Author: Joseph Ogbonna

I feel a need to blog more often but I am not, so I am wondering what this is about.  Granted, some of it is not having the time but that is because I have not prioritised and set aside the time for blogging.  So how come, if I feel the need?  Perhaps the need I have can be fulfilled by other media and deep down I feel blogging is therefore not that important for me.  This would explain the lower ranking on my list of priorities.

However, if I step back and think of my long terms aims, I may have to re-order that list.  My calling is to reach people where they are and help them to realise that more is always possible than we first think and that taking action or attempting something is often all it takes to unlock potential.  I am getting the daily opportunity to speak with people and follow this calling.  In fact, I started blogging in order to raise my web profile. This is the first time I have considered it as serving my calling.

Perhaps I am being content with less that the best that I can be. Blogging in addition to my face-to-face contact will reach more people and so serve me better as an alternative medium of communication.

The Chartered Institute of Personal Development estimate that about 120,000 workers would have been made redundant in 2012. Redundancy from a job is one of those events that stay with you many years after it happened, because it is life changing from an emotional and a financial perspective, raising questions about much of what we take for granted.

For the company, it may just be a re-alignment of resources to adapt to the business environment. For the survivors, it is a reminder of how transient the job is and often results in feelings of guilt, fear and mistrust. But for the redundant, it is the end of the world as it was and a step into an unknown where identity, self esteem, raison d’etre may be called into question. Self-doubt, loss of self-confidence, negative self-talk, low energy, frustration, anger, loss of control are some symptoms one might feel. This is normal in the circumstances and the thing is to acknowledge but fast-track them.

The individual can keep going by choosing to take control of life and what happens next.

• Remind yourself of what is really important to you. What core values underlie the desires you have cherished and the goals you have pursued before now? Power, money, happiness, friendship, ecology, humour, inner peace, God’s will, faithfulness, beauty and so on? Was professional life to-date really fulfilling or would you like to pursue other options for getting or being what really matters to you?
• What are you good at and enjoy doing? Update your CV with positive performance appraisal reports and recorded compliments your received
• Become clear about your desired vision for the future beyond your present circumstances. Capture your vision in a tangible format – possibly a simple line drawing or a future-dated letter to yourself- to inspire you.
• Learn to immediately recognise and deal with “negative self-talk”. One way is to practice acknowledging and firmly asserting positive counter-talk which states actual previous successes. You get better at doing it with practice.
• Starting now, make a concerted effort to build a “reserve” of friendships, kindness to others, money, sleep, healthy food, fitness, maintenance of your means of transport and anything else you are likely to need. For instance, learning a breathing exercise can help calm you, focus on your body and help you get back to sleep.
• Your job is but one aspect of your life, so take stock of where you are in the various aspects of your life and choose one action a day to make progress on each one. This one-action-a-day reminds you of your control over most aspects of your life and will increase feelings of personal power. Be patient with yourself, because deep wounds take time to heal.

Redundancy is not a personal verdict being delivered on the employee’s ability. It is therefore imperative that the redundant employee gives themselves the appropriate breathing space to step back and plan out an approach that will facilitate the achievement of goals that ultimately lead to a happier and more fulfilling life.

This is all possible with appropriate support, which is “there” at all times to acknowledge, challenge, help the individual to clarify their vision and come up with creative strategies to achieve even more.

Many advocates of good service in the public sector are vehemently opposed to using the term “customer” to refer to patients, clients, residents and other recipients of public service. Ask them why and many would say that a customer has choice to walk away. Others would say the customer has purchasing power and pays for what they want. A particularly interesting view-point shared with me is that using the term allows public service providers to provide a “commoditised” service which is not tailored to the needs of the poor person who just wants a basic service to meet a basic need. That these organisations copy models of service that are glitzy and look good but do not meet the basic needs of the individual.

This viewpoint made me reflect on what public service providers see when they look to learn lessons from large retail companies. Perhaps, they see the service but miss the commercial ethos. Private sector companies are certainly aware that the paying customer and will exercise the power of choice to buy elsewhere, if unhappy with the service. Yes, many customers are put off exercising this choice by the high cost of changing – from energy service providers for example. But some choose to change and the company does not know for sure how many would do so. This therefore keeps them more willing to adapt to individual need. The resulting product or service offering may be dressed up and presented in a glitzy way to add a perception of value, justifying a higher price or loyalty to the brand. In order to sell, however, it must meet a basic need and being clear what they are after, these companies go directly for it.

If I worked for a public service organisation that wants to effectively serve citizens, I would look beyond my statutory remit to thoroughly understand the need first. It will then be simpler to see how much of that need my statutory remit allows me to meet and how much added value I can include to “buy” good will.

It is about being your best at things that are within your control.

We all spot and respond to opportunities differently, often reflecting our expectations of reward and our levels for tolerating risk. It can also reflect what resources we know are available to us.

Having recently completed a tender which I did not win, I know many would not have bothered with that tender but I did because I saw it as a business development opportunity. Knowing what I know now, would I tender again based on the level of information I had at the time? I would, because of a few reasons: my assessment of chances of winning, knowledge of the client organisation, the potential for building a network of collaborating trainers who could support one another in reaching for higher volumes of work, my confidence for delivering the amount of work required and how much I enjoyed the creative thinking and practice of tendering.

I also saw the opportunity for skill development. We gain and lose many skills in our life’s journey, depending on the opportunities we see but also on choices we make. When we gain a skill and do not use it, we are likely to lose it, just like a top-range car left unused in a garage, or a designer dress locked away in a cupboard, past its season. The opportunity for creating a skill was there for a purpose and if not utilised when it is needed, someone or something else will fill the gap.

In addition to the lost opportunity to provide a service to another perhaps for profit, we also lose the opportunity to grow in our selves. When we make a conscious decision to use a newly acquired skill,  we would begin to seek and become aware of opportunities to use it.

Effectiveness in daily life will come from choosing which skills to retain and which to leave dormant. Relevant questions may include, How important is this skill anyway? Where does it fit into the overall picture of our lives and what we are called to do? The challenge is that except if we give it attention, we often do not know where any one skill will fit in that overall picture. If on the other hand, we know what is really important to us and what we want for ourselves, we can make choices about where to use our time, efforts and other resources.

I am constantly amazed by the wonder of who we are, how we, humans can stretch to achieve. Training for and running my 1st marathon a few years ago was probably the best lesson for me in findiing out that my body is capable of more than I immediately think possible. It was mostly mental with my body stretching to do what the brain asked. Provided it was gently exposed to it. In a similar Do you know anyone who consistently wakes up 5 minutes before the waking alarm rings? Or anyone who looks up to find another staring at them? Or consistently asks for a person just before that person knocks on the door? I had a spine-tingling experience yesterday when I changed the music I was listening to from Afro to Japanese flutes , just before I met a Japanese man. Was this mere coincidence or was my brain picking up information from the environment long before my conscious mind became aware? What is your experience and your take on it?

I now know that the success of selling rests on the psychology of the sales person. Whilst certain people have this ready-made psychology, for others, belief that it is possible to choose one’s attitude and behaviour is necessary. The psychology I am referring to is the desire to make a sale and behaviour aimed at making this desire happen. When I have observed it, the sales person acts like they have authority to be the centre of attention and filled up the space. Once in the centre, she occupied that space until ready to vacate. This surprised the would-be customer and so grabbed their attention. This applies equally to a marketing presentation to a group and a 1to1 transaction. The good sales person then seeks to understand the emotional reasons why a would-be customer would buy. Not just the desire but the positive or negative feelings that are driving the desire. Successfully exposing these feelings cause discomfort which can be eased by taking action to retain or to get rid of the feeling. Such as making a purchase..

Let’s face it, selling, however packaged, is about asking customers to part with money in exchange for goods and/or services. However politely it is done, the sales person acts like they have a right to close the sale once the need is established and commitment is established that the would-be customer desires the goods or service. The majority of customers would want to make the decision in their own space and time but the “hungry” sales person wants certainty and a commitment on the spot. An immediate commitment requires that the potential customer has all the information they require to make a decision and access to the resources for the purchase. The sales person, then just pushes for action, sometimes ignoring hesistancy. It helps if the sales person offers an incentive to reward an immediate decision.

We have had a ‘global’ economy for a few years now but one wonders whether the concept is only now becoming ‘real’ when we feel the impact of China as an economic power – the sign of a fundamentally changing world paradigm. Up until recently ‘global’ has in reality been about major corporations reaching a world market and structuring themselves to do this more profitably. After listening to on- and off-line debates about how China should conform and what should be done to retain US dominance of the world economy, I am wondering if there is more to this than just economics.

Consider few trends. The internet has made wider access to information possible and we now know much more about other parts of the world. The environmental consequences of our industrial actions have become more apparent. Our young people have become quite bored with most of what is happening around them, partly resulting from being constantly fed information at high speed in a variety of formats. The younger generation also appear to see more value in difference and so are increasingly willing to cooperate across borders on an equal footing than their forebears. Taking all these trends together, there is hint of a change in what works for the world of tomorrow. The concept of a single focal point for the ‘global’ economy may be changing. Perhaps China is simply filling part of a void that is emerging as the US and Europe struggle with financial and social challenges.

I see China’s way of doing things as different in three main ways – it subscribes to a philosophy that sees good and bad at opposite ends of a spectrum, with a mix of good/bad populating the ground in between. Secondly, China operates a system of balance in most matters, from voting at the United Nations Security Council to enforcing a ‘no-smoking’ sign on a Bejing-Xian overnight train. A chinese acquaintance said that in China, one can operate quite freely around rules and regulations, provided you are mindful of balance and avoid excesses. The third point is that as a country ruled by technocrats and engineers, public opinion and political debate is of lower priority when moving towards a national goal.

Perhaps the world is at a stage in its development where China’s unique capabilities can satisfy a need that the US economic leadership alone no longer can. Will the Chinese philosophies and models become more dominant in the world? But then, that question comes from the old way of thinking, the single focal point and either/or thinking. What if a multi-focal point global economy were to exist? Consider that India, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia and South Africa are all evolving economies and politics in their own unique ways, neither in the image of the US or of China. Is it inconceivable that these countries establish economies that are separate, co-dependent and exercising choice about currencies, trade, political systems for example.

No-one knows how it will work but the existing paradigm is certainly not working and the younger generation are as wired for change as any generation has ever been. The negotiations around United Nations security council and trade agreements may be about to become more interesting.