William Buist

As a UK recession looms, many boardrooms around the country are under significant pressure to continue ‘business as usual’. But whatever the reality of the impact of the changes in the world economy on the current revenue and profitability of the business, the boardroom is responsible for predicting change and planning for it. Business specialist William Buist delves into the world of the relationships between executives and the Board, exploring the meaning of team spirit, indentifying the warning signs to look out for and explaining why some tension in the team is actually a good thing!

The latest news suggests that the economy is now shrinking. Directors know they don’t have long and they need to be ready. The challenge then is how they operate as a team, not when things are going well, but when things are stressful, and when they are failing. The team spirit will be tested and if it’s not strong, it will begin to breakdown. Team spirit is a phrase used frequently in business but seldom is its meaning really understood and its potential harnessed.

What does team spirit mean?

It’s Esprit du Corp, the spirit of the body (of people) that allows the group to act in a common way, protecting each other and looking out for and helping where it’s needed to get the results that the team wants.

When it is strong the team is strong and when people ask members of the team a question they get a consistent answer. The team works on most things collaboratively and mistakes get resolved without rancour.

When it is weak there is loss of clarity. The team works on many things, few of them in a collaborative way, and the resulting mistakes simply annoy and cause more tension between the team.

What creates team spirit?

A key aspect of team spirit is common purpose. When the board has a clear vision which all of the members support, then they have a common understanding of the direction the business needs to take.

When their own goals and ambitions as individuals are also aligned to those goals then the passion of the individual to achieve their own aims brings results for the business too.

Is that always a good thing?

High team spirit is often associated with an over optimistic expectation evaluation of the impact of risk (it won’t be as bad as it could be) and unrealistic assessment of the likelihood risks arising in the first place. Risk Management requires a focus on the negative, and great team spirit focuses on the positive.

One problem that can arise is that if the Board is too aligned, they might stop asking questions about the goals of the business, mainly because strong team spirit can lead to ‘group think’ and loss of challenge. When external change arises it’s sometimes missed because the common purpose and team spirit means the focus is on delivering what is needed, rather than managing risk.

There is a big risk for good corporate governance in that too, because governance is closely related to risk management…

But the converse isn’t much better either. A focus on risk management becomes paralysing to delivery as members of a board have little or no team spirit as here people see risk in everything and are keen to get their defence in first.

As each member looks out for their own interests they tend not to see risks materialising in other areas and so fail to provide the support the other directors need, when they need it. Each member focuses on their own needs and whilst they might seek to do things that do advance the business, they are likely to focus on different parts of the company vision. The impression left is of far too many projects pulling resources in very different ways.

What should the Chief Executives do?

Clearly the balance of team spirit is important, too much and there are risks of “group think” and over enthusiastic focus on delivery and loss of focus on governance and challenge. Too little and there are risks of stagnation and focus on divisional rather than corporate goals.

The need for some friction, allied to great team spirit means that Chief Executives need to be able to improve the common, shared spirit within the group, whilst also leading through a time of friction. It’s hard, or impossible, for one person to both lead people on a common journey, and provide the friction that keeps challenge levels sufficiently high.

If team spirit is too low, then the causes of that need to be identified. Team spirit is strongest when all the relationships between the individuals in the team are strong and build on foundations of mutual appreciation from knowing each other well, liking each other and trusting each other.

The Chief Executive or the Chairman can facilitate those relationships over time by understanding the individuals well, by listening to their concerns and acting to lubricate the interactions between members. Their clear understanding of the overall vision and goals of the business mean that, as leaders of the group, they can develop common goals with the individuals. Matchmaking the help each team member needs and creating an environment in which they can perform, and be seen to perform, means that working together is more effective than working alone. Synergy is a watchword.

If team spirit and collaboration is strong, then tension and friction can be developed through creating additional competition in to the team, through extending targets and goals, extending and changing the vision, or through the introduction of external influences and external audits and consultancy. Independence provides a review that can check that risk management and corporate governance are properly undertaken and protects the organisation from a loss of team spirit, there is, after all an external agent in the issues under review.

In many ways the key role of the leaders of an organisation can be summed up as the responsibility to ensure that the senior team has great team spirit allied to sufficient challenge and review to ensure they focus on the right things at the right time. It’s a fine balance and one that can be disturbed by many things, the skilled leader works continually to keep the balance right.

William Buist is director of Abelard Management Services, a company which specialises in building trust in teams and communities. For more information visit www.abelard-uk.com

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When a child is born it starts an independent life, but is wholly dependent on its parents for many years, until it reaches the teenage years, where it seeks to shake off dependency and demonstrate its own independence. Soon enough though teenagers see the need for others and start to build relationships and interdependence with (rather than on) others by creating families, joining communities etc. This in an example of the human ecosystem.

When we talk about corporations (derived from a latin word – ‘Corpus’ meaning body) we allow through our laws for businesses to enter into contracts on the same basis as we would with an individual. Perhaps we should not be surprised that businesses too start life as highly dependent on others, and that they find independence as they grow, and then, in their own ecosystems, find the fellow businesses that will support them. They form synergistic groups and businesses become interdependent in an ecosystem comprising the markets, staff, suppliers, customers, associates, shareholders and partners with common fellowship, travelling on a shared journey.

The importance of the ecosystem for businesses.

No business can be an expert in all areas of its chosen markets. Expertise is earned over years of experience and the application of skills learned throughout our working lives. That then becomes complicated because the markets themselves, suppliers products and services and customers needs, all change around you. One way for businesses to meet these changing needs is to be large, and employ experts in many areas whilst learning and adapting to the changes through experience gained by servicing multiple clients. Being large enough and successful enough, means being an ecosystem in your own right.

Systems are introduced in organisations to support a common way of working and there is control over entry to, and exit from the organisation. Those are features of any ‘ecosystem’.

Most big businesses weren’t always big, they came to be that way by working hard and using expertise in the right places at the right time. When small, the areas of expertise that a single business can cover is limited by the expertise that exist within it, unless, of course, they exist with a collaborative group who can support each other and provide the expertise required at the right time.

Moving from independence to interdependence.

It’s worth thinking about the things that facilitate interdependence and then consider what lubricates the movement towards interdependence. Interdependence in the context of collaborating businesses means that each business is stronger because of the collaborations. The relationships that exist between the businesses allow all of them to act as if they were one, rather than many. In my own business, Abelard Management Services Limited, a number of interdependent partners collaborate to deliver to our clients.

As a group of independent businesses we could just compete with each other to deliver the same outcomes for each client. Each business would bring its expertise to bear and deliver to the best of its abilities, but by collaborating each task has the best expert from the group focused on delivery. That’s a better result for all the clients and that means more referrals and more repeat business in the group as a whole.

Building awareness.

Before any business would be prepared to partner with another and entrust their brand to others who are not subject to the stringencies of employment contracts, it’s almost inevitable that a relationship between the people involved will need to developed in order for them to deeply trust each other.

Nothing can happen until people are aware of you. Only by building awareness can we hope that others will get to know us and start the journey to trust, and partnership and trading. Most won’t stay with us for the whole journey, but none of the people who fail to start will be there at the end!

Building awareness is about being visible, within your chosen spheres, in your market and in the network of people that you know. Awareness of you attracts potential collaborators to get in touch and start conversations. Here is where you find the synergies, the overlaps and common ground, in the products and services that you have.

In my business a client who needed to tender for a supplier (as part of a project) where we could easily support them with elements of it led us to partner with another business for other elements of it. Their skills were a great complement to ours, neither of us could have supported the whole project as well individually as we did together, although either of us could have done it alone. As a result of our collaboration, we were awarded two other larger projects from that same client.

Developing community.

There is a point in the development of any business when it trusts its environment, and is prepared to reach out to others to start to form the relationships. Demonstrating a desire to work with others who may distrust your motives is hard, but being true to the end goal of mutual support and seeking the opportunities to work as a team will soon bring the rewards. The ecosystem evolves into existence, it doesn’t suddenly appear. Some will lead the way, others will follow looking for tried and tested results before they join in, and some will lag behind. That too is human nature.

The need for care and preparation.

All of that sounds like it’s a wonderful world where there is less need to undertake the usual checks that you would do in business, and over time that may be true, when trust is really strong. Until them, though, it’s worth retaining all the usual business controls such as due diligence, contractual agreements and clear financial structures.

When businesses work together the financial arrangements are often less clear. In our group we consider not just the costs of delivering the product, but the costs of Marketing and sales and the costs of operating the businesses themselves, where the costs of credit lie and who carries the risks. These aren’t simple questions and shouldn’t be left on trust. They need agreement and understanding if the ecosystem is to blossom, for without that level of understanding distrust can soon grow.

Government has developed the environment that allows these ecosystems to blossom, although that may be inadvertent. Changes in legislation to protect employees is pushing microbusinesses to learn to work in supportive, collaborative ecosystems without the need to employ others.

The Small business ecosystem is growing up

Now, our business could not survive in its current form without the ecosystem in which it operates, we’d fail to develop and grow as fast as we are and we’d fail to deliver the service we now can. Small dependent businesses have learned their skills and gained experience as independent organisations are now seeking others and collaborating in new ways. Their interdependence, whilst still adolescent, hides the truth of 21^st century organisations, not one or few, but many working with each other as one.

These changes are fundamental and radical, embracing it is critical and yet this new business ecosystem will evolve further and faster than most are prepared for. Looking back, in just a few short years I suspect most will wonder how we managed to survive today.

William Buist is director of Abelard Management Services, a consultancy specialising in improving team dynamics and performance. For more information visit www.abelard-uk.com

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What could the classic movie Braveheart possibly have in common with issues facing modern small businesses? Well, in just three words, William Wallace was able to identify a common identity that bound the hearts of hundreds of men in the battlefield and captured their passion and desire to succeed. But how can this be translated into business? Team performance specialist William Buist explains why small businesses can maximise collaborative opportunities simply through defining the common interest that links customers suppliers and staff, if they can communicate it in a manner that creates shared passion.

Building collaboration in business: Who is involved in your business?

When businesses look at their operation, their products and services, and their culture and ethos, they often underestimate the real extent of what makes them great.

Customers are a business’s life blood and it’s their willingness to part with their money to buy our products and services that allow us to trade and build the business up. It is worth remembering though that our businesses, are also customers of our suppliers. What businesses get from their suppliers is the ability to add value to the their customers. Of course, that continues up the supply chain to supplier’s suppliers and down to customer’s customers.

Sometimes the person supplying the supplier is critical to our ability to deliver for our customers and likewise, sometimes it is our customer’s customer that is reliant on us. We may not know that, but if we did, it could change our priorities.

In Braveheart, on the Battlefield, William Wallace rode to stand in front of a group of Nobles seeking to negotiate and ordinary folk seeking to survive. Ok, perhaps not the same relationships as in business, but you can see the same effect.

Who should collaborate?

When we seek to determine who should be with us in business, it is often hard to identify the individuals and businesses that really matter. It’s good business practice to examine your profitable lines, to understand where the money comes from and where it goes. Cost conscious businesses seek to negotiate down input costs but doing so in a non-collaborative manner can lead to suppliers reducing quality or withdrawing supply.

Collaborative approaches with suppliers who understand the impact of change across the widest picture can enable businesses and suppliers to find the right solutions for both.

Collaborative approaches with customers helps to ensure that your businesses adapts along with changing customer needs and provides more market intelligence. Collaborative customers tend to be advocates and feel part of the ‘family’, and with this comes more loyalty.

In Braveheart, William Wallace understood this. He needed to get all the parties in the battle working together, for there were indeed ‘too many’ well armoured men in the opposing forces.

What’s the common identity?

What Wallace did was create an immediate common identity that applied to all the men on the field of battle. ‘Sons of Scotland’ gave them a peg to hang their identity on. The reaction in each of the men was that Wallace ‘is talking to me’ and so each individual listened.

In business, can you identify the common identity that you have with those around you in your business? Does the language you use in your marketing and sales material talk at your market, or embrace them? When you answer the phone are you talking to a member of your businesses collaborative team or (just) responding to a supplier or customer?

Wallace’s three words achieve that, but to do it in 3 words is hard. In 1976 Frank Muir accepted the Rectorship of St Andrews’ University. In a moving speech he discarded his notes and talked about seeing the whole town from one of the high points in the town. Opening his arms he said ‘This is my university’. His context was clearly one of joining the assembled throng as an equal and his success as Rector was assured immediately. So, are you creating a common identity for your team?

Where are you going?

A common identity is all well and good but all it does is put you together, To actually move forward together requires a mission, a purpose and a direction. Businesses that create a common understanding of their intention tend to get support from their suppliers and customers.

When Virgin entered the transatlantic airline business they made clear what they hoped to achieve in relation to standards of service and cost, much of which wasn’t deliverable on day one. And in Braveheart, Wallace use a similar tactic, Firstly he recognised a common feature of his team by saying ‘I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of tyranny’ and confirming that they were all free men.

He addressed current concerns (‘Run and you may live’) but painted a picture of a future which required action today to deliver. His statement of ‘… and looking back, many years from would you trade all the days from that day to this for one chance…’ (and the key point here that this is the moment by repetition) ‘… just one chance… …to tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they can never take our freedom’ takes the group into their passion, the belief of freedom, the need to take action now, and the binding force of collaboration.

In business we can paint an equivalent of what we are doing, and what we aim to do in a similar way, by painting a picture of the future we can have together. What are the common features, in your collaborative group, that you can draw on? What is their equivalence of the fight against tyranny?

If you can express your goals in a way that builds on the passions of those around you, that aligns those passions in a common goal and presents a journey that can be shared it will help your business to be resilient to the trials that lie ahead.

What happens If you don’t bring your partners with you?

Many battles in history failed because, ultimately, the team wasn’t passionately aligned behind the goal. But bringing the team with you doesn’t mean painting a picture of milk and honey though…

In Braveheart, Wallace didn’t shy away from talking of the risk of death. In another example, Churchill told his countrymen that he had nothing to offer but ‘Blood, Toils, Tears, and Sweat’ (a phrase first used by Theodore Roosevelt in 1897) at the start of the Battle of Britain. These honest, realistic, assessments and a clear belief that the right result will prevail, collect supporters from the ranks of the sceptical far more readily than over optimistic portrayals of possible futures.

When our suppliers don’t share our passions we are just a supply of money to them. When the going gets tough for us their willingness to help is limited and their attention is probably with those whom have built a shared passion with them. Sir Stuart Rose understood this well as when Marks and Spencer fell from grace, his job was not to resolve the issues overnight, but to rebuild the ‘contract’ that Marks and Spencer had built over many years with its customers for value and quality.

Our customers will have no loyalty with us if there isn’t a shared journey, if they can’t see that we are as passionate about them and their needs as they are.

The picture we paint of where we are going sends many messages, and the more that we can align the message with the passions we have, the more we can bring our suppliers and customers on board the more likely we are to be successful. Finding the powerful phrases that bind groups behind a common identity and a common journey will bind your business, your advocates, your suppliers and your customers into a collaborative group that will deliver more, faster and more reliably, than working just as a company that happens to buy from suppliers and sell to customers.

William Buist is director of Abelard Management Services, a consultancy specialising in improving team dynamics and performance. For more information visit www.abelard-uk.com

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In an increasingly web-enabled society, a variety of mediums are being used in tandem by businesses looking to develop a new wave of community spirit amongst its stakeholders. Business specialist William Buist argues that the main challenge facing organisations is how to do this well and in a manner, which adds value to the community, and the business, for mutual benefit.

The word ‘Community’ first appeared in the 14^th century and is derived from the Latin communitas meaning ‘Fellowship’ and/or communis meaning ‘common, public, general, shared by all or many’. When thinking about specialist communities, I like to refer to community as ‘Common Fellowship’.

But before we can talk about how to create value, we need to decide how to define and measure it. Value is derived not just from the direct contribution, but also from the value members bring to the community; through their knowledge, skills, experience and, from their interactions in their own business and personal networks.

As a common fellowship, a community contains two elements: (1) the people in the community and their networks, and (2) what they bring to it. So community value is a combination of both network value and content value – contacts and content.

Contacts and Content

In a large community of many, perhaps millions of members – you can reach out and make contact with very talented people. The chances are that someone in the community is perfectly suited to helping with a current issue, but finding them is hard. Wouldn’t it be better if they were already seeking you out?

Those seeking to create and build communities need to design the environment in which it operates, in a way that encourages and supports and helps members easily apply the right approach to the community. Common fellowship only appears when it is easy to build strong relationships.

When you meet people, you have just one opportunity to sell your goods or services. When they like you, when they want to help you, then they’ll talk about you to others and your opportunities are magnified. When you are THE expert – the referral becomes automatic. People stop thinking about the other people they know who could help, because they know the expert.

When the relationship is strong, you really aren’t talking just to an individual but also to all the people they know. Communities that build relationships leverage success through those relationships, in the network; they create “Network Value”.

Creating Network Value

People tend to buy products and services from people whom they trust. They trust what their friends tell them, so to build network value you need to find a way to get people that you don’t know talking about your products and services to people that trust them. Your network reach is critical.

I define the real value of your network as the extent to which people who don’t know you, are talking about you, to other people whom you don’t know.

Content Value

This is why publishing is really important. There are “lurkers” who really don’t actively participate by writing. Probably, 90% of your readership will never actively engage, making it hard for you to gauge the value you are giving, yet many will be advocates and supporters.

That creates a driver for people to write and add to the community’s content value, whilst reading the material attracts new people to connect with the author and increases the overall network value too.

Of course, a community carries risk. Bad news spreads as fast as, or faster than, good news and mistakes can be seen in the transparency of a closely connected community.

If you are creating a community, then the value people get from the knowledge in the community has to be greater than the costs of giving and the risks of providing content must be less than risk of not doing so.

Critical Mass

To make it self-sustaining, you need a critical mass of members, activity must be frequent and successful. Typically, online, the contribution rate in terms of adding content is recognised as around 10 to 1, and at well designed offline meetings you can expect attendance at up to 50% of the membership.

To get business you need to give business and for that to work in a dynamic way, contributors need to see success as well as referring opportunities too. The visibility of that to all is key.

Induction and ongoing training and support is key to initiate the behaviours that develop community ‘spirit’ too, as this helps new members to overcome a natural reluctance to participate in the early weeks of membership.

So, i’d suggest that to get the mix right, critical mass is between 100 and 200 active and committed people.

It’s not enough just to get the members through; you also need to retain them and develop the community over time through continual engagement. After all, the community has to adapt as each new member joins, their skills and networks need to add to the community value.

Embracing change

So you should expect change; indeed I think it is critical to embrace it, use it, and indeed leverage it. From a community owner point of view, there is increasing pressure to develop and enhance the functionality of the environment in which the community operates.

That’s best done in a strategic transparent framework known to the community, even developed with them. Without a guiding vision, there is no direction, and rudderless communities wither and die.

Communities change as the vision develops. For a community owner, the key thing is to remember to whom you appeal. It’s not enough to know what they want today, it’s important also to know where they are likely to want to go.

A community cannot be all things to all people though, and once you empower your community to comment on the community it won’t be long before you realise that the community is a community of experts who won’t hesitate to tell you what to do. That requires diplomacy and patience to manage well. Some have described that as a task akin to herding cats.

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At a recent conference Mark Zuckerberg, the 23 year old boss of Facebook was talking to 250 or so “middle aged” advertising executives about the new ways that Facebook envisaged advertising developing. His thoughts are indeed interesting. “For the last 100 years media has been pushed out to people, but now marketers are going to be part of the conversation”.

That phrase – ‘Part of the conversation’ caught my eye. What does it mean to you?

If advertisers are going to be part of the conversation, will we let them in? What would make us do so? and once they are in the conversation how can they add value to that conversation, or are they there just to extract value through sales? If so, will it be a short term visit to the conversation?

Advertisers engaging with a community in a social networking environment create an interesting new way of presenting old products and services. We know on Ecademy, that overt promoting products on services ‘in the conversation’ (as opposed to where it is expected in Marketplace) has a strongly negative effect if handled badly but that building relationships, “joining in the conversation”, can create an opportunity to build advocacy and brand awareness very fast. The trick for most of us is to find the opinion leader within the community. When we influence their opinion they influence others opinion on our behalf. Good or bad.

But social networking creates an opportunity for advertisers to eavesdrop a conversation as well as take part in it. That creates a difficulty for all of us, in that, the things that we communicate about are seen by those who are silent. Silent but not inactive. They are reading and assimilating the knowledge they gain in order to be able to better position their products and services for us. That’s no bad thing, for, if we are approached for the things we need, at the time we need them, with a product or service that meets that need, and is good value then none of us will complain.

The question is can they be good enough at acquiring this skill?

William Buist, Director of Abelard Management Services, specialising in rapidly improving the trust and community spirit in teams and groups.

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Whilst many business owners and professionals are successfully using online social and business networks and communities to grow their business, a large number still struggle to gain online referrals. Networking specialist William Buist explains how to be more effective at gaining referrals from their online activity.

When discussing online referrals, I find it very useful to begin by determining exactly what a referral is. Referrals usually involve three people and some work. The three people are

1.the donor – the person giving the referral,

2.the recipient – the person receiving the referral; and

3.the subject – the potential client.

People are not enough though, because just because the right people know each other, will they give each other referrals? There needs to be a compelling reason for the referral to happen. A referral happens when a donor knows the recipient well enough for three things to be in place:

1.Mutual respect and friendship

2.Credibility in the service

3.Absolute trust in all matters

The donor needs to be able to identify the potential subject and then ensure that the recipient will fit the bill. This doesn’t just mean that they are capable to do the job, but that they also will fit with the client at an emotional and personal level. There will be a meeting of minds between recipient and subject, All that means that before I can give a referral I need to spend time getting to know people really well, building trust, understanding their character, reading what they write, understanding how they react under pressure, seeing how they behave in different circumstances and forming a view about whether I want to expose that person to the people who know me.

You refer more than the business

When you make a referral you refer more than the business because the donor is referring the recipients skills and experience, but he is referring the donor’s reputation. The subject of the referral will hold the donor responsible for the outcome of the referral as much as the recipient. Personally, I won’t refer people to my contacts beyond the level of my current reputation with that contact. Sometimes, I’ve held back on a referral, not because I have doubts about the recipient himself, but because of my experience of others in the same company, my reputation with my contacts is too important to risk with those who do not show equal or better regard for reputational matters.

Leads

Leads on the other hand only involve two people, there will usually have been no effort taken with the subject to ensure that you get a warm reception, and they tend to happen when two people who are both clearly capable have a discussion and something along the lines of ‘Have you talked to…..?’ crops up.

Why give a referral

When you give a properly qualified referral you are helping you contact, the subject, and the recipient, done well, giving referrals wins for your reputation, wins for the subject by helping them with a great service or product, wins for the recipient by building their business, a win win win. Referrals demand a lot of work to do properly though, as a donor you need to identify the subject, then properly qualify them, sell in the recipient and warm up the sales process enough so that in effect the recipient is the ‘only show in town’. That’s a lot of effort. Done well though, the wins make that a no brainer, it’s definitely worth taking the effort.

Receiving referrals

Clearly with all that effort when referrals are received they need to be treated appropriately. After all the work has been done for you for nothing, perhaps over many months, perhaps through the relationships that pre-exist the recipients relationship with the donor. That puts a massive onus on the recipient to follow up not just with the subject (amazingly, I’ve given 2 or 3 really well qualified referrals to people in the last year that were not followed up and the business went elsewhere) but also with the donor. Remember it’s the donor’s contact, not the recipient’s – the subject and the donor are likely to be talking regularly, there should never be a surprise)

How do you receive more

In simple terms I started receiving more referrals when I stopped looking for them! Referrals are predictable, and they arise from action that you take, rather than having to rely on action others take for you.

A key question someone asked me a long time ago was ‘Why should anyone give you a referral?’ I concluded that there was absolutely no reason anyone should give me a referral at all. However, I might be able to create an environment around me where people want to give me referrals. What would make you want to give someone else a referral? Not just the soft fluffy “it’s a nice thing to do” stuff, but what would make them want to do so with passion and dedication? Why would someone take all that effort for me? I concluded that I had to demonstrate that I was prepared to do that for them, in a way that was unambiguous and consistent.

Ivan Misner and BNI taught me the VCP model,

·   Visibility,

·   Credibility,

·   Profitability

First you must be visible, then you must be credible (and that’s still not enough), but they must both be present to move to profitability. Profitability from your relationships starts to appear when the donor and recipient meet the three criteria above, so time must be spent developing the mutual respect, credibility of service and absolute trust.

I knew that what I had been doing wasn’t generating me referrals so I had to change what I did, rather than hoping that others would change what they did.

What did I learn?

I learned that a 121 is not an opportunity to demonstrate my credibility, so I stopped talking about what I do and how I do it, for me a 121 is an opportunity to build a relationship, to start to form a bond of friendship that may lead to more interesting conversations later. In 121’s it’s common for people to say to me ‘but we haven’t talked about what you do’ – that’s when I know I’ve had a good one to one, it means I’ve listened well, questioned, challenged and understood my one to one partner. If they want to talk about what they do, or not, I don’t mind, we’re getting to know each other and that’s very valuable.

I learned that credibility comes from helping others in the way that they want to be helped and not in the way that I want to give help, That means using a different approach with each person and a responsibility on me to be empathetic. That’s hard, but I know that a one solution fits all approach won’t work for everyone. On Ecademy you can help people by writing informative content and taking time to add to the posts and debates on Blogs and in club forums. Challenging others constructively based on your own knowledge and skills and experience and accepting challenges to your views demonstrates a willingness to collaborate and build better knowledge. Those traits demonstrate and build credibility. All that we do, all we have ever done, builds on that picture.

I learned that I don’t get referrals from the people I give them to. When people who I give referrals to ask me how the can repay a referral I ask them to ask one of their clients what they need and refer the best person they know to meet that need. If we all do that I’ll get my share of the referrals that are generated. The only way there are more referrals is when people give more referrals, not when people ask for more. Please do not give me a referral that I am not the best person to deliver either, give it to the person who is.

For me the real test is when I gave away work that I could have done (when I have none), because someone else was much better qualified to do it that I was.
I learned to measure and target the things that make this ‘machine’ work, I measure 121’s, and referrals given, and work generated for others.

ENDS

Imagine seeing position advertised which had no restraints or desired outcome, just a requirement to help the business grow in whatever way possible? Well that’s exactly what leading management consultancy Abelard Management Services have done this week as they launch a nationwide hunt to fill their latest position as ‘Head of Nothing’.

As bizarre as it may sound, managing director William Buist is actively searching for a potential candidate to take on the position of ‘Head of Nothing’ at Abelard Management Services. The position has no boundaries and cannot be categorised into a management, sales, marketing or PR position. Quite simply, the Head of Nothing will be responsible for helping the business to grow through whatever methods the Head chooses to adopt.

The ideal candidate should consider themselves a collaborator or an associate, who would see their Head of Nothing appointment as part of their portfolio and not their ‘job’. It would not be all that they do and the other things that they do will enable them to continue to innovate be unconstrained by the need to focus on the needs of one organisation.

Buist, who will be speaking at Glasgow’s Growing your Own Business Exhibition on June 14th, devised the position of Head of Nothing after a discussion with a client about the impact of complete empowerment. Abelard is a business that operates with a mixed model of employees and close strategic partnerships working collaboratively.

He decided that providing the means for someone to be freed of constraints in their work and apply their skills in new, innovative ways is the most appropriate way to develop Abelard, which specialises in working with business teams and businesses that are developing communities.

“Head of Nothing is a job that is not one without a title, but, actually, it has a title that describes it in its entirety. Genuine accountability and responsibility only really comes when the only constraints are self imposed and not imposed by others,” explains Buist.

For more information visit wwwheadofnothing.co.uk or to apply for the position of Head of Northing please email wmb@abelard-uk.com.

Ends

May 2008

William Buist

Business Specialist: Building trust in teams and communities

William Buist is Managing Director of Abelard Management Services, which specialises in building trust in teams and communities within its corporate and SME client base.

William has had a 22 year career in Insurance, serving as the Head of Business Risk Management and Chief Underwriter for Lloyds TSB Insurance, where he also engaged with a number of consultations with Government on behalf of insurance industry bodies.

In 2001, he became director of a consultancy company that focuses on supporting corporate teams delivering major change, where he has achieved substantial success with many medium and large clients.

William personally focuses on online community development, social networking and collaborative development within and between businesses. Amongst his many clients, he has facilitated the growth of the Ecademy Life Members Community – a premium global group of Entrepreneurs and Business Owners.

William is no stranger to the public arena, and regularly speaks at events and conferences and a guest speaker at corporate events.