THE WHITE HORSE — I used to work in one. My parents always preferred to eat in them, and since I moved back to London 10 years ago, I haven’t been enough.

Here are the lesson I learned in a pub that help me in business:

1. Teamwork is always better

You know the miserable guy (usually) sitting at the bar, or in the corner, by himself? With each passing day he becomes less fun.

People leave the house to be with other people. They give you ideas, energy and an occasional kick in the backside.

2. Passion drives behaviour

You can usually see who is having fun. And they’re laughing, telling jokes, getting argumentative.

People need something to believe in, and when they do, they get fired up.

3. You are what you drink

There’s stacks of leadership books about the “say / do gap”. If you go down to the pub with the boys and order a “lager tops”, you should expect to be teased about it.

4. There’s got to be a Gov’nor

Relationships matter. You cannot have a successful pub without people in it who make the time pass. We go where we like the people. Relationships matter.

5. Volume, even success, does not equal happiness

There are far too many unhappy roadside pubs. They might serve a lot of £5 microwave ready meals (frozen Yorkshire pudding anyone?) But they won’t change you life… or even your mood.

6. Right place, right time

Location can be a killer. Or help you succeed beyond what you’d expect. Be in the right place at the right time. Good luck will follow.

7. Go home before closing time

There’s no sense being somewhere when you shouldn’t be. Don’t out-stay your welcome. Knowing when to quit is one of the first — and sometimes the last — lesson people learn in business. Learn it early.

So, that’s all you really need to know.

Mine’s a strong continental lager, thanks.

/df

P.S. What have you learned? Go on. Tell us!

IN MY KITCHEN — I was just thinking last week that triathlons and marathons have become the new mid-life crisis. And then I read the story in the Sunday Times Style Magazine: “The rise of the IRON MAN”.

Turns out that triathlons are the fastest growing mass-participation sport in the UK. The article cites Vernon Kay, Eddie Izzard, David Walliams and Matthew McConaughey (US readers are going: ‘phew, one I recognise!’)

Some people say that it’s all about the gadgets and the expensive kit. Body mass sensors and £5,000 bikes. But I don’t buy that. I think it has a lot more to do with the new ‘mid-life’.

“This is my last break for freedom,” one punter says.

“It’s the equivalent of being off my head in the Ministry of Sound in 1991,” says another.

What really strikes a chord for me is when another person interviewed in the Sunday Times says “Modern life is emasculating.”

These sporting events offer a host of recognisable words:

• objectives
• stretch goals
• key performance indicators
• strategy
• milestones
• challenges
• achievements
• assessment
• competition
• pressure
• stress

Those sound familiar, don’t they? They’re all business terms that probably have no business being used in business!

We have tried to turn business into a sport. And stolen the terminology of athletes and warriors to talk about it. But, when compared to real physical challenge, endurance and survival, the language sounds silly.

Who are our business heroes?

• Warren Buffett
• Lakshmi Mittal
• Jack Welch
• Sergio Marchionne

And what do they do all day?

They sit around reading stuff and talking to people. That’s not exactly the adventure stories we started life dreaming about.

/df

LONDON — I have long been a fan of Alfie Kohn the author and professor. Earlier today he tweeted (yes, that’s a verb now) with a link to an article he wrote in 2003 called “What does it mean to be well educated?”

Like most things he writes I find it sets me to thinking about life and work. At one point he asks refers to:

the dispute between those who see education as a means to creating or sustaining a democratic society and those who believe its primary role is economic, amounting to an “investment” in future workers and, ultimately, corporate profits.

I am interested in the assertion because it raised a fundamental question about why we educate and how we educate. And even bigger ones about life.

I have often thought that education could be more practical… more vocational. I should have been taught how to fill in a tax return at one of the 9 schools I attended. Or maybe how to apply for planning permission or balance my chequebook (who’s got a chequebook these days anyway.) But instead I got a degree in English Literature. What good is that!?

Quite a lot, I have found but I don’t want to stray too far down that path.

What I find interesting is the question of whether school should train us to be good workers or for to be good people. (Kohn makes the point better.)

My question then is:

Are we human here to have a good life? Or are we here to be successful workers?

If you answered Yes and No then you understand what I am trying to say. But unfortunately those answers belie our behaviour, day by day, week by week and hour by hour.

/df

BREWSTER WHITECAPS — The flyball goes deep into centre-right field. Two guys run for it. Just at the last second one drop to his knees and almost upends his team-mate… who catches the ball. Play made.

Two innings later, same team. Centre-left. Two men stand and watch the ball fall between them.

It can go either way. Same players both times. And it happens all the time, at work, with our internal communications. We bump into each other. We look away at the wrong time and things fall between us.

There’s no telling who or what kind of people make these mistakes. We’ve got all kinds at the Cape Cod Baseball League game too. Just ahead of me is a chunky, red-headed dad who won’t stop spitting sunflower seeds unto his young son. Beside him is an older couple who have brought their own crackers and paté spread. All in ziplock bags and wicker baskets.

So, the point is, that yes, everyone is different, but our choices at work are pretty straight-forward. Either you communicate properly.. and you catch the ball, or you don’t… and things fall down.

And, of course, everyone lives to see a winning team.

/df

ANOTHER TAXI IN KL — I am on my way to the airport. The circus is leaving town. In another 24 hours of lounges and airplanes I will be home.

It’s been a hugely rewarding experience. I have spent the last two days locked in a room with internal communications people from Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, and Indonesia. They came from different parts of their organisation: HR, Marketing, Brand, Corporate Comms. Some were PR people, some external affairs. One represented a bank that had just been through a 5-way merger. (No sense making things simple!)

There was a fellow from Brunei with amazing stories — but I’ll have to keep those to myself.

I threw everything I had at them. Before the course I took Paul through the materials and he said “that’s pretty much everything we know.” But my south-east Asian friends were unbowed. They are a force to be reckoned with.

I pointed them towards Melcrum and Simply and Ragan. I urged them to join IABC and even CIPR and CiB. I suggested some books and blogs and social media channels and I am sure they will get involved in all of them.

Today, on the morning of the second day we talked about multicultural communications and I was certain that I was unworthy. These were people who have been through more in their lives than I could do if I live three more times.

At one point I put up a chart from 2001 that mentioned some of their countries, and they said “2001! That’s old news. It’s totally changed since then.” And they are right.

Personally, I haven’t changed that much since 2001.

There’s more to come from this session. But these are first impressions.

I want to go back. I want to work in these countries more. Soon!

/df

FULHAM ROAD — I am doing a webcast for PR Week this afternoon. It’s a companion to an article on internal communications and leadership that will be running in the magazine this week.

I am looking through the questions that we’ll be addressing and they’re quite fun to answer.

Q. Why do organisations need to take internal communications leadership seriously?

A. To help the whole organisation. Leaders aren’t doing a bad job on purpose. (No one goes in to work planning to be useless!) What they lack are often content, and a decent process for communications. And they don’t have the skills required either.

We are not all natural communicators. We don’t have the same ‘communication style’. We don’t do the same stuff, the same way.

So organisations need to give leaders the tools they need to communicate effectively.

When the world of work, government and business is in such a mess, the last thing you want is leaders hiding in their offices (they don’t know what to say, when or how.) And employees too nervous to ask any questions… Or make any suggestions.

Q. Why do organisations overlook this? And why now?

A. There’s been a long and undignified history of organisations believing that people will “just know”. The idea is that there’s a great big round of organisational osmosis, by which ideas are transferred from brain to brain without a plan, a process, or even any very well articulated ideas.

And that is obviously just not realistic.

Today many organisations — including many of our friends and clients — are too busy worrying about bank balances, credit, restructurings, layoffs, hostile bids, market share, etc. etc. to think that regular communication is a priority.

That’s a mistake.

Many organisations overcame their commitment and loyalty to employees a long time ago. Most employees continue to be very loyal and committed to their organisations… until now.

Q. How difficult is it to implement these plans?

A. In many respects it is harder NOT to implement leadership communication plans. If you can’t get leaders out talking now, then when can you?! There is so much to talk about. No one has all the answers. No one. But with a bit of coaching on assurances that they can’t give leaders should be spending half their days talking to people and getting people talking.

That’s probably enough for now. I haven’t touch the newspapers yet and the bus ride is almost finished.

/df

LONDON — I am still at it. Reading some of the magazines that have stacked up on my desk.

Do you remember Jack Stack? The improbably named head of a small unit of International Harvester who is seen as the father of open-book management? He’s in this same issue of Inc Magazine talking about his daughter’s business and how she had tackled the tough economic times:

Her answer was to make her seven employees financially literate. She now has seven people who think like her. Now it’s the associates who are selling. It isn’t the result of more money in advertising or marketing.
– Jack Stack, SRC Holdings

We call it ‘business acumen’, but you could call it business literacy… some people just assume it’s what you should know to do your job… and we’d agree wholeheartedly with that. Far too few people in businesses actually know what the business is doing. They can surmise things from over-heard conversations. But reports to investors or even reports in the business media don’t really make sense unless they have a deeper knowledge of how business and your business work.

Why wouldn’t you teach them that?

/df

A PACKED TRAIN TO STAMFORD BRIDGE — I liked this quote I have just read in Inc magazine. Entrepreneurial leaders were asked what people should do right now to energise their employees and get the business back on track:

Training sometimes seems like a small thing but it is actually the first step in empowering people to do their jobs well. Arthur [Blank co-founder of the Home Depot] and I always wanted to share the wealth; no matter what an employee’s position within the company, we knew he or she could make a contribution by being creative or just working hard. Training combined with providing employees a sense of belonging and rewarding them for results were keys to our success.

– Bernie Marcus, the Home Depot

Because it reaffirms something we’ve been telling people for yonks. That is that giving people the skills they need to be good at their job will always be well received.

I find my job very fulfilling. More than most people do, I suspect. But the bit I love the most is the point in the communication, change and leadership skills training that I do when people unfold their arm and start to smile.

That’s brilliant.

/df