The Green House Hotel

I was invited last week by Mark Liddle of Middletons Insolvency Practice: http://www.middletonpartners.co.uk/south_west_region and David Foster of Winning Business, http://www.winningbusiness.co.uk/, to give a talk at the Green House Hotel, largely to financial and professional services owners and managers, over lunch. It seemed germane to me to focus on resolutions, intentions and goals for the new year as we were still in that first week. Accordingly, I made three recommendations and from the feedback I got I know this was a winner, because what I was suggesting most people hadn't considered.

First, I told the story of Marcel Proust, the great French novelist, who when his friend excitedly explained to him what the new fangled telephone was at the turn of the C19th, what it could do, and how it operated – it rang and you picked it up to answer – totally rejected it. Doubtless in French he said: “What? Me? A servant of that?” Incredulity in fact – for ringing a bell was a sure sign that the master wanted something, and the servant needed to run to serve the master. Thus, in his perception, the idea that he would have to move to pick the phone up when it rang suggested he was a servant. Outrageous!

And how correct – we look at it now and how many of us are at the beck and call of our Blackberries and i-Phones, not to mention mobiles? So the advice I gave was: simplify your life this year. Use the Pareto Principle – the 80/20 rule – to work out what 20% of activities are producing 80% of your results, and what activities are really a waste of time. Stop playing with digits on your Blackberry!

Further, to simplifying, consider the people in your life: there are two types – Booster and Drainers – and it is easy to establish which is which if we listen to our bodies. Boosters always make you feel good; Drainers always have exactly the reverse effect. And which category they are in has often little to do with how close they are to you: family and friends can be Drainers for years. So the resolution is: aim to reduce contact with Drainers in 2011 and increase the number of Boosters you know. 

If you'd like a copy of the simple tool, The Stop-Start Review, which I have developed to help people get a handle on their time, contact me.

Second, aim to be motivated. Do not think that motivation is something that happens according to 'pre-destinated' whims of fate! Motivation is like fitness or health – you can work on it. But you have to know what your motivators are to do this. Over 10,000 Motivational Maps have been done and I estimate that at least 95% of people cannot work out their motivators. So I offered all those present a free Map via my colleague, Susannah Brade-Waring, http://www.absworks.co.uk/, if they'd like to take it up. Let me offer all readers of my blog – as a reward – over January a similar offer. Contact me if you'd like to do a Map.

Third, get new learning in 2011 – this is critical. In my experience one of the most dangerous things in the world is being massively successful: sometimes it affects people in an odd way. They start imagining they are God's favourite child, that they deserve this, and that all they need to do now is carry on in their own swanky, swaggering way learning nothing new – certainly nothing like the learning they undertook to become successful in the first place.

I recommended three deceptively simple processes to commit to for the new year. One, listen more: seek out experts, gurus, masters in their field, and commit to listening, which also means asking great open questions: what, why and how questions. Second, read more. Amazon makes excuses impossible. And if you want to make it more fun, use the Amazon application in Linkedin to start posting what you are reading to your network. Comment on books, invite debate. Finally, study – and this is such a big area I restricted myself to reflecting back on the books to be read. Don't just read books – have a pencil, a highlighter to hand – annotate – search for really useful and relevant information. What facts, figures, intelligence, quotations can you use in 2011? 

If you can do these things, I argued, by developing your Self, you would improve your Relationships and also your Work. This was effectively the indirect method to improve performance overall. Sometimes the indirect method produces better results than heading straight for your goal. 

Happy new year then to all my readers.