“We are all manufacturers.
Making good, making trouble or making excuses.”
H.V. Adolt
Thanks to John Niland
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The Incisal Edge Podcast – Public Relations for Dentists with Chris Baker
Posted on November 15, 2017 by Alun Rees
In their second conversation in the pod, Alun and Chris Baker from Corona Design & Communications talk about the best way to use local Public Relations to promote your Dental Practice.
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CIPD’s Top 6 reasons to go to court
Posted on September 12, 2017 by Alun Rees
The biggest challenge in Dental Practices through the Spring and Summer of 2017 seemed to be people. I’m not sure if we have greater expectations of our teams and/or our leaders or whether the general feeling of uncertainty (Brexit etc) is manifesting itself in the way we behave towards each other. All I know is I have fielded more questions from clients (& non-clients) about team behaviour than ever before.
CIPD listed their Top 6 Reason employers end up in court and how to avoid it. Full article HERE
1)Discrimination
Why a tricky area of the law is only going to get trickier – and how HR can stay ahead
Among the biggest casualties of the introduction of tribunal fees in 2013 were claims for discrimination – there was a 91 per cent drop in the number of sex discrimination cases in the first year.
The Supreme Court’s decision that fees are unlawful (see page 8) will undoubtedly mean case numbers will rise….
2) TUPE
Service provision changes aren’t exciting, but they could prove costly
It’s the four-letter word every HR professional dreads: TUPE, or the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations, has always been fraught with the potential to confuse because it is highly technical and heavy on detail.
Recent cases have focused on one key aspect of the regulations – whether there has been a service provision change during a transfer, which can then determine which employees retain their current terms and conditions (or not) under TUPE at their new employer….
3) Flexible working
Justifications matter when it comes to granting or denying requests
According to Deloitte’s Millennial Survey 2017, flexible ways of working – whether that’s location, hours or contractual arrangements – are highly valued by workers born between the early 1980s and early 2000s. Those in organisations with a high degree of flexibility are more likely to be loyal to their employer and to say this has a positive impact on their wellbeing and that of the business…
4) Religion
From dress codes to the intricacies of helping people from different faiths work together
When it comes to religion at work, one of the ways it is most visibly expressed is in the way employees dress. Two European cases have provided food for thought on whether employers can be proscriptive with dress codes in relation to religion….
5) Parental leave
Problems over parity between mums and dads could be storing up trouble
With discrimination against women during pregnancy or maternity leave costing businesses close to £280m a year, according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, parenthood at work is potentially expensive. And discrimination is a particular consideration when it comes to shared parental leave (SPL).
6) Disciplinaries and grievances
Follow the rule book and keep a written record – or be prepared to write a large cheque
HR isn’t all about the process. But when a disciplinary or grievance makes the news, you can be pretty certain someone, somewhere didn’t follow the rules. Both are situations that organisations strive to resolve informally and internally to avoid a costly tribunal. “Most employees are quite reluctant to raise a formal grievance because they think they will be earmarked as a troublemaker, and employers wish to avoid the fallout,”
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Nice piece on the practical elements of leadership from the HBR
Posted on May 10, 2017 by Alun Rees
Use High Standards to Motivate Employees
Employees constantly watch their leaders to understand what kind of people they are. So one of the most important things leaders can do is to insist on high standards. While low standards lead to low commitment, high standards are energising, even for the most self-motivated employees. But choose your arenas carefully. If you demand perfection in every aspect of performance, you’ll come across as a tyrannical nitpicker. Choose one or two things you want to be known for, such as always being prepared for meetings, insisting on product quality, or supporting excellent customer service. Whatever the standard is, consistently uphold it and demand it of others.
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A Formula To Measure Likely Success
Posted on May 3, 2017 by Alun Rees
On a small scrap of paper is the wisdom that Peggy Collins from my Toastmasters Group shared with us last week.
Mark yourself out of Ten for the Desire to achieve a goal and the Action you will take to reach it.
Multiply to see the percentage chance of attaining it.
No amount of Desire without Action and no amount of Action without Desire will lead to success.
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“Jeff, what does Day 2 look like?”
Posted on April 20, 2017 by Alun Rees
Another post via the essential Benedict Evans’ Newsletter. This is from Jeff Bezos‘ (Amazon founder & CEO) annual shareholder letter: “managing Amazon and change in a large company”. Well worth a read.
“Jeff, what does Day 2 look like?”
That’s a question I just got at our most recent all-hands meeting. I’ve been reminding people that it’s Day 1 for a couple of decades. I work in an Amazon building named Day 1, and when I moved buildings, I took the name with me. I spend time thinking about this topic.
“Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.”
To be sure, this kind of decline would happen in extreme slow motion. An established company might harvest Day 2 for decades, but the final result would still come.
I’m interested in the question, how do you fend off Day 2? What are the techniques and tactics? How do you keep the vitality of Day 1, even inside a large organization?
Such a question can’t have a simple answer. There will be many elements, multiple paths, and many traps. I don’t know the whole answer, but I may know bits of it. Here’s a starter pack of essentials for Day 1 defense: customer obsession, a skeptical view of proxies, the eager adoption of external trends, and high-velocity decision making.
True Customer Obsession
There are many ways to center a business. You can be competitor focused, you can be product focused, you can be technology focused, you can be business model focused, and there are more. But in my view, obsessive customer focus is by far the most protective of Day 1 vitality.
Why? There are many advantages to a customer-centric approach, but here’s the big one: customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great. Even when they don’t yet know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their behalf. No customer ever asked Amazon to create the Prime membership program, but it sure turns out they wanted it, and I could give you many such examples.
Staying in Day 1 requires you to experiment patiently, accept failures, plant seeds, protect saplings, and double down when you see customer delight. A customer-obsessed culture best creates the conditions where all of that can happen.
Resist Proxies
As companies get larger and more complex, there’s a tendency to manage to proxies. This comes in many shapes and sizes, and it’s dangerous, subtle, and very Day 2.
A common example is process as proxy. Good process serves you so you can serve customers. But if you’re not watchful, the process can become the thing. This can happen very easily in large organizations. The process becomes the proxy for the result you want. You stop looking at outcomes and just make sure you’re doing the process right. Gulp. It’s not that rare to hear a junior leader defend a bad outcome with something like, “Well, we followed the process.” A more experienced leader will use it as an opportunity to investigate and improve the process. The process is not the thing. It’s always worth asking, do we own the process or does the process own us? In a Day 2 company, you might find it’s the second.
Another example: market research and customer surveys can become proxies for customers – something that’s especially dangerous when you’re inventing and designing products. “Fifty-five percent of beta testers report being satisfied with this feature. That is up from 47% in the first survey.” That’s hard to interpret and could unintentionally mislead…….
……..Good inventors and designers deeply understand their customer. They spend tremendous energy developing that intuition. They study and understand many anecdotes rather than only the averages you’ll find on surveys. They live with the design.
I’m not against beta testing or surveys. But you, the product or service owner, must understand the customer, have a vision, and love the offering. Then, beta testing and research can help you find your blind spots. A remarkable customer experience starts with heart, intuition, curiosity, play, guts, taste. You won’t find any of it in a survey.
In full HERE take the time and read the 1997 letter which follows it – makes interesting reading.
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The truth is you have no choice but to innovate…
Posted on April 7, 2017 by Alun Rees
“The truth is you have no choice but to innovate. Business cycles are so fast now, things that work for a period of time don’t work for very long, and you have to keep changing.”
Founder and CEO of Tough Mudder, Will Dean in conversation with Sarah Robb O’Hagan.
“You just do things that you find scary and after a while, they cease to be scary.”
Full interview HERE
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