I confess at the outset of this post that I’ve never much been into the ‘cultural differences’ stuff – empathic communication and its breakdowns are my first love. And to tell you the truth, until last week I simply hadn’t been that interested in the topic.

The facts are that I like people from all over the place, I like traveling and I find different cultures, ways, foods, places etc. all fascinating. Full stop. I had of course failed to grasp how someone’s place of birth and the culture of their upbringing might impact on their interactions with other people other than because of differences in their accent, incomplete vocabulary and a quite natural suspicion of British food. A conversation last week has unearthed, for me, a more intriguing subtlety in this cultural difference malarkey.

I imagine that it is generally assumed (well, it was by me) that when a person, for whom English is not the mother tongue, sets out to express an opinion in conversation, any faltering on their part might be explained by a hole in their grammar or vocabulary and/or a misplaced unease about making themselves look daft by using the wrong phrase. According to the one person with whom I have had my only proper conversation about all this (not a large sample I grant you – bear with me) what invariably holds him back from expressing himself more transparently can more accurately be described as a strong dissatisfaction with the inadequacy of the second language and not any lack of his grasp of it.

So, it is not embarrassment that ‘le mot juste’ is, at that moment, beyond his reach but a deep-seated conviction that people from the culture in which he is the visitor would not get to grips with the essence of what he was trying to express, no matter what words he chose. He finds himself thinking: If I can’t get them to connect or empathize with this sentiment then I would prefer to leave the whole thing out. This barrier to expression therefore is not about a hole in idiomatic sharing as much as wider gap in cultural reference points such as what is funny, familiar or foul. The problem is only compounded when a person speaking their second language is skillful to the point that their colleagues believe that none of these problems exist. In such instances, it is possible that untimely failures to speak up might be misinterpreted as examples of ‘not joining in’ and therefore as signs of aloofness.

The conversation last week also shed light on something closer to home. I gave up speaking Italian to our first daughter, Vianne, after more than a year of persevering. I found that I was simply unable to express the subtleties of my feelings for her during the day-to-day ups and downs in a way that did justice to what was going on in my head – and heart. Although I had done my three Rs in Italian, and had been fluent in both English and Italian from first words, I was starting to feel cut off from Vianne. I should not have been surprised. I had, after all, only really been exposed to parent-child language in English and had thus acquired the subtleties of my own parenting vocabulary in that language rather than in Italian.

It seems that linguistic proficiency is only one superficial cultural bridge. The invisibility of other barriers should make us more wary about jumping to negative conclusions about the social faults that we find in acquaintances from other cultures. However, a question remains: In future, will I be quick enough to notice my lack of cultural empathy before they do?

PS. Thanks again to Robert for his excellent cartoon strip. www.robertthompsoncartoons.com

Many great companies start out as family concerns – yours might be one of them.

Mars, now Masterfoods, is a huge and successful example which grew out of a home-based sweet making buiness founded, in a small kitchen in Tacoma, Washington by Frank and Ethel Mars back in 1911. And S.C. Johnson, inventors of the Ziploc bag, Pledge, Glade and Windex were founded in 1886 by Samuel Johnson who invented a new floor polish to go on the parquet flooring he was installing in those days. I’ve had the pleasure of working with a number of Marsians over the years (I don’t know what the SCJ people call themselves – answers on a postcard) and they did stand out from the rest of my clients. More than any other group they seemed to be fiercely proud of their heritage and of the company’s products. No matter where the person worked they seemed to have a very detailed knowledge not only of  production methods but also of production values; to be let loose on the line as a young manager at Mars was to be trusted with the crown jewels – it certainly was not seen as lowly work.

And there are numerous other distinguishing features I could list which defined them as ‘different’ such as their unusual way of opening ‘product’ (Marsian for ‘sweets’) which was to peel the wrapper along the seem so as to reveal the production details (line number, date and time of manufacture, sell-by-date etc. etc.) Aside from all of this, the people from Mars seemed to act as a cohesive group, I hesitate to say for fear of sounding corny, as a ‘family’ group; there seemed to be an extra layer of fabric keeping everyone together.

But is it feasible to reproduce the kind of bonding fabric found in a company like Mars or cabury or in a well-functioning family, within an ordinary company manufacturing ball-bearings or tomato sandwiches? Or would it be found that the product was too mundane, the company too new, the people too ordinary? I suspect that those elements are really nothing to do with it. And I also suggest that there are proportionally just as many badly functioning families as there are badly functioning companies so that just trying to be more like a family probably won’t make a bad company, better. However, I do believe that there are some things that a well-functioning family can pass on to the leaders and members of a mediocre company; this view is in some way borne out by the words of a leading psychologist who was once asked at interview whether being a psychologist had made him a better father. He replied: “No, but being a father has certainly made me a better psychologist.”

So what is the definition of a psychologically healthy family? The literature on the subject suggests that it is one where the roles shift and swap according to what circumstances demand. Sometimes the father leads, sometimes the mother makes the first move. Sometimes the children are told what to do and other times the parents pay attention and act upon the children’s ideas and wishes. Sometimes the parents come up with the solutions, at other times the children spot the problem and the solution before the parents have even got out of bed. As the children grow in years so the relationships are allowed to move on; the children are encouraged to assume greater responsibility for their actions and the parents relinquish much of the control of the organisation and leadership of the unit in acknowledgment that the troops are now more than capable of organising and handling life’s events. By this point the parents have assumed a new role as mentors, advisers-in-the-wings whilst the children have gone on to create their own ‘companies’ with their own particular feel and collection of values and traditions. This all assumes, of course, that the parents have got their psychological act together in the first place, that is to say, that they, to some degree, understand themselves, their own insecurities and needs (especially in terms of needing to be needed) and that they have the courage and judgment to enable them to be flexible as well as consistent at enough of the right moments.

P.S Thanks to you Robert for the great cartoon you did for us. Click here to buy this very cartoon from him!

What would you do next?

She’s done it again. The Marketing Director, Jane Shaw has just taken credit for another one of your ideas. It first happened soon after you arrived in your post as Head of Sales.  On that occasion you decided to take it as a compliment, a way of currying favour with your new boss and an opportunity to build up brownie points with someone who would probably turn out to be your ally for the radical agenda that you were hired to execute on – to increase individual client spend. But in the last nine months it has happened again and again. Today it was during a Board meeting when she essentially trotted out the outline of an idea that you had floated past her just a couple of days before as part of a strategy for achieving your objectives. Having said that, there was no denying that Jane sounded incredibly plausible and actually added usefully to the idea with her own input – she really knew how to get John on Board!

Would you…?

Would you confront her with an assertive statement ? Would you let it go and just have more good ideas? Would you communicate empathy with her position as a Marketing Director under pressure? Or would you stop telling her your ideas and go to the MD first? There is certainly more than one right answer – each of us can carry different things off by force of personality, choice of words and by moral conviction.

Different strategies carry different levels of short and long term risk. What would you do next? Let me know with a reply or go to www.originalsoftskills.com for some options and the answer.

I was doing a spot of wiring at the weekend and whilst grovelling around through piles of dusty (and terribly itchy) ceramic insulation, in a part of the attic that I had never to, I stumbled across a large control panel bolted to the wall.

This shoebox-sized box sprouted a wild assortment of about twenty cables and was covered with an array of red LEDs – all lit. This large gadget had evidently been hanging there for the past three years, since we bought the house, fully powered up, doing it’s thing. What’s its ‘thing’ was I have not discovered but I do know that it did it quite without anybody’s help. No reset buttons to press, no dials to adjust, no displays to monitor. How clever of it, how resilient and independent; what a little stalwart. Not all machines are like this. The more we design machines to do, the more help they seem to need from us. Computers need upgrades, software needs patches, cars need servicing (oh, how they need servicing), bikes need mending and microwaves, well they just get thrown away – sorry. But we fully accept this maintenance burden; when we buy a machine we buy an uncertain future and usually a big fat warranty to ‘protect’ us from that future. But people, ah, now you’re talking.

"Come on ol' girl"

The beauty of buying, or as we like to say these days, ‘hiring’ people is that you just get them in the building, tell them where the coffee machine is (they always manage to find the toilets by themselves) and let them get on with whatever it said in the advert. Job done. Sometimes. The tricky ones need maintenance (oh gawd, here we go – should have bought another bloody machine instead).

Fear not, here is the Quick Start guide to help you get the best from your new person or ‘human’ without wasting valuable business hours.

1.  No need to read a book about ‘leading people’ instead ask it what it needs to operate properly: what turns it on and what makes it malfunction. Then believe it and do as it asked.

2.  Be aware that it will need a reasonably nice place to work properly: space for its cables and attachments, daylight, access to fresh air, a chance to eat and freewheel for a few minutes a day; in essence, somewhere that it is pleased to come to.

3.  If you are going to connect it with other people units make sure that all of them know why they are being connected and find out from them, or at a push, tell them, which person is going to do what. Of course, do make sure they are talking the same language. It doesn’t matter that they are different (you probably chose them that way), it does matter that they can make sense of each other.

4.  If they start getting dusty or crusty it is probably because you haven’t been near them for ages. As with any good machine, the better you get to know your person (and the better they come to know your preferences), the more productive and maintenance-free you and they can be.

5.  Preventative maintenance. This comes in a variety of forms; here are 3 critical ones:

• Communication. If there is an instance of good productivity or a malfunction – talk (like with the car).
• Time to think. If you load your machine with ‘stuff’ don’t expect great results. Like a washing machine – put too much in and it all comes out dirty.
• Be nice to it. We all talk to our cars and that works really well on an icy road or on a cold morning doesn’t it? (I hum to the microwave too – it helps the food to heat quicker). So be nice to your person and they will be nice back to you.

But if you are not entirely satisfied with your person, whatever the model, simply return them to where you got them and there is a good chance that there is someone out there who can successfully give them a more suitable home where they can function at their peak.

You don’t know it but you have been eagerly awaiting this tool. Don’t choke – yes, I’ve designed a tool.

I know, I’m allergic to measurement but this is not a psychometric. This is not a straight ability or personality test. This is about helping someone to understand to what degree they can notice and name emotions in voices. But unlike with psychometrics, this is definitely a START POINT and not a dead-ended, reductionist, deterministic statement of who someone is what what they are destined to do from here on in. It’s a nudge, if they want it, to remember what it is to pay attention to people’s feelings. A reminder. A wake up call. The start point in a piece of re-learning or remembering.

So give it a go – we go live with the Beta version around the 20th September.

So, where do I find this thing? Here

Listen hard and have fun.

You can now listen to the teleseminar we held earlier this week. My guest was Martin Down, a Deep Democracy Black Belt. You might hear some new and very simple answers to some old and very tricky leadership and interpersonal problems… Listen now

It’s been a while since the last post and I was asking myself this morning – why? There’s an element of out of site out of mind (ha ha) but also a distinct lack of pressure to write when no one is beating me up for output or even encouraging me to put finger to keypad. This is not, I repeat, not a ‘poor me’ post but about why we find it so difficult to change even small things about ourselves without a good deal of support from some important person around us. In this case, the change is: start publishing your ideas and then keep publishing…

The really funny thing is that once I get going here I wonder why it took me so long to come back. Here are 5 ideas that come to mind and have an application in real life attempts to change (anything):

1. I thought I’d have to write whole, well-formed thoughts. I didn’t have any of those so I stayed away completely. Remedy: start something – anything – and then refine.
2. Fed up at the lack of feedback and encouragement. Remedy: ask for some (doh).
3. Balked at writing a whole post all at one go with pictures and all the fiddly stuff – groan. Remedy: Write something short and then save. Do something small towards the change and then save (realize/publish) what you have done to someone important.
4. Performance – the perceived need to give a complete and polished rendition will often stop me/people from getting out of their seats. Remedy: The performance will find its shape – just make a start.
5. Looking for that extra bit of energy – that little kick to send me hurling down the Cresta Run – and not knowing always where to find it. Remedy: Just make a start and the energy will come as the sled picks up speed.

Key idea: Make a start – any start. There’s more than enough fuel in the tank.

For more ideas and answers come and have a look at the FAQs bit of the PEC site.

… not any more. My back (a type of unremitting chronological memory) is playing up again. Whilst I can at least boast that I did it in the course of shifting, spade-and-barrow, about 9 cubic metres of topsoil last weekend I am forced to dwell on the pathetic lack of self-awareness that led me to believe that it would be perfectly OK to do it.

A man of my maturity (eh?) should have the common sense and the contacts to be able to get one of those mini diggers onto the job pdf. Yes I do mean PDF, I’m not that bloody confused.

When the local blacksmith turned up with his wife yesterday  to measure up the the filtration system framework for the new lake (when you have seven hours I’ll explain it to you) his wife did actually let slip that he had a mini digger of his own. As I poured scalding Earl Grey down my trousers I reflected on how little I’d altered in 45 years… have idea, reach for spade, start digging, measure up.

…which brings me seamlessly to the significance of tomorrow. It’s my birthday and no it’s not too late to send me a card by email although a proper card would have been nice. Waddayamean I don’t know you?! So? My wife receives only slightly fewer cards than Jesus on his birthday – from people she hasn’t seen in generations. Mind you, she is quite a bit nicer than me; and she writes to people; phones them up (or at least resolves to – so they probably sense that).

I’m looking upon tomorrow as a sort of existential mid-term performance appraisal.

This is how it’s looking:

Appraisal 2008/09

Name: Paul Christopher James Furey

Joined: 28th April 1964

Position: Father and founding Director of Performance Enhancement Consulting (pardonable plug I think))

Overall rating: C++/B  (WHAT?!!!)

No. of friends: 7  (+/-5)

General temperament: TBD

Intellect: Flashes of brilliance masked by whatever happened a few moments before

Emotional Quotient: Gifted bordering on arrogant

Overall comments: Quite solid performer with memorable interpersonal skills (the last dodgy link, I promise)

Objectives for the coming year: 1. Do more with fruit trees. 2. Try to focus.

In the last 24 hours I have learned how a dual-winding system works in a modern alarm clock. I have also mastered the finer points of expanding versus non-expanding text on my web site. Oh and how to set the timer on my oven to come on, cook the food and turn itself off again.

When I started the week, I had no ambition to learn any of those things. In fact, there were several other things I really would have liked to master – like how to play a full twelfth of the A flat major scale on my trumpet without looking at the book. Or how to not bite when my eldest daughter complains that her little sister won’t play with her at 06:15 in the morning.

And it’s not the first time these lessons have been thrust upon me. It seems that my attention and consequently my time is more often grabbed by a piece of technology waiting to be understood than by some really important human thing.

Where do I put the soap?

I love a gadget as much as the next man but why does it leave me cold when I get mail about the new version of this or that or when a friend of mine thrusts their new pda (pdf?) under my nose for approval (there could be some jealousy at play there of course).

There are 22 objects on my desk; 7 of them need electricity and an operating manual. I would like to direct my attention, and that of anyone else who will listen, towards getting the really important stuff right. Learning the tricky business of being really good at being human, a little more of my waking hours. I want to concentrate more on repairing family relationships and less on learning how to Twitter. I want to become a better beekeeper and not quite so good at doing things on the web. I want to learn my Uranus from my Andromeda and not my bits from my Bytes.

Technology is super but there are more challenging things for humans to do than to learn how to get to levels 6 of Left 4 Dead (although the accompanying music ‘Te quiero Putta’ by Rammstein is quite a foot tapper – but for heaven’s sake don’t play it in front of your Spanish-speaking elder relatives). Come to think of it, about the best thing technology has to offer us is unprecedented access to all the music there is out there! Crikey. What a thought.

I take it all back.

Technology is the best. I love it.

Except anything that doesn’t make a nice sound – and that you can keep.

Everyone wants to know how to motivate their people to perform better in the current climate. It’s a pity they weren’t as interested before – had they been they would have been in better shape right now. What they should be doing now is no different to what they should have been doing originally, only now, it’s not really optional.

In brief – there’s more to each of these than meets the eye, BTW, so think before you dismiss ; ‘ )

Exceptional performance in tough times – what does it take?

The boss needs to know these few things:

1.    What is the No.1 preoccupation of each individual who works for me – ‘insights’ that start with “I think…” don’t count.
2.    If my people were unpaid volunteers what would I need to do to keep them? Am I doing it right now?
3.    Do I tend to clear the way or get in the way? How?

The report needs to know these few things:

1.    What frightens me?
2.    What feeds me?
3.    How to get through to the boss

• The report with their own people needs to know all those things.
• The boss and report both need to be prepared to act on what they know or to work at why they won’t.