Entering a new era - are you ready?

Smart Business Thinking Newsletter: Olympic Ring

As one era finishes - so another one starts; the era of austerity

Issue Seven

Wnter 2010

In This Issue

2010 - That was the year that was!

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Building Trust in Leadership

Featured Book Review: Blink by Malcolm Galdwell

Can you trust instinct to make better decsions?
Does your sub conscious have an impact on how you perform at work? According to this fascinating book by Malcolm Galdwell it does. Knowing this does not necessarily make it easier to access and manage those inluences. We share the highlights here.

Quick Links...

Coming up in our next issue:

The last frontier of competitive advantage - engaging your people
New Book Review: Authentic Conversations
Moving from Manipulation to Truth and Commitment
by Jamie Showkeir and Maren Showkeir
Code
PLUS - more topical articles on business issues.

As we close the year 2010, we certainly have a lot of events to look back on. For political, environment and economic reasons it seems to mark the end of one era and the start of another. All of the discussions, media coverage and political focus point to us entering an era of austerity that we have probably not seen since the inter-war years of the early 20th century.

Our concern is business and business performance and this will also be entering a new era. One that we foresee will focus more on efficiency, engagement and customer loyalty. The emotional aspects of leadership and gaining trust of all stakeholders will also be important.

This issue delves into these themes in more detail and also looks at what leaders can learn about decision making from the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

We hope you will find our final issue for 2010 interesting and thought provoking and perhaps are even motivated to send us your thoughts and reactions.

Season's greetings and wishing you every success in 2011.

Mary McGuire

Editor

2010 - that was the year that was!

2010 may not go down in history as an outstanding year, but it will certainly go down as an eventful one. There have been environmental disasters, both natural and man-made. We have seen economic hardships and we have seen innovative breakthroughs. Here's our recap of some of the big events that shaped our year. A year that's seen us turn the corner on the global recession only to be faced with a more gloomy perspective of widespread austerity measures facing almost every nation.

Celtic Tiger has lost its roar

It was year of earthquakes that devastated Haiti and floods in Pakistan affecting up to 20 million people. A hitherto unknown Volcano in Iceland bringing Europe to a standstill when ash cloud interrupted air travel.

For many countries in Europe it was the start of major public sector cutbacks, the biggest since welfare states were established. The backlash is widespread protests and at times civil unrest in many European countries. The Euro currency itself is under threat after some of its members needed rescue packages, the latest of these being Ireland.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell & what it tells us about decision making under pressure

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

"Truly successful decision making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking" this is the key message from Gladwell. He also tells us that "In good decision making, frugality matters", that is, there is not an equal relationship with the quality of decisions and the amount of data that is analysed to support decisions. In fact too much data is likely to lead to poorer decisions. Blink is about explaining why good decision making is when training and expertise work in harmony.

We all jump to quick conclusions at times. Sometimes they prove prophetic and sometimes disastrous. This book looks at deciphering the good and bad instincts that happen in that blink moment. Our brain is a powerful computer that has the ability to collate and decode information at lightning speed. The part that we can readily access - the consciousness, requires time to logically order and understand information. The part which is less accessible - the sub-consciousness is able to draw conclusions from very limited data points (Thin Slicing as Gladwell calls it). The difficulty is that the two can work in parallel, but do not communicate with each other, leading to a conflict between instinctive responses and rational analysis. Read more

Building Trust in Leadership

Trust is essential to successful leadership

With the collapse of many financial institutions, the resultant global recession and the rising tide of Austerity measures hitting many states, it is not just wealth that has been compromised but Trust in Leaders and institutions as well.

During a recent leadership event, the discussions and reflections considered what it takes to build trust as a Leader and how easy it is to lose that Trust.

The lessons that can be taken from this experience and applied more widely are around the conditions that are required to build Trust. I would group them around three key themes:

Building the Conditions - Trust requires some boundaries to be set around the rules of engagement.

Self Disclosure- For individuals to trust or feel safe in sharing their own issues, they need to feel some connection to others.

Building Coalitions - Trust is an activity. It does not occur or survive in a vacuum and needs to have a regular workout and opportunities to test & redefine its boundaries.

Leaders of today can no longer rely on command and control methods of leading their organisation, instead needing to develop ongoing and two-way dialogue. Read more

We hope that you have enjoyed reading 'Smart Business Thinking'.

One of the purposes of our communication is to provoke conversation. So if you have a comment or a reaction, share it with us at:

feedback@agents2change.com

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

The Agents2change Team