Author: Nailia Tasseel

There has been an interesting, week-long-so-far debate on Melcrum’s SCM forum about what makes a good leader. The response has been amazingly varied. As the Conservative Party enters its final phase of choosing a leader, I thought this BBC News Magazine article was appropriate. I’d be interested to think what everyone out there thinks about this subject!

When Adam Crozier recently remarked that a good proportion of Royal Mail managers were sub-standard, I suspect a large number of CEO’s secretly empathised with him, in the knowledge that some of their own managers fall short of attaining the qualities needed to be good, inspiring leaders. David Bolchover, author of The Living Dead: The Shocking Truth About Office Life, points out that it is our managers, with whom we have to work on a daily basis, who are to blame for low morale, poor productivity and lack of commitment among the workforce. Interesting reading, this.

Yup, we knew it all along. There’s no substitute for the human being when it comes to communication, but when you can’t get a load of humans in one place and at one time, the next best thing has to be the human voice – even if it doesn’t have a face on the end of it! Podcasting is simple, and as Steve Smith observes, ‘this is new technology that revives our appreciation of the oldest medium.’ If, as he says, old fashioned storytelling may be the most engaging use of podcasting, then bring it on….

There really is a shift going on, says Daniel Pink, in how we are applying what goes on in the left and right spheres of our brains to how we run our businesses and improve performance. I found this article very interesting…

The term 'Skilled Incompetents' really resonated with me when I read today's article by Dr James Rieley in The Daily Telegraph. This highlights the all-too-common practice of managers looking inwards to concentrate on their own personal agendas, preventing others from achieving their own goals and in doing so preventing the organisation as a whole from achieving its goals and targets. Managers and Leaders? Reading this article, the words Wheat and Chaff spring to mind.

I was in one of my local pubs last night, fascinated by a framed front page from a wartime newspaper on the wall – The Daily Herald, 16th September 1940. The headlines were predictable and almost completely dominated the page: ‘Buckingham Palace Bombed Third Time’, ‘Raiders Chased Back To The Channel’, ‘RAF Puts Goering In Shade’, ‘Nazis Hold Up French Train’, ‘RAF Triumphs In Biggest Air Battles Of War’ and so on. And quietly, in the right hand bottom corner, was a not-so-small advert depicting a mother getting onto a bus, with the headline “Tell Daddy I’ve Gone To Boots”.

Like many other countrywomen who take the bus to town once a week, she’ll be making a few purchases at Boots. For wherever she needs anything in the way of medical or toilet goods, she knows she can rely on Boots. Her husband’s prescription, for example, will be dispensed under the supervision of one of the two thousand qualified chemists on duty in Boots branches. There are over twelve hundred of these branches, each offering friendly and reliable service that Boots have maintained over fifty years.

You can rely on Boots.

In other words, calm down dear, we may be facing bombs, battles, Nazis, blackouts and shrapnel, but as long as we’ve got Boots to supply us with our medical needs and toiletries we Brits are on solid turf. In wartime Britain this kind of advert sitting alongside the Government’s propaganda was no coincidence…it was a deliberate ploy to reinforce our sense of patriotism, faith in all things British, to strengthen our loyalty to the things we know and love, to heighten our trust in that great brand GB. And today? Loyalty? Pah! We’re far too busy rushing around with our wallets bursting with different loyalty cards, heartlessly and thoughtlessly changing from one brand to the next as long as it’s the cheapest / most convenient / nicest looking etc to be loyal, for pity’s sake. Although when it comes to brands and their values, I can think of many, many brands whose values include ‘Trust’, and who would willingly fight their own war to be seen as top dog in the Love and Trust department.

I’m reluctant to compare a 1940’s newspaper with the reportage from the disasters of recent times. It would seem a bizarre and somewhat tasteless act to place a Microsoft, McDonald’s or Dunkin’ Donuts ad on such a front page after, say, a terrorist atrocity on the scale of what we witnessed on 9/11. But hang on a cotton-picking minute, if we were to take today’s British brands back to 1940, which one would grace the front page of The Daily Herald? Would Tesco, that giant of a retailer where one in eight pounds are spent each day in the UK, have usurped that top spot? Or would it be BT (after all, if the phones are working, we must be OK)? Maybe it would be Marks & Spencer (I’m sorry but M&S IS a great British brand). Do we hold the Virgin brand dear to our hearts like we did Boots all those years ago? Can we truly rely on on British Airways? Do we feel as safe as houses with BP? Barclays? W H Smith? Woolworths? Next? The Halifax? Marmite? Heinz?

I may be an incurable romantic, but when it comes to real Love and Trust (and I don’t mean Awe, Admiration, or Recognition for the achievements of a superbrand) in the face of deep, deep crisis, I’m telling you now, I would put Boots at the top of my list.

Great article from Christian Budtz and Klaus Fog in Design Bulletin. Companies who want to maintain brand status in the future must have a great story to tell. Storytelling is as important for building brands as it is for engaging employees, in creating an understanding of their values and personality. Oh, and they’ve written a new book called Storytelling – Branding in Practice. I’m off to buy it right now.

Here’s a nice little snippet I read somewhere. I believe that as human beings we respond very well to creativity, yet so much of our communication and day to day activity is sadly lacking in it as we send more e-mails, use more powerpoint and create less face-to-face interaction. Digital technology can be a great tool (no! I’ve just come off a conference call to the US – digital technology is an utterly fantastic tool without which our lives would be completely different) but it needs to be used in tandem with a more creative thought process to be really effective. It is so easy to de-humanise, as we ‘press send’ again and again, day in, day out. We do need to inject more humanity in our interaction. And if humanity can be brought about through creativity….

Creativity is essentially a form of human expression that communicates emotionally and intellectually the individual’s thoughts and feelings concerning themes about self, dreams and visions, issues and relationships. All people are therefore creative. Creativity is about humanity.

I thought it fitting that today, the 60th anniversary of the end of the war between the Allies and Japan, we should make reference to Bristol-based designer Nick Hind’s Living Museum.

The exhibition formed part of a special commemorative exhibition in St James’ Park, London where design teams from more than 30 museums and organisations around the country created their own showcases to remember life in wartime Britain. Based on a timeline (not dissimilar to our own storymaps) this ‘living memory board’ took the form of an S-shaped wall in 12×15m space, depicting just some of the events and stories which unravelled following Neville Chamberlain’s declaration of war.

We are impressed. Visual imagery brings WWII stories to life, although so much in those days was communicated via the radio in the absence of TV. Great idea. Loved it.