Whatever you do, don't be your own worst enemy!

Like millions of other English people who love the sport of rugby union I'm hurting this morning - badly!

Last night the English rugby team blew it against their mortal enemy and closest neighbour, Wales. They blew it in front of 90,000 spectators and millions on TV in a World Cup match, billed as the biggest game between these two ferocious rivals for years. They blew it on home territory, against a team who have suffered an appalling level of misfortune over the last few weeks with injuries to supposedly critical players.

This week, in the build-up to the game, England head coach Stuart Lancaster had been heavily criticised for his team selection.  However, his selections proved correct, and for the bulk of the game they entirely nullified the Welsh threat.  It was only when he substituted his two controversial picks, Sam Burgess and Owen Farrell, late in the game that things apparently went 'badly wrong'.  George Ford, the No 10 whom pundits said Lancaster should not have dropped in favour of Farrell, came on and idiotically insisted on kicking the ball straight back to Wales every time he got it instead of running with the ball and drawing in Welsh defenders.  He showed no vision whatsoever and kept handing the initiative back to the opposition, who by this stage had their tails up and were giving it all they'd got - they felt they had nothing to lose after an appalling sequence of injuries 3/4 of the way through the game.

Then came a decision that will haunt England for years.  With less than 10 minutes to go they were awarded a difficult penalty, but instead of kicking at goal to level the scores (by this stage Wales had unbelievably managed to take the lead for the first time since the first few minutes of the game) they kicked into touch down by the Welsh line in the hope of forcing a 5 or 7 point score instead of 3 points.  It was greedy and it was naive.  Wales won the subsequent lineout and cleared their lines of danger.

However, the main reason England lost the game was woeful indiscipline, and this is the critical lesson for us all.  Since Stuart Lancaster became head coach in 2011 he has done many good things. He has infused England, traditionally seen as a boring, technical team, with pride and passion.  He has filled the players, many of them very young, with confidence.  He has created intense competition for places in the team, and his coaching team have improved the fitness and technique of the players immeasurably.

There is one area, however, in which Lancaster has failed dismally, and that is the self-discipline which players exhibit on the field.  It is truly appalling.  I remember match after match after match over the last 4 years where they have given away stupid penalties with unnecessary infringements. You could say that they have sought to 'cheat', to break the laws of the game, without being noticed. Amazingly, inspite of all the points it has cost them over the years, they keep on doing it!!!!

Last night was the most brutal self-defeat of all, probably the worst I've witnessed in over 40 years of watching sport.  England handed the game to Wales on a plate.  England dominated the first two thirds of the game.  They were technically superior in every department.  For long periods they had a comfortable 10 point cushion - Wales needed to score twice to overhaul it.  Every time it happened however England sacrificed the two score lead by conceding a stupid and unnecessary penalty, and every time they did so Wales' star kicker, Dan Biggar, punished them by slotting it over.

It seems to me there are two crucial, universal lessons to take away from this game that apply to all of us if we are committed to excellence in whatever we do:

1. Self-discipline is the bedrock on which creativity and excellence must be founded.  Sadly, talent and technical proficiency are not always rewarded.  However mistakes are invariably punished sooner or later, so cut out the unnecessary ones.  Life is hard enough as it is!

2. Wales were utterly inspired in adversity.  They played with enormous heart, as they invariably do. They refused to give up, they were opportunistic, and they delivered what amounted to a smash and grab raid.  England got complacent.  At one point early in the second half, before disaster struck, England 2003 World Cup winning head coach Sir Clive Woodward told TV viewers of his concern that England appeared to be 'cruising' and that it was very dangerous.  His observation proved painfully prescient.

England can still qualify for the Quarter Finals of the Rugby World Cup, but they've given themselves a huge mountain to climb.  Four years of diligent preparation risk being thrown away through mindless stupidity.

Take heed, wise up, and don't take unnecessary risks!  What can you do to avoid spoiling your own chances of success?  It's certainly got me thinking!

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Thanks for reading this.  If you liked it please click on Like and share it.  Constructive comments are welcome, and if you have questions on the subject matter you can connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a message, or else you’ll find my contact details on my LinkedIn profile uk.linkedin.com/in/markashtonresolve.

If you need help growing your business, solving tough business problems, or finding and developing the true leaders throughout your business, take a look at www.resolvegetsresults.com and contact us for an informal, no-obligation conversation.  We give hands-on leadership, management, non-executive, coaching, advisory, and fundraising support to different types of business – small or large, start-up, turnaround or mature. We’re passionate about playing a vital role in building enduring great businesses, by applying the tried and tested, swim-against-the-tide principles of the Top 1% most profitable companies. When appropriate we share risk and reward with clients, so we're fully committed to their success.

You’ll find more blogs on leadership and management topics on my LinkedIn profile.

Will your moral compass lead you over a cliff?

Neuroscience teaches us we are animals, hard-wired over 65 million years to look after No 1 and our own herd, capable of any form of negative, often disastrous behaviour.  It should come as no surprise.  

Wisdom teaches us that we have advanced as a species by collaboration, courage, generosity and selflessness.

Yet we constantly bury our heads in the sand and pretend otherwise.

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It's been an interesting week.

Human stupidity knows no bounds.

One of the world's premier car companies is caught red handed, and confesses to fitting software to its diesel engined cars to cheat on greenhouse gas emission tests.  I find it inconceivable that other car manufacturers have not done the same thing - time will tell.

The company in question, VW Group, faces costs of many billions, the trashing of a proud reputation, the collapse of trust, years of uncertainty, and, more to the point, thousands of employees and their families will pay the greatest price.

The CEO has walked the plank.  He may not, as he claims, have known that his company practised systematic and cynical deception, but no matter - he is equally culpable.  He failed to instil a culture intolerant of such unthinkable behaviour.  At best there was a conspiracy of ignorance and convenient silence.

Let's call a spade a spade - this is theft.  It's time senior executives and others in business responsible for what, in truth, is criminal behaviour faced lengthy prison sentences, and not in cushy, white collar open prisons, when found guilty of abusing their office, or even presiding unwittingly over such abuse.  It would soon stop.

The threat of losing their jobs is woefully inadequate - the huge financial upsides they can achieve through misbehaviour mean that the risk/reward equation is currently rigged all one way in the eyes of the potentially unscrupulous.  All of us are prey to temptation, whether large or small - we should not be surprised at anything that happens if the rewards are great enough and the sanctions not real or punitive.

Meantime, more positively, a UK political party supposedly reeling after a catastrophic election wipeout in May when it was reduced from a high of 56 MPs in 2010 and a share in government to just 8 MPs and a berth in the political wilderness, holds its annual conference in Bournemouth and appears bizarrely upbeat and cheerful, according to political commentators. What's going on?

Firstly, they've seen dramatic percentage growth in membership since the election defeat.  The absolute numbers are relatively small; the trend is not.  Secondly, the space they naturally occupy on the radical, yet moderate centre left of British politics is apparently being vacated by the traditional juggernaut party of the Left, whose populist new leader wants to drag them much further left on the crest of the angry, anti-austerity tsunami currently engulfing the British and European electorates.

Their natural supporters, or people across the political spectrum who sympathise with them, have often kept their heads well below the parapet in that infuriating, introverted English manner.  It's not cool to support a 'no hope' political party, even if talks common sense and you agree with it.  Much better to run with the big dogs - don't want to risk standing out, even if you might stand out with a large silent majority.  Good job the little boy didn't think that like the rest of the crowd when he saw the emperor had no clothes on!

On Wednesday, their newly-elected leader, an outspoken firebrand with what one BBC commentator describes as a very particular brand of gritty Northern charm (he is no suave, well-groomed old Etonian or Fettesian member of the cravenly Murdoch-appeasing 'ruling classes'!), stakes a passionate claim for the middle ground of British politics.  He argues, (he is delusional, most would say), for the pursuit of power once more to change people's lives for good.  From humble origins himself, he makes a compelling case for a 'strange' paradox - the championing of the poor and vulnerable in society, and the championing of ordinary, struggling businesspeople, whom he says are essential to create the wealth the country needs to provide effective public services.  He argues for decency, community spirit and pragmatism - it is refreshing and uplifting.  He identifies squarely with the outsider versus the elite.

His plea that Britain should play its part in the European quota system to meet the current refugee crisis rather than opting out and sitting on the sidelines gets a spontaneous, cheering, standing ovation.  He presents a clear, inspiring and mature vision for a far better Britain, a country that cares, yet takes responsibility, a country with grown-up, selfless politicians and leaders in all walks of life, including business.

Yesterday I had another uplifting experience.  For the first time in many years I had an extended conversation by phone with a former colleague and friend, now working in Switzerland to develop and gain regulatory approval for modified reduced tobacco products (MRTPs) for one of the world's largest tobacco manufacturers.  He told me he had been headhunted a few years ago and had agonised over whether to take the job, since he had always vowed never to work in the cigarette industry.  In the end he took it in the end for these reasons:

• One third of the world's population (a figure that stunned me), disproportionately the poorer members of society, are smokers
• MRTPs bring specific health benefits for existing smokers - the research evidence suggests smoking MRTPs will have the same health effects for a smoker as giving up smoking altogether
• MRTPs will not be targeted at non-smokers as a way to get them into smoking - regulatory approvals will be tight and specific about that 
• His father died from lung cancer caused by lifelong smoking, and my friend believes his quality and quantity of life would have been significantly extended if he had smoked MRTPs.

Recently my friend's new boss asked him hypothetically if he would be willing to transfer to the conventional cigarette manufacturing division of the company, where his skills would be valuable. Without hesitation my friend told him that were he to be requested to do that then his written resignation letter would be on his boss's desk within 5 minutes. His boss, a company lifer since university, was stunned.  His tribal loyalty to the company, which fosters a cult-like culture, rendered him incapable of seeing the wood for the trees.  Golden, lobotomising handcuffs.

Courage is a rare commodity in all walks of life, sadly - people go with the flow.  "Don't draw attention to yourself" is the lemmings' charter!

In 'Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies' (1994) Jim Collins and Jerry I Porras studied iconic companies named repeatedly by US CEOs as the ones they most admired.  They discovered that enduringly great companies all have a compelling purpose beyond profit:

• Dave Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard (HP) was derided and mocked by other company leaders for many years because he spoke often at conferences of his personal conviction that the true purpose of any business was not to make money, but to make a meaningful contribution to society.  He became a billionaire, but he never changed his values or his behaviours.
• George W Merck, President of pharmaceuticals giant Merck and son of the founder, famously said: "We try never to forget that medicine is for the people.  It is not for the profits.  The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear.  The better we have remembered it, the larger they have been". 

My passion is applying actionable insights from neuroscience and the wisdom of the Top 1%, most sustainably profitable companies, to create great organisations infused with great behaviours. 

Neuroscience teaches us that we are animals, hard-wired over 65 million years to look after ourselves and our own herd, and capable of any form of negative behaviour.  It should be no surprise.

Wisdom teaches us that we have advanced as a species by collaboration, courage, generosity and selflessness.

I know which route I prefer and trust.  It's well worth the struggle.

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Thanks for reading this.  If you liked it please click on Like and share it.  Constructive comments are welcome, and if you have questions on the subject matter you can connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a message, or else you’ll find my contact details on my LinkedIn profile uk.linkedin.com/in/markashtonresolve.

If you need help growing your business, solving tough business problems, or finding and developing the true leaders throughout your business, take a look at www.resolvegetsresults.com and contact us for an informal, no-obligation conversation.  We give hands-on leadership, management, non-executive, coaching, advisory, and fundraising support to different types of business – small or large, start-up, turnaround or mature. We’re passionate about playing a vital role in building enduring great businesses, by applying the tried and tested, swim-against-the-tide principles of the Top 1% most profitable companies. When appropriate we share risk and reward with clients, so we're fully committed to their success.

You’ll find more blogs on leadership and management topics on my LinkedIn profile.

Leadership lessons: Labour isn't working

With less than two weeks to go in the UK Labour Party leadership election the atmosphere is febrile. The so-called Corbynistas can barely conceal their jubilation, whilst those on the Party's right sound increasingly plaintive, like a jilted lover imploring their partner to return. This morning I read the latest overture to Labour supporters from former Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose language is armageddon-like.

The polls suggest the so-called 'looney left' candidate Jeremy Corbyn will comfortably be elected leader of the Party, which suffered two crushing defeats in the last two UK General Elections (2010 and 2015) after 13 years in power under Blair and latterly his arch-rival, Gordon Brown. Labour has been annihilated in its traditional power base in Scotland by the Scottish Nationalists, who brazenly stole its clothes in a supposedly all-new, social media-savvy, seductive brand of Anglophobic Scottish socialism.

Over many years Blairism has proven divisive - it has polarised the Party to such an extent that many commentators are predicting it will split if Corbyn is elected.  Arguably it should split anyway, irrespective of who becomes leader.

On Friday night the BBC's Newsnight programme carried an extended analysis of two focus groups of former Labour voters which the BBC carried out last week with pollsters MORI.   Most of them voted for Tony Blair in the past, now see either Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper as the best choice, and think Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable.

Afterwards in the studio Lord Danny Finkelstein, Conservative peer and former Executive Editor of the Times newspaper, now one of its political columnists, correctly pinpointed the fundamental problem facing the Labour Party. Stripping out Conservative mischief makers who've mirthfully signed up to vote in the Labour leadership election (whether or not the Labour Party manages to weed them all out they won't determine its outcome) the blunt reality is that a very large consitutuency of Labour activists will vote for Jeremy Corbyn, irrespective of the electoral consequences.  They do not want power at any price, especially when it involves the sacrifice of principle, which, they believe, is the Blairite formula. They will never forgive Blair and his acolytes for taking Britain into an illegal war in Iraq as America's poodle, and they're determined to punish the right wing of the Party for that and for what they see as its many other egregious transgressions ('crimes' would not be too strong a word in their vocabulary).  To them Tony Blair betrayed core Labour values, and they hate the fact he held power for 10 years before handing over to Gordon Brown.  It wasn't New Labour; it was Not Labour!

This is a civil war, and it has been rumbling on since the then Labour leader Neil (now Lord) Kinnock expelled extreme left wing Militant Tendency members from the Party 25 years ago and in 1995 Blair neutered Clause IV, the Party's 1918 founding commitment to quasi-Marxist public ownership of the means of production.  The current leadership contest has unleashed the blood-letting and score-settling that has brewed for years - believe me, it's only going to get uglier.

The deep irony is that it could so easily have been the Conservative Party in this terrible predicament. It remains in similar danger of being rent in two over the incendiary topics of Europe and immigration. Had the 'Yes' campaign won the Scottish independence referendum, or the Conservatives' terror campaign about a Labour/Scottish Nationalist coalition (which was never going to happen in reality) not so spectacularly hoodwinked English voters in May, then the Night of the Long Knives we're now seeing in the Labour Party would have been happening instead to the Conservatives.  Sliding doors.....

The two main UK political parties are prime examples of how not to run a sustainable organisation. They are currently being outflanked by smaller, nimble, more coherent and far more adaptable competitors - the SNP, UKIP and, I'll wager, the rejuventated LibDems in the centre ground, who are content to fly beneath the radar screen for a few years and regroup at local level.

So how does the behaviour of Top 1% organisations and their leaders differ?

1. They focus outwards, not introspectively.  They put the needs of those they serve above all else, especially self-interest.  They seek to retain the moral high ground and inspire people. The purpose of a great organisation is NOT to perpetuate itself come what may, but to serve others. This is the mistake the Labour Party is now paying dearly for.  If it is to revive its fortunes it must start putting the country's interests first, not its own.  Perversely that's why Jeremy Corbyn appeals to so many core Labour activists - to them he's a welcome breath of fresh air.
2. They are humble and show appropriate contrition.  Tony Blair may have been credible to the electorate at large, but he remains one of the most transparently narcissistic political leaders in recent UK history. Ironically the other was Gordon Brown, and their combined personal impact on the Labour Party's electoral prospects for the foreseeable future has been devastating.  In Blair there was always a whiff, sometimes a stench, of naked self-interest from the outset.  He lacks authenticity, and as I've said elsewhere people have highly tuned cr*p (bs) detectors. I had indirect personal exposure to New Labour's seamier side when he was leader and believe me, their ends justified dubious means, putting it mildly.  By contrast leaders who build enduring success and leave positive legacies show humility and contrition, two words that don't exist in most politicians lexicons! 
3. They listen carefully and ask questions.  They avoid the unwarranted dogmatic certainty and evasive responses to questions of so many politicians who feel forced to toe the party line to advance their personal careers.
4. They instinctively understand neuroscience and they apply it.  Since the primitive brain (brainstem) is dominant in all of us it drives human behaviour.  Wise leaders and organisations understand they cannot appeal to people's rational brains if they are not also tapping straight in to their fears and insecurities.  They do this not by cynical manipulation, which is all too common elsewhere, but by what I call 'healthy parenting'; in other words taking people's concerns seriously and helping them to develop to their full potential and to strive for higher goals.  For more insights on the critical importance of neuroscience in organisational success see How the brain works and why you should know and Why selflessness is good business.
5. They accept that adult existence is about accepting and managing challenging paradoxes. There are no simplistic answers to the overwhelmingly difficult problems the world faces, only timeless principles with which to confront them. You have to find a way to explain that to people, and in order to do that you have to take them seriously and act on their concerns - see (4) above.
6. They confront brutal realities and tackle them, head on.  They exhibit moral courage and never bury their heads in the sand.  See The truth may hurt, but seeking it sets you free.  

Neuroscience shows us that there's an unavoidable heirarchy of forces driving human behaviour.  Top of the pile is primordial, involuntary, hard-wired instinct.  This is an inescapable fact!  No 2 is emotion, and in distant 3rd place are ideas and logic.  Clever salesmen like Tony Blair may win the battles of ideas at different times, but they cannot win the wars of instinct and emotion. Wise leaders carry people with them, head, heart and soul, for the long haul.

I believe there's a need for a fundamental re-alignment in politics, in which healthy, open debate between people who disagree respectfully but share a common goal replaces tribalism, spin, over-simplification, groupthink, fear-mongering, and the irresponsible demonisation of political opponents which serves only to destroy the credibility of the whole system, your own faction included.  The level of debate on most critical issues is puerile. For that reason I welcome Jeremy Corbyn's meteoric rise to prominence, and I hope he will prove yet another key trigger for an essential, long overdue, but deeply painful, restructuring of the British political system.

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Thanks for reading this.  If you liked it please click on Like and share it.  Constructive comments are welcome, and if you have questions on the subject matter you can connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a message, or else you’ll find my contact details on my LinkedIn profile uk.linkedin.com/in/markashtonresolve.

If you need help to get active doing business on social media, or to do more by improving your skills, I strongly recommend Steve Phillip at www.linked2success.co.uk and his online training packages at www.linked2training.co.uk.

If you need help finding and developing the true leaders throughout your business, solving business problems, or growing your business sustainably, take a look at www.resolvegetsresults.com and contact us for an informal, no-obligation conversation.  We give hands-on leadership, management, non-executive, coaching, advisory, and fundraising support to many different types of business – small or large, start-up, turnaround or mature.  Our passion is applying the tried and tested, contrarian principles of the Top 1%, most enduringly profitable companies to help build and sustain great businesses. Where appropriate we seek to share risk and reward with clients.

You’ll find more blogs on leadership and management topics on my LinkedIn profile.

How badly do you want to be the best?

Wayside sign at ultramarathon event

"There are leaders and there are those who lead.
Leaders hold a position of power or influence.
Those who lead inspire us.

Whether individuals or organisations, we follow those who lead not because we have to, but because we want to.
We follow those who lead not for them, but for ourselves."

Simon Sinek - Start With Why - How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action (Portfolio Penguin, 2009)

It's been two months since my last blog.  For someone as garrulous as me that's a lifetime!  This week one of my close business contacts, a Chief Financial Officer no less (they're generally not given to philosophising!), told me he'd read every one of my blogs and had noticed the deafening silence from me in the last few weeks,  I told him I'd been busy, extremely busy - he said he'd guessed as much,

I'd already been thinking of getting back to it, inspite of the pressures and distractions,  Then one of my business partners told me this week it was time we (that is I!) defined precisely what the Top 1% do differently, since the mission of our newly reborn company, Resolve Gets Results (RGR), is to apply the tried and tested, winning principles of the Top 1% to help create outstanding start-ups, turnarounds or other companies with great management teams and long-term growth potential.

The business partner in question, who shares my business values both intellectually and viscerally, went on to say it was no good offering philosophy; our definitions of Top 1% practice had to be actionable.  This reflects his strong predisposition to task ('hard'), rather than process ('soft'/behavioural) priorities - I don't refer to him affectionately as our company's SOB for nothing!! :-)

The problem though, in a nutshell, is this - if you don't have the right business philosophy then you will never get anywhere near Top 1%, not even close.  For many business people that's not a problem - as Jim Collins pointed out in 'Good to Great' the vast majority are content to be just 'good' (for 'good' read 'mediocre', or worse).  When we say the vast majority what we mean in fact are the narcissistic, selfish minority (aka the 'takers' - see Adam Grant's 'Give and Take') who don't give a tinker's cuss what their company stands for or how it performs, particularly long-term, as long as they make a killing from it and it gives them a leg up to the next self-aggrandising opportunity.  You see unfortunately a disproportionate number of the minority of society who are takers are of course to be found in leadership positions, which is not to say they know how to lead.

Collins describes presenting the 'Good to Great' findings to a conference of CEOs.  When he had finished explaining the No 1 characteristic of the greatest financial performers - what he and his team had come to call 'Level 5 Leadership' - there was an awkward silence as the majority present in the conference hall silently sought to dismiss his discomfiting findings because the consequences were so horribly unpalatable and personally threatening.

Then one CEO, a relatively young woman, had the courage to speak up.  She said "I've listened carefully to what you've said, and I know that I, for one, am not Level 5.  Are you saying that my company cannot become great unless I become Level 5?"

Collins replied as follows.  "Let's go back to the data.  Of 1,435 companies listed on the NASDAQ exchange between 1965 and 1995 we found only 11 that met our strict financial criteria. These companies had cumulative stock (share) returns at or below the market for at least 15 years, followed by cumulative stock returns at or above 3 times the market for a period of at least 15 years.  In every one of these companies we found Level 5 Leadership in place during the transition period from good to great, and in the companies we compared them with in the same sectors we did not find Level 5 Leadership in place."

The young female CEO's reply hit the nail on the head: "So can I become Level 5?"

In 'Start with Why' Simon Sinek gives an elegantly simple definition of what distinguishes great leaders and companies from those who aren't.  Great leaders and companies inspire whereas the rest manipulate people - customers, employees, regulators, tax authorities, even shareholders - for their own ends.

Sinek describes in detail how great leaders and companies infuse people with a passionate desire to work with or for them, not because of money or status, but because of the many and varied intrinsic, human rewards.  This is not to say that money and status are irrelevant, but that they are not the main consideration.  Let me say that again - if you want to build a great company then money and status are NOT the main consideration.  Sorry, that's not rank insanity; it's empirical fact.  Why?  It's simple - great leaders and their companies win, bigger and more often, because they get dramatically more out of customers, employees and business partners than merely good or mediocre companies do.

Why should this be such a surprise?  Think about sport, music, education, or any other walk of life. Inspiration ALWAYS trumps manipulation.  It's less risky, it's more effective - it's plain common sense.

What it all boils down to at the end of the day is this - how great do you want to be, and are you willing to pay the excoriating, and sometimes excruciating, price to get there?  Most people aren't, especially if they are already comfortable or affluent.  They want to make (even) more money and have (even) more power and influence in the easiest way possible.

Over the next few days I'll be working to specify the actionable steps to apply the tried and tested, winning principles of the Top 1%, to meet my business partner's challenge.  I welcome discussion about it with anyone who wants to share their thoughts.  But one thing is clear - if you don't start with an earnest resolve to improve yourself above all else, and to inspire others to commit themselves passionately to a purpose beyond profit by giving them quiet, humble, selfless, determined and visionary leadership, you're wasting your time and energy.

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I’m grateful you’ve taken the time to read this post. If you find it helpful please share it. 

Recent blogs you may find helpful include:

Leadership - can you master it?

High business growth - gold at the end of the rainbow?

10 reasons to stick your neck out!

Do you ever think you've got it tough?

Be wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove

How the brain works and why you should know

Was Tesco's Terry Leahy really such a great leader?

Stop your company's demons coming back to haunt you

Do organisations thrive without the 'old timers'?

The business I lead, Resolve Gets Results (RGR), provides hands-on leadership, management, problem solving, customer/market development, sales and fundraising capabilities to companies with long-term growth potential.  I'm also actively involved in Linked2Success (L2S), a business which helps clients to use social media intelligently to build professional relationships and grow.  RGR and L2S work together as a single team to leverage the benefits of our respective skill sets, giving tremendous business value to far-sighted clients.

I work with a superb small team of Board-level professionals, each a leader in their field with over 30 years’ business experience. We are based in the UK but have international business backgrounds, in my case including 5 years in the United States, where I ran a high growth machinery sales and service business.

You can find my contact details under the ‘Contact info’ tab near the top of my LinkedIn profile.

Mark Ashton

  

Avoiding career or leadership catastrophes: Part 4 (Liberal Democrats)

This is the 4th in a 6 part blog series on the lessons we can all learn from the varying fortunes of the recognised Parties in last Thursday's UK General Election.  Part 1 explained the neuroscientific reasons why emotions and primeval instincts will always obliterate rational argument.  Part 2 analysed the Conservative Party's success and Part 3 the Labour Party's spectacular failure. 

The vast majority of voters who elected 58 Lib Dem MPs and put them a close 2nd in many other seats in 2010 jilted them for two reasons:

• The Lib Dems embarked on a 5 year 'affair' with the Conservatives, otherwise known as coalition government. Many commentators have observed since the Party's debacle on Thursday that it was the right thing to do for the country.  Contrary to voters’ instincts it was selfless, not lustful power-grabbing.  Frankly the Lib Dems had no logical choice. It’s now well documented for instance that Labour offered no concrete, credible, alternative coalition path.  However, the Lib Dems have paid a savage price.  In 2010 many left-leaning voters saw them as far more credible than Labour but were aghast after the election when they parleyed with the Conservatives.  They have not been forgiven,

• Similarly of course the Lib Dems have been savaged for the last 3 years for breaking their 2010 manifesto pledge not to increase university tuition fees.  Again I suspect they had no choice, in which case it was a catastrophic error to have promised it in the first place.  But that's 20:20 hindsight - they could not have foreseen when they made their manifesto commitment that they'd end up in government with the Conservatives.  NO-ONE foresaw that!!  

There was an overwhelming, indeed at times hysterical, outpouring of bile and hatred towards the Lib Dems, and their leader Nick Clegg, for one simple reason.  To adapt a well-known proverb:

Hell hath no fury like an electorate (apparently) betrayed!!!

Like many others listening on BBC Radio Five Live I was moved by Nick Clegg's dignified, statesmanlike, yet distraught resignation speech on Friday morning.  Kicking him has become a national sport for the lobotomised for the last 3 years,  I'm not suggesting he shouldn't be criticised but much of it has gone way beyond that meted out to most politicians, which is bad enough.

I'm sure there were many mindless, insensitive idiots listening who felt a puerile sense of glee over his resignation.  One of them, a crude SNP barbarian, sorry, spokesman, expressed wildly disparaging remarks.  This particular idiot had neither the wit, grace, nor compassion to respect a good man's downfall, irrespective of political differences. He exemplified the reasons for the disgust with which millions of English voters, includng Anglo-Scots, view the SNP.

If that’s the shape of things to come from North of the Border, along with the rabid, spitting rodents who gate-crashed one of Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy’s rallies, then the shiny veneer of pristine respectability presented by Nicola Sturgeon and her thousands of enthusiastic and ‘apolitical’ new recruits is, at best, a naive sham.  Whilst I'm not for a moment equating the two, I suspect I'm not alone in seeing certain disquieting parallels between this tsunami of hubristic Scottish national socialism, in which everyone's welcome in Alex and Nicola's brave(heart) new tartan utopia unless they, erm, disagree, in which case intimidation and even death threats are 'appropriate' (as Glasgow lingerie entrepreneur Michelle Mone will attest) and, well......National Socialism, if you see what I mean. 

Commenting on Nick Clegg’s resignation speech immediately afterwards the voice of John Pienaar, BBC Radio Five Live's veteran Chief Political Correspondent, almost cracked – for an instant I thought he was going to break down.  He conveyed a palpable sense of outrage and injustice, all the more so because he contained himself completely, and spoke eloquently.

Pienaar opined that history would judge Clegg's selfless work as Deputy Prime Minister far more kindly than the electorate, driven by a primeval bloodlust (my analogy, not his), had done.  Labour and Conservative MPs paid tribute to Clegg, not least David Cameron, who I long sensed had developed respect for him working alongside him in government.  Clegg’s mentor, Paddy Ashdown, described him as the ‘decentist’ (sic) man in British politics.

Sadly the Lib Dems failed to understand that politics is fundamentally driven by raw, untrammelled instinct and emotion, not sensible, moderate, progressive ideas and values which they attempted to argue for.  Punishment by voters for their perceived ‘crimes’ was always likely to be vicious – the political equivalent of a lynching. 

In retrospect Nick Clegg should have resigned on principle ('fallen on his sword') when he realised he would have to break his tuition fee pledge.  That would have paid the necessary price so his Party could recover reasonably under a new leader by the time of this election.  I don’t particularly blame him for failing to do so – he felt he could do more good by staying on in government, and history may well judge that he did.  But the personal and party political cost has been horrific.  I hope he will bounce back in some way – he’s one of dozens of highly competent politicians of all persuasions who, over the years, have not survived judgement day in the amphitheatre facing carnivorous voters.

When I think of the Lib Dems my first reaction is that they are too decent, too nice, and simply not ruthless and strong enough to survive the political jungle.  This election came perilously close to finishing them off altogether.

A good analogy for where the Lib Dems are, and where they need to be, is the book 'Give and Take' (Adam Grant, 2013).  Grant's research found that 'Givers' are the bottom 25% in all walks of life, essentially because they are too weak and/or too nice.  This is the risk that the Lib Dems run constantly, like antelopes trying to stay ahead of lions.  However, Grant found that the top 25% happiest, highest performers were smart givers, NOT takers or matchers (matchers are people who negotiate quid pro quos).

The Lib Dems have now had valuable experience of Government, and of the brutal electoral consequences that can follow it.  They need to become far tougher and more streetwise, be willing to identify weaknesses in their opponents and go for the jugular.

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I’m grateful you’ve taken the time to read this post. If you find it helpful please share it. And make a difference - be a smart giver and do something positive for others this week. Pay it forward.

Recent blogs you may find helpful include:
Leadership - can you master it?
High business growth - gold at the end of the rainbow?
10 reasons to stick your neck out!
Do you ever think you've got it tough?
Be wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove
How the brain works and why you should know
Was Tesco's Terry Leahy really such a great leader?
Stop your company's demons coming back to haunt you
Do organisations thrive without the 'old timers'?

The business I lead, Resolve Gets Results (RGR), provides hands-on leadership, management, problem solving, customer/market development, sales and fundraising capabilities to companies with long-term growth potential.  I'm also actively involved in Linked2Success (L2S), a business which helps clients to use social media intelligently to build professional relationships and grow.  RGR and L2S work together as a single team to leverage the benefits of our respective skill sets, giving tremendous business value to far-sighted clients..

I work with a superb small team of Board-level professionals, each a leader in their field with over 30 years’ business experience. We are based in the UK but have international business backgrounds, in my case including 5 years in the United States, where I ran a high growth machinery sales and service business.

You can find my contact details under the ‘Contact info’ tab near the top of my LinkedIn profile.

Mark Ashton

Avoiding career or leadership catastophes: Part 3 (Labour)

By contrast with the Conservatives (see Part 2) Labour egregiously failed to learn the lessons of political history, above all its own.  

In Why selflessness is good business I likened ill-advised attempts at neo-cortex to neo-cortex communication, without accepting the brutal realities of the recipients' brainstems and emotions, to trying to jump the Grand Canyon - depressingly futile, and suicidal to boot.  It's like going ‘over the top’ in First World War trench warfare to face machine gun annihilation, or Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg.  Yet that's exactly what Labour did.  How?

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On BBC Radio 4 on Friday former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) Ken Clarke hit the nail on the head, as he usually does.  He recalled that in 1997 the Conservatives were intellectually and morally bankrupt, engaged in bitter internecine warfare.  So the electorate threw them out and refused to have them back until they had repented, like the wife who changes the locks to keep out her drunk, abusive husband.  

A politician's relationship with the electorate is disconcertingly personal.  It’s like being married to 60 million people and, even worse, having to deal with their mother too!!!

Ken Clarke went on to say everyone knows that Labour mismanaged the economy when it was last in power (1997 - 2010), yet it has never accepted this and 'worn sackcloth and ashes' (my phrase, not his) in front of the electorate.  The Labour Party representative at the interview table immediately objected to his comments.  She indignantly denied that Labour had mismanaged the economy and said the problem was that they had not sufficiently trumpeted their achievements whilst in Government.  Clarke simply replied "There you are - see what I mean?!"

Labour remained in steadfast denial, and potentially may do so for many years to come if it's not ruthless in coming to terms with brutal realities.  On this morning's Andrew Marr show on BBC1 TV Lord Peter Mandelson, Labour party grandee and architect of Tony Blair's New Labour, was blunt.  He said: "When Ed Milliband was elected Leader of the Labour Party we were all told to shake our fists and say we were for the poor, and we hated the rich.  This is not an intelligent strategy to win over voters".

Labour has often struggled throughout its history to understand the brainstems and emotions of the large body of floating voters it needs to win over.  These voters simply aren't going to roll over and surrender to facile bravado.  They don't trust Labour on the economy, period.  Ed Milliband's coterie of metropolitan champagne socialists indulged their followers in a naive grand political experiment.  Meantime as the hefty majority party in Scotland they fell asleep on the bridge whilst the Caledonian liner steamed headlong into the Nationalist iceberg.  They have only themselves to blame that the SNP took them to the cleaners on Thursday. 

Ed Milliband is a decent man, dedicated to public service, but he and his acolytes behaved as wet-behind-the-ears demagogues.  They never fathomed or accepted that whilst the UK economy has shed thousands of public sector jobs it has created 4 to 5 times that number of private sector jobs, which are NOT all zero hours or minimum wage contracts.  Neither did they come to terms with the fact that the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition had turned the UK into the fastest growing economy in the G7.

After decades of self-bamboozling the UK, in my humble opinion and David Cameron's too the most creative nation on earth, is finally...FINALLY!!! starting to see that the pinnacle of success is not only becoming a doctor, lawyer or civil servant, and that business is not squalid and sleazy. Thank God for that! Welcome, fellow Brits, to the 21st Century world of China, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Scandinavia and the US, plus many other aspirational nations.  You got here just in time - the train is about to leave the station!

Oh, and by the way, where do the taxes come from to pay for our cherished National Health Service, for teachers, social workers, refuse cleaners, etc.  Money doesn't grow on trees, and the world of business is NOT, contrary to popular socialist worker myth infested solely with rapacious bankers and other ne'er do wells!!!

Labour can only start to address these problems effectively once it has started with a prolonged, sincere mea culpa to the electorate, even if it feels this is unjust, and put its economic house fully in order.  All further intellectual policy wonking and vacuous demonising of anyone not in the Labour family should be banned.  And frankly I do wonder whether the two wings of the Party can, and should, be reconciled long-term.  

If I was a strategic advisor to the new Labour leader I might well be advocating much more radical action, along the lines I suggested in Are political leaders an oxymoron?!  To be blunt, if political parties were businesses they would be subject to mergers and acquisitions far more often.  I am no raging free marketeer, but the discipline of the market acts as an important enforcer of the Laws of Evolution and stops organisational dinosaurs living on past their sell-by date, unlike politics.

Of course Labour’s other manifest, depressingly (for them) predictable, problem was electing the wrong Milliband.  Ed was never, ever credible as Prime Minister in waiting – Labour canvassers have confirmed they were told this (the bleeding obvious) ad nauseam on the doorsteps.  His brother David was, but was not elected because his candidacy was too threatening (that brainstem thing again) to the left wing of the Labour Party.

So, many salutory lessons to be learnt from the gun the Labour Party under Ed Milliband pointed at its own foot with entirely predictable consequences.

________________________________________________________________

I’m grateful you’ve taken the time to read this post. If you find it helpful please share it. And make a difference - be a smart giver and do something positive for others this week. Pay it forward.

Recent blogs you may find helpful include:

Leadership - can you master it?

High business growth - gold at the end of the rainbow?

10 reasons to stick your neck out!

Do you ever think you've got it tough?

Be wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove

How the brain works and why you should know

Was Tesco's Terry Leahy really such a great leader?

Stop your company's demons coming back to haunt you

Do organisations thrive without the 'old timers'?

If this blog is particularly relevant to you, your organisation, or to someone else you know, I may be able to help or advise. I strive to be a smart giver – Adam Grant’s excellent book “Give and Take” (2013) explains why smart givers are the highest 25% of achievers in all walks of life. They go out of their way to help others, intelligently, without allowing themselves to be widely exploited. In this way they inspire higher performance and create sustained new value through collaborative exchange.

The business I lead, Resolve Gets Results (RGR), provides hands-on leadership, management, problem solving, customer/market development, sales and fundraising capabilities to companies with long-term growth potential.  I'm also actively involved in Linked2Success (L2S), a business which helps clients to use social media intelligently to build professional relationships and grow.  RGR and L2S work together as a single team to leverage the benefits of our respective skill sets, giving tremendous business value to far-sighted clients..

I work with a superb small team of Board-level professionals, each a leader in their field with over 30 years’ business experience. We are based in the UK but have international business backgrounds, in my case including 5 years in the United States, where I ran a high growth machinery sales and service business.

You can find my contact details under the ‘Contact info’ tab near the top of my LinkedIn profile.

Mark Ashton