is an incredible non-urgent method of communicating. It is a fantastic way of providing information and updates in a timely manner. But I must say I have a key philosophical issue with email today and it's use in most companies. It is this:

When we send an email we mentally transfer the problem to someone else until such time as they handle the problem themselves, forward it to someone else, or respond. I do it all the time by the way!

Now my philosophical issue is that when we do this, we generally think our email or problem or question or information is more important than the other things people have on, or dear I say it, we don't even think about what they have on and just send the email.

We expect an answer from emails and most the time get one, when in fact it could be distracting people from doing really important tasks. There is generally no opt out, just an expectation that you will handle it. People live with their inbox open, are continually distracted and productivity plummets as they bombarded by a multitude of people masquerading as tiny little envelopes.

Yesterday I cleared some emails going back 3 months. I considered resolving to focus on clearing all my emails each week, but then I thought I would be allowing the envelopes to determine my priorities rather than me. I am happy to spend a day every few months clearing the backlog and sometimes I admit that I actually just delete the email a month or so after it was sent. If it was really urgent they would have called me or asked me when I had an opportunity to say no.