We think of transitions in our schools, careers, marriages and kids but rarely, the time late in our lives when the place our family have called “home”, ceases to be the family’s ideal base, particularly for the older generation. I am talking about when the time, money and energy devoted to maintaining the home becomes a burden or our physical well-being is ill suited to the layout.
For a great many families that “decision” can take an eternity to make. Indeed, the complexity connected to moving on, is often greater than many of us understand (emotional and psychological issues) but the solution is often a lot simpler than we understand it to be.
How about we start by asking ourselves, what is the life we want to be living? Then, how do we simply and easily acquire the resources (property, support, capital etc.) to be doing that? Nothing more.
You have lived with a high level of certainty in your career around what your day, week or life will look like. You are a “success” by all objective measures. You have led businesses and teams. You have felt the pressure of taking finely balanced risks, and living with the consequences. You are now struggling to answer the question “what is my next career move?” Indeed, that question is now starting to be unanswered for an unhealthy and extended (30+ days) period of time.
How many family dinners, drinks and friends’ BBQs can you tell everyone “you are considering your options?” or respond “fine” when asked about your business. You know it really isn’t, it is uncomfortable, and indeed, a frustrating time where you levels of enthusiasm, energy and humour ebb and flow daily. The clock is ticking, whether you recognise the time or not, and you want to avoid others making that decision for you.
Where do you turn for inspiration, clarity and a permanent resolution in a discreet environment? It is not probably to those individuals in your current support system (friends, family and colleagues), advisers or recruitment experts.
Ideally, it is to people like me, who themselves have been through the same ambiguity, and have successfully made the crossing, and can translate and transfer their own successful approaches to you.
How do you make them eager to want to meet and help you? (warm introduction) Where do you ideally meet? (neutral turf) What are the ideal conditions? (both parties see it is in their own self-interest to do so) What exactly do you want answered? (realistic goals, routes to them, reciprocal help) What must you do first thing tomorrow and the day after to advance safely towards success? (meetings, calls, research) What sort of structure and monitoring do you require? (weekly, monthly calls, feedback, de-brief and meeting prep)
You need to confront the situation head on. Procrastination has to cease. You need to figure it out now. Sorry, no one else can answer the questions only you can answer. This is the inconvenient but honest truth. Let’s talk, email me at james@elliceconsulting.com
Children have it drummed into them to “read the question” in the school class. Yet what the teacher really needs, is them to “interpret the question accurately”. The former is an “input”, the latter an “output” (result).
How many of your existing job descriptions or those that you are hastily, re-drafting , are placing accountability on “inputs” (tasks, activities) undertaken by employees rather than valuable “outputs” (improvements, value created)?
I am struck by all manner of people hosting conferences, and events, promoting inclusion to largely people, who are readily on board with their inclusive beliefs. The converted preaching to the converted in the home of the converted, and then using the media to blast their credentials.
In the spring of 1992, when I lived in Denver, John Elway, the legendary Broncos quarterback and his then wife, Janet, hosted their annual celebrity ski race in Copper Mountain. Despite the Broncos, Hollywood celebrities and sports stars, it was a very understated affair. One unusual sight was that of Vance Johnson, an African-American and hugely talented Broncos wide receiver, dashing around the mountain on skis. In those days, the sight of bears was more common than non-white skiers.
We bumped into each other on a chair lift, no one mentioned his race but he did. He simply said, “this is such a cool sport for a black athlete, I just do my stuff and let everyone appreciate it.” That his life took a downward spiral shortly, thereafter with addiction, abuse and financial ruin, couldn’t hide the point that if you have talent, a willingness to not be seen as a “victim”, and to feel comfortable in an unusual setting, there really are no boundaries to your public acceptance.
Vance’s Story, trumps all the virtue-signalling nonsense.
Post-acquisition of a business, decisions need to be made today about the future of three kinds of client relationships:
Ideal clients (how best to nurture and expand)
Clients that needing adapting to be ideal clients (how best to evolve the product, service, relationship, management, fees)
Clients that will never be ideal clients (how best to transition or let go)
My very best clients have a fast and high quality process, which applies a mixture of science (tangible benefits) and “art” (intangible and peripheral benefits).
They remove the emotion (“we have known John and his family for over 30 years….”) to make a rational determination about the “next steps” with each client.
They focus on superb communication with each client, irrespective of their future relationship. In person, phone and email communication in that order.
Both parties self-interest is put at the forefront of their thinking.
Once a decision is reached on how each client is best served, they stick to what they are proposing, and crucially, how they are proposing to move forward.
They are scrupulously fair and equitable with each client.
They know being “cheap” has repercussions (word-of-mouth marketing) and eschew a poverty mentality (clinging onto unprofitable clients for short-term revenue benefits).
If the relationship must end, they seek to offer the client options (transition or termination process, timing and so forth) but remain steadfast in telling the client the relationship will end.
They accept that there may be a need for midcourse changes in their determination, where there is “new” information or evidence presented or their earlier assumptions are clearly wrong (ex. pre-deal due diligence).
Where there is a need to adapt client relationships, they are superb in articulating the enhanced value (how the client is better off) such that additional fees or remuneration are put in the appropriate context. They try to offer options (none of them keep the status quo).
Clients are the lifeblood of their businesses and that is reflected in all the client facing individuals’ expected behaviour, accountantibility, performance and reward.
Contrast this with any number of businesses you have been a client of or indeed bought or been acquired by. It looks so simple to apply common sense. What was missing in your examples?
Don’t you smile when the loudmouth cannot control him or herself wading in with an uninformed opinion because they simply have to be heard. Whether it is in business, politics, or other aspects of life, we underestimate the power of “active” listening, at our peril.
If you are dumb enough to refuse a replacement, the time to build trust, which has been integral to your partnership, alliance or consortium’s success, you better have something so desirable others are willing to bet “blind”. That is a luxury very few organisations ever have. Or then again perhaps you have close to zero interest in your partners’ future or in finding a replacement.
If you insist on telling me my discretionary time, my personal interests and my enjoyment must be curtailed BEFORE we conceptually agree a plan for an improved set of conditions, you weaken not strengthen your negotiating position.
Why do we place more faith in ageing technology than in ageing people? The older and wiser individuals are, surely, the more productive they are in resolving problems or in raising performance levels? Equally, the inverse is true of ageing technology. Yet as a society, we are more trusting of computers than human knowledge (car mechanics), more tolerant of computer error than human error (air traffic control failures) and more aggressive in unilaterally retiring people than legacy systems (insurance companies).
