The Weekend Read: 6. Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion

The author, Robert Cialdini, has pulled off a difficult trick. This is a serious academic book that is tremendously easy to read and very entertianing. He sets out the basic principles of persuasive techniques using anecdotes and experiments.

You will really enjoy this book and, if I am right and how to persuade people becomes an important part of the political debate, you will also be really pleased you read this.

Robert’s website is here: www.influenceatwork.com and you can buy the book from my online shop.

Riding Dead Horses

This came from John Niland’s newsletter and he attributes it to Iain Robertson (who I don’t know).


The tribal wisdom of the North Dakota Indians, passed down from generation to generation, says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse the best strategy is to dismount.

However, customers often attempt a whole range of far more advanced strategies, such as to:

 

1.      Change riders.

2.      Buy a stronger whip.

3.      Do nothing: “This is the way we have always ridden dead horses”.

4.      Visit other countries to see how they ride dead horses.

5.      Perform a productivity study to see if lighter riders improve the dead horse’s performance.

6.      Hire a contractor to ride the dead horse.

7.      Harness several dead horses together to try to increase the speed.

8.      Provide additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse’s performance.

9.      Appoint a committee to study the horse and assess how dead it actually is.

10.  Re-classify the dead horse as “living impaired”.

11.  Develop a Strategic Plan for the management of dead horses.

12.  Rewrite the expected performance requirements for all horses.

13.  Modify existing standards to include dead horses.

14.  Declare that, as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overheads, and therefore contributes significantly more to the bottom line than many other horses.

15.  Promote the dead horse to a supervisory or senior management position.

16.  Do nothing in the hope that the dead horse recovers.

Rick Wright

In the summer of 1972 I had just finished a term and a half at Tadcaster Grammar School in West Yorkshire and was working in the warehouse at the Bass Charrington Tower brewery in the town of Tadcaster itself. I knew that my hopes of getting sufficient A-level grades to get to university were pretty thin and I had decided that all I wanted to do was to earn some money, get a hi-fi and listen to music. It seemed pretty straightforward really.

The sound system came in stages from Comet in Armley Road, Leeds. In those days Comet was the revolutionary ‘cut-price’ electrical retailer. I started with a Tandberg Thorens record deck (which I still own and use), a Wharfdale Linton amplifier and a set of KRD (Koss Red Devil) headphones that were later cannibalised for disco use.

I used to buy a lot of music mail order from Virgin and one of my best & favourite purchases was Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I still vividly remember the joy of hearing the album in full through headphones in stereo, could music get any better than this?

When I heard the news of Richard Wright’s death yesterday all those feelings of excitement at the early listening to the full sound of his band’s playing came rushing back.

Rest in Peace Rick.

“I am not frightened of dying, any time will do.” The great gig in the sky.

Remember his playing.

The Monday Morning Quote #7

“Don’t do it unless it’s fun.

Make it fun. (Always possible,  for me.)

Make it fun for others. (Which makes it fun / more fun for you.)”

Tom Peters

The Weekend Read: 5. Blackie

Steve Black www.steveblack.co.uk the bearded Geordie who has used his innovative skills to train, coach & prepare successful teams from all backgrounds is described, amongst other things, as a motivator, coach, psychologist, priest, councillor, psychiatrist, comedian, strategist, facilitator, and friend.

His background has encompassed organising nightclub security, a spell as a professional boxer and a degree in sports science. He includes Newcastle Falcons, Newcastle United, Sunderland and Fulham football clubs, the Welsh Rugby team that went 11 matches without defeat under Graham Henry and the British Lions amongst the teams with which he has been involved. Indi

viduals like Johnny Wilkinson, Peter Reid, Kevin Keegan, Sting and Glen McCrory will bear witness and praise his unique and distinctive style.

It was inevitable that I must have come across Steve when I was gigging in my disco days around Newcastle during the 70s, sadly I don’t recall any encounter so another claim to fame gone.

I could write for hours about Blackie and hardly start to cover the extent of his talents. One thing that I would like to pass on is the instruction he gives to his charges about their approach to training and playing, he tells them to imagine that everything they are doing during their session is being filmed and recorded, and that at the end of the day, they will sit down with their families and friends in front of a large screen TV to watch the DVD that has been made showing their efforts. Now if that isn’t enough to make an individual honest with himself or herself I don’t know what is…

What would your film look like today?

How comfortable would you be to sit and watch it with those closest to you?

You can get Steve’s autobiography from Amazon.

Free Financial Planning Guides

Ray Prince & Graeme Urwin are Financial Planners at Rutherford Wilkinson based in Newcastle. I have mentioned these guys before and have no financial involvement with them. They have recently made a lot of their guides available to download.

In the near future all knowledge will be available on the web, what will differentiate people is how they use it.

As they say: “Rather than keep all our knowledge trapped inside our heads, we’ve published a number of financial planning guides for doctors and dentists.”

You can download them here.

Top 7 Tips for designing your website.

I acknowledge that this came from Chris Barrow during his time working with Breathe Business.

I apply the old Round Table motto of “Adopt, Adapt, Improve” to lots of things in my life; another way of saying that is “Don’t attempt to reinvent the wheel but it’s OK to try and give it better tyres.”

So the Top 7 requirements for a website. Look at things from the consumer’s point of view what does the website say to you.

  1. Profile – am I in the right place?
  2. People – do they look like nice people?
  3. Premises – am I comfortable in those surroundings?
  4. Promises – are they customer focussed?
  5. Price – do their fees work with my budget?
  6. Proof- what do other people say about them?
  7. Products – do they offer the things that I want?

Now just find the right web designer….

The Monday Morning Quote #6

“Character is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

There are too many people who think that the only thing that’s right is to get by, and the only thing that’s wrong is to get caught.”

J.C.Watts

The Weekend Read: 4. Creative Visualisation

My book of the week is a real wacky bo****ks, tree hugging affair, it was probably the first ‘self-improvement’ book that I bought and probably one of the very best. It came from a little alternative (or so I thought) bookshop in London whilst I was studying the Cranio-Sacral Complex at the British School of Osteopathy in 1988.

The book is “Creative Visualisation” by Shakti Gawain and I was initially very sceptical of the material, but ever keen to try new things gave the exercises a go and much to my surprise they worked. Open your mind, get a copy and give it a go.

To buy from my on-line store click here

The Soul Biographies

Nic Askew the film maker has just launched the Soul Biographies a series of short films which carry on the spirit that he created with monday9am. This is the first film it’s called: Portrait of a Human Being