LONDON — I talked to an M&A banker on the weekend.  Made me think of my time at high school dances.  Always standing on the wall, trying to look cool.  But never out on the actual dance floor.

The merger and acquisition market is a bit quiet at the moment.  And amen to that.  We’re busy enough without it.  Businesses are — rightly — taking advantage of the quiet and their own peaceful progress, to transform their operations.

We’re working on big “transformation” programmes on several continents and in a diversity of sectors.  Change management is in high demand.  And that’s good.

But M&A will be back.  My friend should be up frugging, ‘cutting some rug’ and doing The Hustle by Q2 at the latest.

Transformation is the powder room before the ball.

That’s my prediction.

Watch this space.

/df

PICADILLY CIRCUS — Looks like the sun might actually come up in London today.  That’s a relief.  And one of my biggest concerns.  Yesterday was dark and I can’t handle that.

So, how lucky am I?  That trivial issues like that concern me?

Yesterday umpteen decisions were made that affect all of our lives and futures.  Not just in London, New York and Beijing.  But in Rome and Athens.  In Geneva and Berlin and Paris.  And in Damascus and Doha. And…

Open the paper and have a look through.  There are an amazing amount of fundamental, big decisions being made by people in places all around the world.

Last Monday Chancellor Merkel said she thinks we’re in the biggest global crisis since 1945.

And she and a group of other diverse, independent leaders, are trying to make sense of the whole thing.  New leaders are being sworn in.  Senior financial gurus are being tapped up.

And big decisions are being made.

In recent years here in the UK a chorus goes up of people saying: easiest job in the world! Paid for nothing! Crooked! Useless!

And today they are doing more than any of us to save our collective backsides.  That’s what leadership is — and probably what we need.  It may even be more than we deserve.

/df

Two guys, a garage and a plan

LONDON — It’s been three fairly eventful years.  I suspect you’d be hard pressed to look at the last 25 years and come up with three more volatile years in which to be in business.

Able and How was born on 08 September 2008.  If you look here you can see the enthusiasm and excitement of that day. (We asked people to say hello and many, including our moms and kids, promptly did.)

A year later the situation was not as it had been.  The economy in that first year was… not good.  Many of our respected colleagues and friends were out of work.  We were still at it.  And asking for celebratory haikus.

Last year at this time we were coming out of a more settled summer and seeing signs of things picking up.  The optimism was palpable.

But some common themes were also starting to emerge.  Have you spotted them?

1. We’re lucky to be in a brilliant business where we can make a real difference.
2. We’re in it because we believe in what we do
3. We have an amazing team
4. We love doing it
5. We are still in it because we get to work with brilliant people

I am sure it sounds too obvious and too superficial to say that our clients make our business.  However for all of us who work at Able and How the good people who have put their trust in us have made it work.

Thank you. 

Take a bow.  Say hello below.

/df

CHELSEA — The problem with change is that you cannot always foresee what might happen next.  So you create an anticipated direction of travel and risks, issues, dependencies etc. along the way.

That’s how it’s done.  In a nutshell.

The problem with Britain’s big banks though is not that they don’t know what might happen next.  They do, but they’re determined to fight against it.

It is clear when you compare the banking systems of, say, Canada, what the problems of the UK and US systems were.  You can’t really argue it.

As the Chancellor George Osborne has said:

Take the financial sector out of the equation and economic growth in the rest of the economy during recovery has actually been above its average rate of the last two decades.

In fact, the Office of National Statistics says that Britain’s banks are responsible for 1/3 of our national fall in output since 2008.

That’s not really all that funny.

According to many of the banks the recovery is too unclear for action to be taken now.  However, for all the lack of clarity they see around the recovery, the implications of further regulation do seem clear to them.

And they know that that change wouldn’t be good.

Which, of course, is total rubbish.

Change is good.

When it comes to further regulation… and ring-fencing of retail banking, for example… there can really be little argument.

Let’s get on with managing the change.

/df

Might As Well Go For a Soda

• You can listed to your local radio half-way around the world. On the 14 bus even. And I now think I may finally know why some Canadian rock and roll never found a larger audience. April Wine? Tom Cochrane?  Kim Mitchell? Yea.

Google Translate Won’t Do

• Speaking other languages is still important. But business is business. I worked in another language this year for the first time in… 10 years? And it was great. But our recommendations and processes were largely unchanged because of it.

Your Eyes Will Go Square

• Small screens are in. This year everyone was staring at one. From small kids playing games to grown-ups reading books. No one will tolerate ignorance anymore — we feel we must know who the 4th string actor is in this TV show and why we recognise them. (Knowledge?  Well that’s still in short supply.)

Men in Plaid

• Golf can be exciting. When the Ryder Cup went to an extra day, the Welsh golf course hosting the match was still packed and the TV cameras returned. Maybe golf isn’t just something middle aged men watch to avoid household chores.

Like Sand Through The Hourglass

• Business cycles are unavoidable. And as you get older they get more violent. I’ve already heard people talk about the “crash of 2008“. But is it history already? It still feels real. And the crash of 2001-02? I think I missed it…

The  Revolution has been Postponed

• The Social Media revolution has been downgraded.  Maybe it’s just a “skirmish in a coffee shop”.  Yes, more and more people are using Facebook.  BBM and Skype are powerful enough that edgy governments are taking a second look.  But it’s not replaced email, phone calls, actual human contact…  There are people who use it every day, but they’re fewer and more radical than last week.

Change is Good

• It’s been a good year for Able and How.  Lots of changes.  New offices, plenty of new employees.  Some brilliant new clients (who ever dreamed of a client in Fort Lauderdale?  Really?)  And another year where helping people through change was not only good business to be in, but one where it was rewarding work to do.  Not everyone can say that.

So, thanks 2010.  We will not forget you.

/df

P.S. On that Canadian rockers bit: maybe it was the hair?

LONDON — I have been on a BBC topical-news show kick this year.  And earlier in the year I was watching a show called something like What the Arabs did for us…  It made the point that many, many interesting thing were created in times of conflict.

And there is an unassailable logic to that. 

If you look simply at what has been invented out of war– from rockets to field medicine — or what we are still using that came to us out of the space race — from teflon to water filters — then it is easy to see how conflict drives innovation.

So if it works in the world, why can it not work in a business setting?

Many, many businesses require constant innovation and new ideas to keep growing.  But they struggle to get them.  And to keep them coming.

There are two ways to look at this issue in the workplace:

1) How do we innovate and create new ideas without conflict? or
2) How do we encourage and manage conflict so that is works for us?

The first is the default position of most businesses.  Particularly big businesses.

However, it is the second one that really holds the greatest promise for making great leaps forward.

To get to the bottom of it, we need to look at how we can simulate or generate conflict in ways that helps us reach our goals… without undermining our ability to operate.  Or our ‘duty of care’ to our people.

There are ways.

What do you think?

/df

SW LONDON — There’s a video shop across from my bus stop.  Or there used to be.  Now it’s a specialty ski boot shop.  Obviously.

There are now cafés where there used to be off-licences… and estate agents and phone shops on every high street.

It’s the natural evolution of business.  Old businesses pass away and new ones come in to their places.

The old characters selling the Evening Standard have gone to the big horse track in the sky.  But life goes on.

The world changes and you adapt.

Or you fall by the wayside.

There’s no knowing if you’ve made it until you cash in your chips, but the Able and How experience has certainly been salutory.

There are things we didn’t plan appropriately for:
• recession
• ’start-up’ staff vs corporate staff
• a few clients who pay ‘whenever’, or not at all
• legal entanglements
• expensive business advisors

And then there are things we planned for that we couldn’t possibly have imagined would be as good as they have turned out to be:
• focusing on clients and businesses
• making our colleagues the centre of the business
• being green
• watching the bank balance every day
• staying velcro close to our friends in industry

I would be mad to say that we have figured it out.  So please don’t think I’m saying ‘look at what we did well’.  We’re just as likely to be the next Polaroid or Concord as anyone else.

When I worked in politics there was an old political expression: You gotta dance with the one what brung you.

In the case of businesses these days, you need to be prepared to dance with the one that’s there.

/df

LONDON — There’s a great report out now from my old mates at Towers Watson. It’s called the Global Worksforce Survey. They do it every year, and it has lots of interesting stuff in it.

[Although don't be fooled into trying to order it from here -- you'll get a three year old one.]

The major news headline seems to be that the recession has changed the way we see work. In particular, more than half of us want to work for one company for our whole life.

The irony is not completely lost on me, that the old Towers Perrin is announcing the end of the ‘job for life’, when they made my stay with them abruptly shorter about seven years ago.

They were a very good employer, and one I thought I would stay at for life — when I was doing any thinking.

Max Cauldwell, speaking for Towers Watson, explains that ‘the deal’ is now truly broken. The Deal is the concept that you offer something to the business (your time, intelligence, etc.) and in return, they give you something back (pay, safety, etc.). Towers, Mercer, Aon, and Hewitt, as well as all the other Human Resources consultancies, have been selling consulting on The Deal for about 30 years. So that must be bad news for them.

But truthfully the deal has been broken for a long, long time. Probably almost 30 years.

It’s not that employees don’t go into work every day hoping to be treated well and to have their long-term interests taking into account. It’s just that no one really expects it anymore.

You might argue that it is a sad statement that that has happened. And in places like France, as the state influence breaks down and jobs-for-life become harder to come by, they are seeing social unrest — with boss-napping.

‘Give me my job back, or the boss gets it!’

But it’s true. None of us can reasonably expect to have a job for life. And there’s quite a lot we can do about it:

• Manage our pensions better.
• Choose our companies for the work, the experience and the opportunities — not ‘nice people’.
• Demand more on your end of the deal.
• And so on…

What is most remarkable about the end of the job-for-life is that so few people and businesses have adjusted their style, processes and communications to take it into account.

After all, the job of Queen and Pope are both taken.

/df

FULHAM ROAD — It’s official. For me anyway. I have come to the conclusion that the market has changed. I recognise that it may only be temporary, but it feels longer-term than that.

Where once businesses were interested in concepts and ideas… most now are being far more practical. “I want you to do something that I could do, but I don’t have time,” a friend explained last week.

We talked to one of the world’s biggest diversified businesses last week and they said that they have reinstated pay-rises. They have put even more money into the spot bonus pool… but they have told everyone to reduce spending in Q1. And they’ve set the sales-force higher targets.

And maybe that’s why we’re working more and more with Human Resources. The recession and the re-alignment that has been happening in industry has changed things. Companies are investing in system changes. Not people changes. They are looking at practical, actual, factual changes. The theory — engagement, social media, employee brand, etc. etc. — are all being eclipsed by more tangible things.

HR helped make businesses more efficient in 2009. With some every simple (and often brutal) work. So they now have some of their bigger projects back on the boil. As a result there is more consulting work to be had in changing, fixing and even developing new systems for businesses.

This isn’t about ‘wellness programmes’ or learning accounts, or even total reward statements. It’s about managing people more efficiently: setting better targets, planning for your future workforce, training people to be more efficient faster.

The motto might be right out of Jerry Maguire: Show me the money! But it’s a different goal now: Show me how much we can save by doing this…

Fortunately, we’re still able to do that. But it doesn’t half take a change in mindset.

/df

LEICESTER SQUARE — My colleague Chris pointed it out yesterday: Copenhagen is essentially a great big positioning exercise. And on a week when we are doing this in the Boardrooms of two big multinationals, it’s interesting to watch.

Essentially the nations involved have asked that a written proposal, proposition… or positioning statement be put to them. And then they’ll argue the detail of it. Consensus should flow from that. And even if it’s not consensus (let’s be grown-up about this) then at least the lukewarm, middle road will come with greater insight. Everyone will know where the problems are, and then we can work around them.

We tend to have too black and white a view of these kind of things. Compromise is still success. Everyone goes away with more knowledge and able to start to act on the things that they know need addressing.

At the same time, I am fascinated by how this is still a movable feast. I’m not talking about the debate over data (I looked at that earlier this week). I am talking about yesterday’s report that the recession has helped the environment.

Imagine that?

We consume less and the earth benefits!

Then there’s the fascinating world of cross-cultural negotiation. I was reading about that last night. I am thinking we might develop a course on it for another client.

Although I have worked on every continent, and therefore negotiated contracts with many types of people, I haven’t thought of the science of it before.

And there’s lots of science.

Copenhagen will be brilliant for that. The academics will be rolling in it for years.

Woohoo.

/df