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As
a newcomer to shooting, I was delighted to accept an invitation
to a corporate event hosted by Dixey Henderson at the prestigious
And as a Management and Communications Consultant, I
couldn’t fail to see parallels between the excellent coaching they
provided, and the world of business. Dear cynical
reader, this is not a contrived justification to The Revenue or
my employers to post rationalise a Jolly; I really did derive some
business lessons (aside from the obvious networking benefits) which
I will share here;
1.
Aim ahead of the target Our natural tendency is to point directly at the target
and shoot, but this fails to account for the fact that the target
is moving and there’s a time gap for the cartridge to arrive. How often in business do we fail to take account of
the time lag between delivery and impact? And how frequently would
we have stood a better chance of hitting a target if we The time lag parallel has many lessons in it for business,
particularly as the speed of change continues to accelerate, driven
by the relentless march of technological capability. There is increasing risk of embarking on product development
aimed at catching up with a key competitor only to find that launch
dates have been over ambitious and the ‘target’ has already moved
on. The watch word, more than ever, is surely anticipation – closely
followed by ‘flexibility'. We need to anticipate, as far as we can,
the changes in the market that may have happened during our product
development cycle, and then we need to be flexible enough – future
proof – to react and make quick changes as we approach launch dates. And if anticipation is difficult, perhaps we should
simply be ‘raising the bar’ and stretching our goals a little further
than feels comfortable…just to keep pace with the moving target. Communication is another good example. I’ve witnessed
companies spend many months and £000’s developing campaigns, but
by the time they are ready to go the originators are beginning to
tire of the message. Eventually released onto an unsuspecting and
relatively disinterested audience results are rarely instantaneous.
Succumbing to financial pressure, the plug is pulled and the effort
largely wasted. It takes time for the message to reach and penetrate. Here’s another more positive example from the world
of communications. At Saatchi’s we developed the mould breaking
‘World’s favourite Airline’ campaign for B.A. At the time this was
an aspiration considerably ahead of reality (justified by a spurious
‘passenger/miles' statistic). However it was effective because it
focussed all stakeholders on that well articulated target. One word
of warning: Aim ahead, but don’t overdo it or you’ll lose credibility.
2.
First master the basics The combination of basic skills and ‘letting it flow’
is well covered by Tim Gallwey in his
‘Inner Game…’ series. He’s published ‘Inner Game of tennis, of Golf,
of Skiing, of Work’ but not yet of shooting! His premise is that
you need to know the basic skills but beyond them, it’s all about
confidence and a focus on the end result. My first attempt at shooting was without a professional
coach. I was accompanied by a very good shot who
showed me the ropes, but he’d forgotten things he took for granted
so he failed to instruct me on stance and gun position. The result
was moderate success but a painfully bruised upper arm the following
day. In business, how many bright young things are propelled onto
their career path without acquiring the basic business skills? How
often do we fail to give a proper induction to new arrivals? I am eternally grateful for the basic business skills
I was taught by 2 excellent mentors and a well organised graduate
training scheme at Pfizer, my first employer. I am often shocked
by the absence of these skills in executives who are well advanced
on their career path. Fortunately, with a little humility and a
thirst for improvement, it’s never too late to learn. At whatever level and whatever career stage, people
flourish if they know:
-
where the organisation is going
-
what is my part in that
-
how will I be measured
-
how am I doing so far A good coach helps to take away the interference that
gets in the way of these basics: whether in work or in sport
3.
Acquire knowledge, then trust your
instincts There’s a whole thesis to be written about ‘gut instinct’.
New research suggests that this overused phrase identifies an under
utilised ability. Under the banner of Management Sciences, Corporations
have bred distrust in human instinct, preferring the apparent security
of data-based decisions. But how often is the data assembled to
rationalise one persons instinct’? De Bono’s techniques in particular
help us to COMBINE the different and real benefits of right brain
and left brain thinking. Facts and Feelings. At
The Success Group, we have incorporated his six thinking hats technique
into our team development processes. By ensuring that the whole
team shares in the functions of creator and critic, planner and
processor etc we replace a wasteful confrontational style with a
more constructive collaborative style of working.
4.
Do it with confidence As a shooting novice, I was understandably tentative
and whilst trying to absorb new knowledge, my brain ‘got in the
way’ and frequently stopped me hitting the target. My brilliant
coach observed that I had absorbed all the learning I needed, but
after a couple of near misses he whispered ‘do the same thing again,
but this time, do it with confidence’ The result was a double barrelled hit. I’m reminded of the witty comment about sincerity. If
you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made. The same could be said of confidence. But how can you
BE confident when you’re not? We all know that confidence is seductive
and contagious, but if you have doubts and uncertainties buzzing
around your head, how can you be convincingly confident.
In our experience, confidence
is a product of belief - in other words, you start to be successful (and confident), the moment
you believe you will be!
Once you really believe in yourself it’s amazing what you can achieve,
because belief influences your attitude which in turn influences your
behaviour which gets results…..and that generates a whole raft
of positive emotions, confidence included. Who could forget the edge of seat drama of watching
Apollo 13 (whether at the time, or in the movie!) return safely
to earth from a seemingly catastrophic position in space? Well this
near miracle was largely down to Gene Kranz
and his fine team on the ground. Kranz genuinely believed
they could get the astronauts home safely and that belief influenced
every action they took –“failure was not an option”!
5.
Safety first Spreadsheets aren’t as potentially life threatening
as a 12 bore, but livelihoods are at risk if we fail to take wise
precautions in our business affairs. The emphasis on speed and opportunism
in modern business is valid, but the need for contingency planning
and risk management is both prudent and wise. The most successful businesses are those which can act quickly and opportunistically
without compromising on compliance and risk management. Businesses
go to the wall every day because they fail to pay attention to liquidity.
The challenge, however, is to ensure that the need for prudent management
does not overwhelm a company’s creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.
In business, as well as in shooting, winners have guts and verve,
but also know when to ‘break the gun’ or ‘clip on the safety catch’. Northern Rock stands out as a recent reminder of this. With deference to my hosts, finally a word on recruitment. Jim Collins in his excellent book Good to Great argues
that ‘getting the right people on the bus’ (and the wrong people
off of it) should come first. Before Vision, Strategy, Structure
and Tactics; in summary The ‘who’, before the ‘what’. According
to his research, great companies differed from merely good ones
because (among other things) ‘level 5 leaders’ put great emphasis on getting
the right team together and focussing their best people on their
biggest opportunities (not their biggest problems). A lot of my experience of recruitment was gained
during my 10 years at Saatchi’s when hiring had to keep pace with
growth from 12 to 1200 staff, and from nowhere to Number 1. We couldn’t have achieved this without excellent recruitment
specialists who were delegated the task of finding and professionally
assessing candidates. But I never delegated the final selection
at senior level. Here again, I learned the value of instinct. The
job of the recruitment specialist was to ensure capability. That
of the direct report was to assess compatibility with him and his
immediate team. Mine was to ensure ‘cultural fit’ with the company
and its mission. After scores of interviews, I discovered that my
‘gut instinct’ after the first 20 minutes of an interview was rarely
changed thereafter. So instead of interviews lasting an hour or
more I switched to a 30 minute structure.
I listened and probed for the first 20 minutes, and then
if my gut instinct was positive, I’d spend the next 10 minutes
communicating why Saatchi’s was the right place for them. It’s a bit like the ‘Flush stand’ at the clay
shoot where a team of four or five share responsibility to hit a
stream of targets. Our (winning!) team at the shoot split responsibility
according to aptitude (novice right handers to the left of the stand,
novice left handers on the right and experts in the middle, each with
their target zones identified). Team success is largely about utilising individual abilities
within a clear framework and whether that’s in recruitment or clay
shooting or life in general, you’ll get more hit’s than misses if
you follow the five guidelines above. ÓRon
Leagas October 2007 Ron Leagas is a qualified Executive Coach with The Success Group www.thesuccessgroup.co.uk and a communications consultant with BLAC www.blacagency.com 
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