One of the words that is much used in business is accountability. And its correlate, a “blame-culture”, is much discussed, and much derided. We talk about accountability and blame here at NixonMcInnes; and we talk about them with our clients more and more, as we help them change the way they relate to their customers.
I guess we all routinely blame our colleagues, our customers, our competitors. We routinely blame the economy, the government and even the weather.
I really don’t suppose the weather does it on purpose. I know, when I think about it for a moment, that the weather really hasn’t got it in for me.
So why would I blame it? Or the government, or the economy, or our customers, or our competitors? Why do I think, if something doesn’t work out the way I want it to, that it is my colleague’s fault? It’s always their fault. And rarely anything I did.
Two concepts really help me around blame.
The first is the concept of contribution. If I accept that in any situation, I contributed something to it, and so did others, I start to move away from an attitude of blaming towards something more useful.
Blaming is often associated, for me at least, with unhelpful emotions – like anger. By accepting my contribution to a situation, not only do I start to accept those emotions, but I also start to move to a position where I can regain some influence over the situation.
When I am in a position of blame it is all so much easier. I don’t have to do anything, or change anything, because clearly it’s someone else’s fault. Nothing to do with me.
Which leads to the second concept: influence. Steven Covey put it best many years ago when he described our circle of concern, and our circle of influence.
The first contains those things we hold a position of blame about: what the government does, what the economy does, what the weather does, and maybe even what our competitors, customers, and colleagues do. These are things that upset us, but we don’t really have any control or influence over.
The second circle – influence – contains the list of things we can control, that we do have influence over. Blaming my colleague for something they did puts their action in my circle of concern. Thinking about what I did that triggered (or contributed) to the situation puts their action in my circle of influence.
As soon as I put something into my circle of influence, or as Covey suggests, take action to grow my circle of influence, I take back the power I need to start to change my world. I assume a position of self-responsibility. I start to work out what I can do about it.
So, that’s blame. What about accountability? Does accepting that I contribute to and have an influence on everything, yes everything, that happens to me mean that accountability goes out the window? How do I hold colleagues to account if I don’t blame them?
I think of accountability as a process, not an event, not a characteristic.
First, it involves commitment. Often commitments are made so rashly and loosely, that you really wouldn’t want to be held accountable for them.
I say “I’ll fix such-and-such by Wednesday”, knowing full-well, if I think for a second, that I’ve got a hundred and one more important things to do before then. Knowing that, from experience, it’ll take much longer than I said.
Knowing, again from experience, that things rarely work out the way I plan them – nearly always something unexpected happens just at the very worst moment. It’s true for me – it’s true for you.
So the first stage in accountability is making a proper commitment – something that I am happy to be held account for. I can make this easier for myself by challenging myself before I commit; or someone else can help me get there by challenging my rash or loose commitments.
The second stage is challenging. This is where accountability so often goes wrong. Because we so easily step into blaming.
Cue “contribution” and “influence”. If we can avoid blame, then accountability is simply the process of observing accurately what happened. You said you’d do such and such, and then you didn’t. What happened? Who did what? What didn’t we do? What else contributed? And crucially what can we learn?
This is hard because blame and the emotion that goes with it is just so damn attractive. It’s so much easier to blame. And the emotion feels so good.
So much easier to blame Sepp Blatter and FIFA for failing to introduce goal-line technology. Than work on our own game.
Pete wrote this on 28.06.10 – 3 comments
It's filed in the Accountability, Behaviour, Blame, Business, Employee engagement box
Creating scenarios based on limited, but specific information. Generating ideas or solutions quickly. Listening closely to other people. Accepting what you’re given. Making sure you don’t deny people their voice or views. These are all aspects of improvised comedy, something that I’ve recently found out that I have a real and genuine passion for.
How did this come about? A little under a year ago I decided to enrol on the The Maydays beginners improvised comedy course ‘just to give it a try for a giggle’. It’s not stand up – it’s improvising and creating scenes on the spot, with a limited input from the audience (if any). I’ve got so sucked into this wonderful art that I am now half way through my fourth course, six live shows down and planning on starting a 10 week improvised singing course in April. It’s provided me with an amazing forum to unleash my creative side and has also provided me with a set of invaluable skills that are not only good on stage, but also in business.
Drawing on my own experiences, there’s four things I’d like to share with you about how my improvised comedy transfers to the workplace in my life.
Confidence.
My confidence has increased massively. I can think of a key example of how this shows. Some time back I was called at short notice to attend what was meant to be an informal meeting with two client contacts in a government department. Upon arrival, I was alerted that the format had changed, and we had 10 people present, from different areas of the government and department of health and that I was expected to lead the meeting from the perspective of the site build. Two years ago, I would have struggled and had a fair bout of nerves trying to present ‘on demand’ to this group of people, however I felt confident, took a deep breath and the meeting was a great success with a wonderfull project being spawned afterwards. I put this down to the many situations posed to me in improv where I have had to ‘jump in the deep end’ either on stage or with people I do not know and had to be confident in my surroundings to be able to perform to the best of my ability.
Creativity.
Improv has inspired and rejuvenated the creative aspect of my mind and has it bubbling like it hasn’t for a long time. I’m much more confident in putting forward ideas for pitch materials, attending brainstorms and getting actively involved. I find I’m thinking differently about how I might present and run workshop style sessions. It’s generally made me think more creatively and made me want to get involved in the more creative activities that happen around me in and around work.
Listening & Trust.
Improv forces you to listen very carefully and trust what you are given. You’re given a set of specific words, themes, locations or circumstances (much like a problem a client may have) and you are forced to respond in a way that acknowledges and builds on the inputs you’ve been given, not reject them. If someone needs a sock, there’s no point giving them a shoe. I know in myself and in my day to day work that I am consciously trying to listen to people more, respond more appropriately, and trust what I’m told, as opposed to responding in an ad hoc or generic manner.
Teamwork and interpersonal skills.
Improv definitely grows your interpersonal skills and builds your ability to function as part of a team. In improv, we refer to this as the ‘group mind’ – which is the idea that if you are closely aligned with the people around you, you will inherently and sub-consciously strive to achieve the same goal. I’m sure I don’t need to explain how massively beneficial this is in the day to day workings in a busy agency!
So there it is – my four key takings from Impovised Comedy and how it can benefit you in your working life (and your personal life?). If you think this is cool, and want to learn more about the awesomeness that is improv, there’s a few places online I reccomend:
- Check out Peter Day’s ‘‘What can business leaders learn from rock musicians and improvisational comedians?’ Radio 4 show. There’s some fascinating insights in there and I highly recommend that people have a listen. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00p944k
- Contact The Maydays – they run business workshops as well as general improvised comedy courses
- Ping me a question, via email or twitter or come to one of my improv gigs (also listed on my twitter account)
I’d be keen to hear if anyone out there has any experience of improv, or has an ‘extra curricular’ passion that whilst not immediately obvious, benefits the work they do on a day to day basis?
I look forward to hearing from you!
Matt
Matt wrote this on 22.02.10 – 9 comments
It's filed in the Blogging, Brighton, Business, Funny, Interesting, NixonMcInnes box
This week I spoke at a conference about social media for the construction industry.
It was one of those gigs where you are given a topic to cover and you have to adhere to that brief.
My presentation was about Facebook and my remit was to examine the ways that Facebook could be used in the construction industry to drive brand recognition and revenue.
Basically, I had to talk about how the construction industry could use Facebook for 40 minutes.
My first thought was “Yikes! What am I going to say here?” (I know next to nothing about the construction industry).
As I started to research the topic and look for examples of how the construction industry is already using Facebook, my heart sank even lower; case studies of Facebook groups and pages in this industry are few and far between.
So, I took a step back and began to think about why the construction industry might want to consider Facebook as a marketing channel.
Quite frankly, the stats speak for themselves. Facebook has 19M active users in the UK and 44% of these are over 30 years of age.
That’s a massive amount of people and the demographic is hugely inclusive.
Even for a niche industry the potential audience is still bigger than you might find any other single network.
That convinced me that Facebook was certainly worth considering as a marketing channel for the construction industry but I still wasn’t convinced about Facebook’s value as a B2B comms. channel.
Again, I went back to basics and started to think about what Facebook offered.
The bottom line is that it lets businesses simply and easily create a presence which they can use to engage with an audience and create a dialogue with them (for free).
Also, Facebook forces people to be authentic – unlike other social spaces, when you create a profile in Facebook you use your real name. And when you create a business presence in Facebook, you use your personal profile to do this.
This actively supports B2B communication, which is about one-to-one relationships– Facebook offers businesses the opportunity to create connections with real people AS real people.
So far so good, but the next question was how could the construction industry engage with their audiences?
Like I said, I’m no expert on the construction industry (they build stuff, right?) but once I started to think about the kinds of reasons why someone might want to connect with a business, I realised that these apply to all industries.
Bingo, I had my presentation – and my core message.
Which is (in less than 140 characters, as is the current twend):
Facebook has lots of users and offers tools to help you reach them. Work out who you want to reach and what they want. Give it to them.
My summary slide here shows the variety of ways in which you can engage and give value to people on Facebook but why not check out my full presentation to see how you can put this in to practice?
At the end of my presentation (which, I am relieved to say, was well received), some of the companies I spoke to still had concerns about using Facebook in this way – it just isn’t seen as a viable tool for B2B marketing.
That’s OK. It’s not my job to sell Facebook to you.
What is important is that you are aware of its potential for business and its place in your social media toolkit so you can make an informed decision. And I really believe that this applies whatever business you are in!
Danielle Sheerin wrote this on 05.02.10 – 2 comments
It's filed in the Business, Events & conferences, Marketing, Social media, Social networks box
Incredible things are happening in the world, doncha think?
I was inspired hearing about the work that Practical Action do when we were there last week.
I was blown away to read about Dubai’s jinks.
I am excited about the machinations of big media and that simultaneous rebirth and endgame.
The tectonics of politics continue to grind away.
The world feels like it’s spinning faster and faster to me.
What future are we spinning towards? One future to familiarise ourselves with and think about is a harder, more challenging world.
Whilst the media coaxes us with messages of a recovery, there is a different dashboard to at least be aware of…
Ingredients for a different dashboard, to ’see’ a different future
- Take Umair Haque’s truer-than-ever macropalypse. (Short version: the economics and business practices of yesterday are totally broken and everything must change).
- Add John Robb’s mindblowing Global Guerillas journal and text book. (Short version: through precisely exploiting modern society and its networks and technology a ‘terrorist’ can generate an ROI inconcievable in yesterday’s world)
- Sprinkle some #collapsonomics and resilient futures, with hexayurts and all. (Short version: while some people speculate about a more volatile future, these guys are actually getting down to the nitty gritty of ‘what to do about a crazy future’.)
- And finish with a garnish of grassroots activism from Dan McQuillan’s link sharing on Twitter. (Short version: lots of different sorts of people around the world are being treated unfairly, and technology innovation and ‘groking’ can help them get their voice heard and their changes made, sometimes…)
In my view our job as citizens and co-workers and as a company and family members and whatever context is to create better futures for ourselves and the world. If you agree, and that’s something you are interested in, in doing a good job, then you should prepare yourselve for a variety of futures, including this harder one too.
Personally, I am optimistic. But whatever the future, it definitely isn’t going to be easy.
Will McInnes wrote this on 01.12.09 – 3 comments
It's filed in the Business, Democracy, Social networks, future box
The social media market is heating up quickly. Here’s the 4 indicators I see:
1. Recruiters abound
One of our team has had four recruitment callers in two weeks. One directly from a substantial traditional agency with a name your nan would recognise even though you nan doesn’t know agency land, two from ‘headhunters’ and I can’t remember where the other was from – a start-up agency abroad perhaps. Another of our team (and board) had a call last week. Some of our friends in the industry are finding that their needs for good people in this area exceed the available supply they can find.
As a side note, on this front I’m not personally fussed about our team getting calls. It’s distracting for them, but also motivating (I imagine). I can never understand it when my clever and hardworking agency MD/founder peers bust a gut when someone from their team gets poached. I’m hardly above getting emotional about business (quite the opposite), but I always reckon that all an employer/manager can do is look after their people. What they do is up to them :)
So the recruitment space is heating up.
2. Mergers & Acquisitions are poised
The whole agency space is warming up. The guys doing social media agencies to sell out to the established agency ecosystem will probably succeed – I know personally and directly that big agencies and groups are actively opening conversations with the new boutique firms. The professional intermediaries like Results and Pembridge seem to be fairly sanguine and patient about the agency M&A market as a whole at the moment but are starting to build their networks and engagement with the new social media thing. I guess for those on the fence at corporate finance and deal-making advisory firms the Headshift deal will have catalysed that.
3. MeasurementCamp attendees have evolved
A different sort of input: a human one! :) Yay for humans.
When I started MeasurementCamp with the help of the nascent social media community about 18 months ago it was the pioneers with a lower case ‘P’ – the lovely smart and down to earth writers/talkers/thinkers that are interested by the new and who naturally were investing their time investigating new interesting stuff. Today we have more of a blend which still includes the super-thinker hardcore people but the archetypal (though thankfully we still have lots of diversity) MeasurementCamper is younger, much more likely to be part of an agency, and is working on live social media projects. The market exists. And thank the lawds, there’s some REAL talent there. Even just last week at MeasurementCamp London there were three or four new very smart young agency people in attendance. I predict inflated salaries and big ‘welcome to traditional agencyland – now socialmediafy the world, by tomorrow please’ jobs for them all.
4. Clients are hiring
This is great news I reckon. Perhaps the best bit of all for all of the real people in the world. At NixonMcInnes we try hard to not build relationships with our clients based on dependency but prefer to help our clients build their own capabilities to do the stuff they need to do. (We will do stuff for them – but over time we prefer that they learn to do it for themselves). And so we have helped in some way BMW, Channel 4 and now one of our other clients (I don’t think I am able to name them just yet) shape a role and/or find a person that can come on board and be part of the internal revolution inside client organisations to embrace and harness the social web. Good good!
So what next?
I try to stay away from predictions but if I’d say it’s pretty obvious what happens next:
- Salaries will go up bubbliciously for the few genuinely capable social media professionals (regardless of their flavour and original background) for a while until supply starts to meet demand
- Some of these people will end up in jobs they aren’t yet ready for – but that’s OK, it’s called ‘learning by doing’!
- M&A will kick off in a big way in 2010, with big agencies buying small social media agencies for the next two or three years
- Eventually everything in the agency ecosystem and in client communications and engagement will be normalised and go back to everyday-abnormal
Enjoy the ride between now and then. We plan to :P
Will McInnes wrote this on 14.09.09 – 4 comments
It's filed in the Business, Industry news, Social media box
I’m a designer. Initially I designed the way interactive products (like CD ROMs, kiosks and later websites) looked. Then I started focusing on how they worked – how they were experienced by the people who used them, and how that reflected on the business or brand providing the product.
Doing this properly required me to really get under the skin of my clients’ businesses – their products, their internal processes, their ethos. As more and more of our clients recognise the need to be more social – in the way they communicate and in the tools they use to do so – it’s become clear that in order to fully respond to the feedback these new communication loops encourage, most businesses need to redesign themselves internally.
This calls into question the general understanding of the remit of social ‘media’. As David Armano wrote in a recent blog post over on HarvardBusiness.org:
“Media” limits our view of the movement, and brings with it the baggage of decades of advertising. Marketers are only too happy to view the social web as a new array of channels to market their goods in some shape or fashion. That’s because it’s a model they’ve used since the beginning.
He (and the majority of the commenters on that post) believes that:
It may be time to approach social business by design. This means moving beyond our current definition of “social media” as a PR tool and thinking of it as something that can evolve the way we work, communicate, interact and collaborate at a core business level.
This is certainly borne out by our experience as we help clients find their way in the social realm. It isn’t simply a matter of starting a Twitter account – for businesses to really engage with their customers they need a sound strategic approach to enable them to embrace the feedback culture that Will outlined recently. This can be a challenging process, one that needs to be recognised and afforded importance from the highest levels of the management team.
In effect organisations need to redesign themselves strategically and functionally to make the most of the new opportunities afforded by the socialisation of customer (and employee) relationships.
Helping our clients successfully make this transition is my new design challenge – and the reason I’m sporting a shiny new job title :)
* thanks to Flickr user brownphoto for the image
Jenni wrote this on 07.08.09 – what do you think?
It's filed in the Business, NixonMcInnes, Strategy box
The Brighton and Hove business awards 2009 are with us and we’re super proud to sponsor the awards website for the sixth year running. We’re working with our lovely friends at Midnight PR, who are taking on the mammoth responsibilities of organising just about everything else (EEEEK)
I love being part of the unique business community in Brighton, the awards give us a chance to celebrate the special stuff that goes on all around us, that we just don’t see every day
Last year we sponsored “The most awesome use of digital media award”. The award went to the guys at Locomatrix for their cool GPS based gaming platform
Their slogan is “Jumpers-for-goalposts for the Wii generation, bringing gaming back outside”
They came up with an innovative gaming system that turns your whole body (using your GPS location) into the gaming device instead of your thumbs or how wildly you wave your limbs like on the Wii – although is not limited just to this! It can incorporate any of these traditional gaming interactions to create a unique gaming experience that takes you out into the real world. In the words of Brüno – Fantastiche!
It’s all going on here in Brighton. I wonder what will be on the table this year – something equally cool I hope!
If you think you’ve got what it takes why not enter your company? Its very easy on our lovely Wordpress site at www.bahbas.org.uk remember the awards entries close on the 30th July though so don’t hang around too long
If you don’t want to enter your company, get your posh pointy shoes out and book a table – we’ll see you there
Patrick Mays wrote this on 14.07.09 – what do you think?
It's filed in the Blogging, Brighton, Business, NixonMcInnes box
We were pleased to relaunch the Good With Money blog for Co-Operative Financial Services on Monday. Coinciding with a refresh of the main corporate site, the blog gives CFS a platform from which it can engage visitors in conversations around it’s ethical stance and the projects that are supported by its unique funding structure.
We initially launched a single issue blog last year, dedicated to showcasing CFS’ commitment to Microfinance. It told the story of Belma, a bank employee returning to her native Bosnia to see the impact CFS funding is having within local communities. As a pilot project this site gave CFS an insight into the advantage of using a fast, flexible platform to share stories in an informal way. Customer response via comments was fairly positive, and as the banking crisis hit, highlighted the benefits of providing an open channel for dialogue with the bank – a real point of difference within the industry.
This first foray into blogging created an internal appetite to showcase more campaigns, like those against Toxic Fuels or financing renewable energy , and also publish regular news content to create and sustain a dialogue with the various communities of interest. Populating a site of this nature and nurturing the community is a considerable and important task and CFS has made the commitment to the blog’s success by putting dedicated resource into place. We’re looking forward to seeing how this community grows and develops and continuing to help CFS demonstrate how they truly are ‘good with money‘.
Jenni wrote this on 30.04.09 – what do you think?
It's filed in the Blogging, Business, Design, Development, NixonMcInnes, Our sites box
Do you have a project that you would like to discuss with us? Or perhaps you know someone who is thinking about how to implement their digital strategy for 2009 and could do with some useful, actionable input and direction?
If so, we are running a limited edition special offer to help you shine online. Check it out.
If we can’t be of assistance or if you are not satisfied with the results then we will send you a delicious cake from the lovely Brighton cake boutique Choccywoccydoodah. Mmm, how can you refuse such a tasty proposal?
“And if you want to know a little bit more about our practice areas and service offerings then check out our “What we do page”. This will give you guys, the wonderful NixonMcInnes audience, a little more information about the kind of work we are helping folks with.
Just so you know in case it is still not clear; we are a full service agency; this means that not only can our skilled social media consultants help you apply social media to your marketing strategy and help you use this medium to plan specific campaigns, but the consultants are backed up by a fully formed delivery team made up of talented developers and designers able to make your ideas for websites, widgets, applications, blogs, social media press rooms and anything else web wise a reality. You can even get to know the team in advance.
So go on, book your conversation with us now, we are ready, poised to listen to your challenges and lend a hand; guaranteed!
Just e-mail or pick up the phone:
ruth@nixonmcinnes.co.uk
01273 648315.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks to EpicFireworks for the image.
Ruth wrote this on 26.03.09 – 1 comment
It's filed in the Business, Buzz monitoring, Design, Development, Free things, Marketing, NixonMcInnes, Social media, Social networks, Strategy, Web analytics, Web technology box
