He amplifies in his show what you see at the fringe every minute of everyday – people who are willing to give it a go and because of that, the highs and lows that accompany you on that journey; the “this just not going to work moment” when there are more of your friends in the crowd than paying customers, right to the highs of being asked to be on “Live at the Apollo”.

Comedians are the ultimate relationship builders

I have always been in awe of stand up comedians, it’s such a personal interaction, a relationship that they have to build instantly.  It’s all emotion and because of that the reaction you might get is unpredictable and full of risk.  The Fringe is full of people who are trying, willing to take a few risks and I realised that it’s not something you don’t see on a grand scale very often.

It’s hard work for everyone

There are fliers being pushed (normally by the person who is performing), artists giving stunt demo’s, everyone trying to engage with their audience, putting the fear of failure aside or with the fear of failure front of mind (depending on the person!) There is a hierarchy of people who come back year on year and work their way up the venues, some make it and loads don’t but they all go the same route – its hard work for everyone.

Fear of failure aside or front of mind

Then I saw this today from Chris Brogan - waiting for… and I thought how many people go to that festival and think that it could or should be them?  I listen to people on a daily basis talk about what they would really like to do and the hundreds of reasons they can’t and bizarrely how they think it’s somehow different for me.

The world is better because of those that don’t wait and give it a go

So don’t wait get out there and enjoy your moment in the sunshine…hope to see you next year at the festival.

Are you having an affair?…
…dabbling with a little social media, playing marketing consultant or technical reviewer in your spare time?

Seriously, the social networks are creating opportunities for us to get involved in things that once were the domain of professionals that were out of reach. Now we can all have a go and the consensus is this making a difference to how we view the world and choose our products and services but is it changing the way we work?

Some questions…
1. Has the way you engage with people over the social networks e.g. chat with strangers, engage on topics of interest, etc. changed the way you engage with people at work?
2. Have you uncovered new skill sets via the social networks that you have used in your actual workplace?
3. Has the use of social networks made you feel more satisfied or less satisfied with your day job?

If you are an employer or manage people do you know what turns them on? Do you know what they are doing in the virtual world? A lot of companies knee jerked a reaction to the use of social networks in the workplace and banned them and now slowly they are creeping back in through another knee jerk reaction – now to use them from a business perspective.
As always our advice start with the end in mind…find out what turns you and your workforce on, if it’s something they are getting from their “affair” there is an opportunity on your doorstep.

Would we ever expect our manager to be sacked because we weren’t performing?

Being a member of the England football squad is like being part of a project team. It’s not your day job and you have two bosses. You are bringing together a group of talented individuals that are going to work together towards a common goal… like winning the World Cup (we wish). The components that have to come together to succeed are complicated. It is not as straight forward as an employee having the fear of losing their job, or even that different people are motivated by different things… money, recognition and sense of achievement. The key to successfully managing a team of this nature is more about building a community than traditional managerial motivators.

Community Management what does that mean?

It has more to do with understanding the bigger picture, seeing the vision and getting people to buy into their part in that vision. This is not in the traditional corporate mission, vision, values context but in a more pragmatic, holistic way that exposes the fact that you do not have control over all the decisions you would like to make and because of that you put more accountability and ownership on those indiviuals who have the skills you require to deliver the end goal.

When Fabio’s management style was being scrutinised by the media, my contribution was “I wonder what would happen if Fabio asked the players “who is up for it today?” “where would you like to play?” and the ownership was on the players themselves to say for the good of our end goal this is what should happen! This may sound like nonsense but when you strip all the crap away these are guys that love nothing better than to kick a ball around a field and win – sometimes we add so much more to these situations than there should be and the simplicity is lost.

Why have a Manager then?

Someone has to pick the members of the community and getting that right is essential. Here there needs to be the courage and strength to pick the stars but also pick the players with potential who are hungry to show what they can do. Then there is the huge task of managing and motivating the individuals. Teams who do not work together on a daily basis have different needs to those that do and the motivation to succeed is different. This is not about money, it is more about how the world see you and may be even an opportunity for you to give something back, develop in a different way. There has to be much more focus on what an individual will get out of this so that the team bond can be formed and developed.

Football like work is a big part of our lives, real change here could inspire us all

Achieving the balance of engaging the consumer and building a relationship through the product lifecycle could be groundbreaking for businesses and individuals but many companies are still scared of giving the consumer a voice without control and so levels of adoption are limited.

Is it as simple as they would have to consider how they collate ideas from the public? How they screen these ideas and how they can keep the consumer involved through development & launch without their competitors taking their ideas and bringing them to market faster & cheaper?

There are toes in the water…

Unilever are giving people the opportunity to create adverts for their biggest Brands

Ford have set up a dedicated website to gather ideas from the general public and allow other people to rate the ideas – the most popular will be elevated to a “most-popular” list and reviewed by Ford’s advanced product planning and marketing teams

You can join the family at Innocent Drinks and they will ask you what you think they should do from time to time.

To name but a few.

Isn’t the beauty of engagement is that it is a two way street?

Is the real two way conversation too much to expect? At the end of the day these people have to run a business. This would mean the jury is still out on if social media interaction has a tangible benefit.

Unilever are running their new campaign as a competition with a monetary prize for the winner. Is this the way engagement should be tackled? Contribution that makes a difference gets a financial reward? Would this make the consumer see this avenue as an opportunity to earn additional income or should the idea of having your idea potentially on the screen be enough?

Does this type of engagement threaten the professional services that would traditionally be involved?

In the case of Unilever the advertising campaigns have been the domain of creative agencies with in- house marketing teams but with a more demanding consumer and access to a whole new world of social media is there a more effective way to bring the consumer what THEY want?

Is there a difference between the effectiveness of professional services and a consumer community when it comes to understanding what the consumer wants?

Companies have relied on professional creatives to gain a competitive advantage and paid the price. With today’s new age social media we the consumers are at the click of a button and we’re cheap!

Are we cheap and good?

How great would it be if you thought of something you really want…

A shower gel with a different smell or an ice cream with a new flavour and you could tweet your favourite manufacturer…

They then engaged with you the loyal customer and put the idea to the vote…

It doesn’t have to end there…

They could keep you up date through the development process, let you see packaging designs, colours, launch dates and you can tell them what you like, don’t like…

Would this involvement bring a more transparent market place and stronger brand loyalty or would the consumers ‘voice without control’ prove too much?

For me this was a tough question as I am a well known tough talker and many times I have had to consider if I crossed the line. So have I?

Undoubtedly throughout my career yes several times. Does that make me a bully? No.

Why?

At Cheeky Monkey we are driven by our client’s company objectives. What they want to achieve is very personal to us because we know we can have a direct impact on that with the work that we do on their behalf.

We are passionate and uncompromising in delivering a Human Approach to Innovation and Change:

• We say what no-one wants to say and everyone wants to hear
• We think, say and do the unthinkable for the management team

And as a result of this we deliver business benefits that go way beyond the project headlines.

It is the management of change by being focused and passionate about the PRIZE, delivering objectives, improving profitability and winning!

It is never personal and never about personality. It is also never about the protection of authority or status.

I have never been interested in whether the situation looked good for me. If it delivered and the team were seen to be successful as a result of our actions it’s a job well done.

What can you do to make sure you are not crossing the line but are in fact tough enough?

• 1. Your team need to know why they are doing what you have asked them to do and where it fits into the bigger picture
• 2. They want to be treated as adults, so when they challenge what is being done and why, listen and be honest with your response
• 3. Make performance appraisals relevant and more frequent. Personal objectives need to be stretching but achievable and show progression and success
• 4. Reward people in a way that makes a difference to them; be able to answer the question “what’s in it for me?”

Unhappy workers can’t work, that is a fact. But what is making them unhappy your style of the fact they can’t deliver. Some people are just not up to the job and then it is a HR issue.

The ability to manage your emotions is of course critical. Frustration is the precursor to anger add stress to the equation and BOOM!! The forces of hell will be unleashed and Alistair Darling can tell you how that feels.

One of the big news stories of the week (and a nice distraction from the weather) was Google versus China. Acts like this just make us remember that freedom of speech and information still doesn’t exist for all people (and businesses make moral compromises under the guise that some progress is better than none, but that is for another blog)

Freedom of speech and information still doesn’t exist for all people

I am always getting into trouble for something that I have said or questions that I ask. I have an unquenchable thirst for understanding and I prefer to get that by talking to people first, reading second.

My first experience of this being an issue was when I was travelling Vietnam many years ago. I hate war but was drawn into what had happened there by what I saw in the museums, I guess on first reflection I thought it was “the other side of the story” and it was, but it was also censored, very blatantly censored and this made me want to know more.

I spoke to people that had lived through the war and to a certain degree were still living that regime. I had so many questions but I was told that the people who were talking to me would be punished if I persisted with my questioning…

…Punished? For talking to me (scruffy backpacker) about a war that has been so well documented and analysed over many years by many people – why?

How lucky were we in the “free world” to be able to express an opinion and write and talk about what we see happening around us. We take this for granted, how can it be any other way?

Does this mean we believe everything we hear, see and read?

I read an article written by Christiane Amanpour in which she talks about her 20 years on the road as a journalist. She makes a really interesting point about the fact that technology is bringing us more information but we are getting less and less understanding.

It is so easy now just to flick through the headlines, especially online. Who reads a paper from cover to cover? In our time starved day do we keep up to date by scanning what we see and taking it all at face value?

What makes you delve deeper, go beyond a headline?

Even if you do read the detail, how often do you follow up? News is now so much about the new headline, we have “Breaking News” everyday. It is actually really hard to follow some stories through and without doing that how much can we really understand?

If we don’t understand or challenge what we hear, see and read it might as well be censored, we are still being manipulated aren’t we?

I have seen this creep into the workplace over the last few years too. When I started out the emphasis was on “Executive Summary” that was all your boss wanted to see. Your project may have lasted 6 months and generated a shed load of data but you had to sum that up in one meaningful page.

This lead to reports being given in the form of presentations, work would be pre-circulated but the chances were your boss would be reading it while you were presenting.

The advent of email has resulted in constant updates of information being “shared” in a fast and furious way. Most of us speed read or don’t read them at all.

Texting and Twitter have to be the icing on the cake. It is really hard to put something of meaning and intelligence over in 140 characters which is why Twitter is full of self indulgent banter, fun but doesn’t help our understanding.

All these things have their place but my concern is they seem to have replaced our desire for detail.

The devil is always in the detail

When we go into different businesses the first thing we do is listen. We soak up what people have to tell us because we have to understand before we can help.

We have the freedom to do that, learn from what has gone before and it means that our future has a higher chance of success.

China still has some of the most patriotic citizens in the world. Hopefully this stand by Google will see China taking another brave step in trusting in their own and loosening the grip.

For the rest of us, let’s get into the detail, go over 140 characters and understand something that will allow you to challenge in pursuit of your own better future.

“Work life balance is about people having a measure of control over when, where and how they work. It is achieved when an individuals right to a fulfilled life inside and outside paid work is accepted and respected as the norm, to the mutual benefit of the individual, business and society.” – flexible-working.org

It is perceived by my nearest and dearest that I don’t have the right work life balance and they believe it has got worse. As I am sat on the plane ready to start my holidays I have some time to wonder why (and nicely prove their point at the same time!)?

Has the recession pushed me to work harder?

Throughout this credit crunch period I have been anti recession, believing that we could talk ourselves into and just as easily out of this mess. I don’t dispute there was a mess and that the decisions that were being taken in certain sectors that could not continue. There had to be fall out.

It is true, I didn’t want to be part of the fall out, so did this environment push me to work harder?

Like many (or all) business owners, I work everyday. I did before the recession kicked in and I have no doubt I will continue to do it when it’s gone.

I want Cheeky Monkey to be the best Change Management Consultancy it can be. I want the people who work at Cheeky Monkey to contribute in the best way possible and be the best they can be at what they deliver. I want Cheeky Monkey to be successful and that is what pushes me.

Success = being the best you can possibly be

Always Connected!

The recession may be playing a part but other things are having a bigger influence. We have embraced social media as a way of engaging with a broader spectrum of people and keeping us sharp. We are operating on a Cheeky Monkey cloud, access to everything by everyone without having to be at a desk.

To make sure we could do this efficiently we invested in the latest Blackberry’s and iPhones. Fantastic, I am linked to our client’s networks, integrated calendars, business and private emails, messenger and our whole social network from something that fits in my pocket. My god it’s efficient, and allows me to work 24/7 wherever I am. I am probably at 18/7 if I am being honest and my friends and family are constantly telling me its going too far.

My Blackberry has had the biggest effect on my work life balance.

Although I am one of those people who is in the pub checking my BB at regular points, at least I am in the pub. It was not long ago I made choices on going out or not going out based on how much work I had to do and most of the time it was the latter. Although my working day has increased, so has my social activity…

The lines between my work and life are blurred, what is wrong with that?

So, as we make our approach into Nairobi I am happy that I will be able to keep in touch with my fellow monkeys and our clients with ease and enjoy a fantastic family holiday. I have control over my work life balance, technology has given me this and it is for the better.

“You can create opportunities to share content, but whether or not people will is out of your hands” – Alex Hardy, twitter 04/08/09

Cheeky Monkey love to communicate, it’s the perfect way to share our knowledge and experience, and learn from others. We always have a lot to say but we believe in democracy and understand that communication is not one way.

In June 2009 we launched our Blog; overcome with excitement we actively encouraged our loyal followers and supporters to leave a comment on our first two posts. Since then we have left our Blog to fate, fate has no voice.

Would you like to say something?

We know you are reading our Blog! From our hometown of Manchester to our regular visitors from Zurich and our loyal fan in Greece, we know you are reading our Blog. Why don’t you talk to us?

This week Nina and I have had a number of conversations and debates that have stemmed from my last Blog post “Honesty”, my question to them has been, why didn’t you comment?

The general consensus is that our readers feel they are “not qualified to comment”

We want you to be part of the discussion, your comments, whether they be shatteringly honest, frustratingly stupid, sincere or insightful are what will make our Blog come to life.

We’d like to get to know you

Blog’s are written to be read, shared and debated; it gives us a nice feeling to know that someone somewhere is reading what we have to say. We’d like to know what you have to say.

Feel free to say hello

“We are not paid to think, just do – copy, paste, print”

I read this on Nina’s twitter, wayofthemonkey and it got me thinking about the mentality behind the statement, why people would feel this way and wondered, are they missing out?

Why?

• Most of us ‘need’ to work; does this ‘need’ limit our enthusiasm?
• When an activity is non-negotiable do we switch to auto pilot?
• If we imagine what is ahead does it look too hard?
• Does thinking everything through slow us down?
• Will thinking force new and uncomfortable experiences that could lead to change?
• Will our wider network support new ideas?

When you consider the reasons why a person would feel more inclined to just ‘put their head down and get on with it’ you begin to wonder ‘is thinking a trap’?

“Just Do It”

In 1988 one of the most famous advertising slogans was coined for Nike – “Just Do It”. The campaign has been a remarkable success given that 80% of trainers sold in the USA are not used for the purpose for which they were designed. The ads rarely focus on the product, but on people, they give an insight into the intense, inwardly focused competitor. Nike has attracted those who want the image without incurring the pain.

The truth is success is rarely nurtured in isolation. The sporting icons that Nike focuses on are undoubtedly great, but are they made greater by reaching out and utilising the talent of a combination of resources?

Reach out

When we focus on ourselves we are in danger of becoming detached from what is happening around us. I am not just talking about our immediate team of people, company or community, but also the wider social network that we now have the ability to reach out to in so many ways.

Reaching out is an opportunity to increase knowledge. Extending our network of resources helps us to unlock untapped potential and access what is inside people, be it stories of success or failure.

Are You Missing Out?

One person can not be great at everything. Thinking and engaging opens up everything we do in the world, its like ‘magic’.

If we can set aside our fears of the changes our thoughts may bring, we will discover that every day holds the potential for something new.

Think about it – Don’t miss out

Yesterday, I had to conduct one of my favourite behavioural change exercises over the phone – not something I have done before. I was in grey and rainy Stockport and the rest of the team were in hot and sunny Ghana (where did I go wrong there…)

A key part of our current Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) implementation is to understand the behaviour that exists today and recognise the behaviour of the team we are striving to be. Joining the dots between today and tomorrow and usually more entertaining the senior team and the workers!

To do this we create totem poles – a fantastic way of using symbolism to communicate. Somehow, it is easier to tell your bosses that they are jaguars than to directly tell them they are chaotic and shape shifting.

We have done this exercise in the UK, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand and Nigeria so far and despite the cultural differences when the teams think about each other today, the same animals pop up:

Senior Teams

Elephant, lion, moose, mouse, goose, salmon, tiger, whale & jaguar.

Key words = strong, powerful, wise, headstrong, enduring, observant, detail orientated, reliable, self demanding, productive, prudent, proud, intense, inspiring, energetic, chaotic & shape shifting.

Workers

Ant, armadillo, bee, dog, rabbit & mouse.

Key words = group minded, patient, active, industrious, celebratory, enthusiastic about life, safety orientated, cautious, faithful, loyal, trainable, fearful, timid, nervous, observant, orderly & detail orientated)

The interesting differences come through in consistency; in Africa there are more dogs (noble, faithful, loyal, trainable, protective & guiding). In SEA lots of ants (group minded, patient, active and industrious) and most interestingly of all in the UK, despite a period of doom and gloom lots of BEES (organised, industrious, productive, wise, social, celebratory and enthusiastic about life).

Beekeepers Association (BBKA) says bees are in danger of disappearing from our environment. Attitudes to bees must change and a new generation needs to be educated into the value of bees and the threats to their existence.

As the green shoots appear that signal the end of the recession, we need to remember bees need something to feed on, whether it be a PLM implementation, training or new product development. Don’t be a rabbit (fearful, timid, and nervous) today be a falcon – ADVENTUROUS, PASSIONATE AND LEADING!