Business is fun

Spiderman

Its a not uncommon thing now to walk into Starbucks or - if you're wiser, into biblocafe in Glasgow's Woodlands road - to find most of the seats occupied by what I call visonistas.

There they sit focussed, on their own creativity, oblivious to the world as it hovers in their presence looking for a share of a table. Few of us, sitting down in a cafe or public space immediately strike up a conversation with the stranger sitting next to or opposite us, and unless the lift breaks down, will easily pass a minute or so in a perhaps embarrassing silence as the hollow cube rises or falls in the lift shaft till we reach our destination.

We have become islands in our own world. And yet, "No man is an island, entire of itself" (John Donne). We should be - are - social animals but still it is the done-thing (no pun intended) to ignore our neighbours.

Networking teaches an important skill if you are prepared to learn it - the elevator pitch. The elevator pitch is nothing more than a 40-60 second chance to say who you are what you do and why you are special. I suspect that on the one hand to immediately launch into a "Hi, my name is John from NGM Accountants and what we do is..." every time you walked into a lift might be a bit adventurous for many of us and a bit intimidating for our intended audience. I guess though it depends on you and how adventurous you feel of course!

Regardless of how aggressive it might seem to you, think of the opportunities that we miss by saying nothing at all, let alone a pitch.

“Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationships." H Ross Perot.

 

So do you dare to start spinning a web next time you are in a lift.....?

 

Bah!

Don't just hate success?

If you live in the West of Scotland, the answer is probably a resoundingly loud YES. Though it clearly depends on your perspective. If you are the successful person in business you probably love it whereas everyone you meet will hate you for it. You know the kind of thing: "He doesn't deserve that.." or "He seems to forget he was brought up in Cranhill (a district of Glasgow which has had an ambivalent reputation for many years.)" or " Fur coat and nae k......s".

I'm sure you know even more expressions of sheer jealousy or hatred that the Scottish Parliament hasn't yet got round to - .

And what happens, I take two weeks off from literary creativity, resting the business is fun blog while I get on with other things, and I get a complaint or three - What's happened to the cartoon blog? Where's it been? Has it stopped? Success? Not sure I like this anymore.

Take Ebenezer Scrooge for example. He was the epitome of success [well if you want literary creativity, you'll have to put up with literary words like epitome, and characters from literature]: Scrooge ran a tight ship and he stuck to a firm and (actually) fair policy of dealing with his customers. So long as you keep paying, you keep your house - actually no different from today in many ways. His customers knew where they stood - even although many tried to prevaricate [literary word] and wriggle out of their obligations - and what the rules of the game were. Almost nothing caused Scrooge to waver from his rules, and, although he is portrayed in many visualisations as a humbug, he was nothing if not THE successful businessowner of his day.

Should success be unwavering, constant, conscious of nothing but its own rules? Profit the objective and the motive alone? Or can success be achieved with a greater degree of flexibility, with compassion? with morality and with ethics?

Without giving away the story, I think it is fair to say that, while we heard no more about Scrooge's business, you might suppose that it went from strength to strength, and that the requisite happy ending was not limited to Tiny Tim's survival.

So what kind of business owner are you as we approach Christmas yet again? Are you the cold, calm & collected Bond, James Bond who counts every last penny or have you been shaken by compassion and the spirits of past, present and of Christmases yet to come, and been stirred into the new style of business leadership where success comes through people?

Or will Tiny Tim surely (be allowed) to die?

JohnF