A very strange thing occurred to me the other day: I choked.
Of course, I mean choking as in the sporting sense – of someone suddenly rendered incapable of performing at a level that, under normal circumstances, would come naturally. These are skills and talents perfected over many years that, at a crucial moment, disappear.
In my case the talent was talking and my choking moment arrived thanks to a film crew thrusting a camera in my face in order to make a promotional video for What’s Stopping You?, which comes out next month (by the way). Faced with a camera – rather than my usual experience of facing a person exhibiting various stages of confusion or boredom – my usually fluid speech deserted me to the point where I could hardly utter four coherent words in a row.
Luckily, this was a recording and the patient film crew could just inwardly roll their eyes and start again. More usually choking occurs at the very moments where no take-two (or three, four or five) is possible. At such times a voice inside our head is shouting: “this is it, this is the moment, it’s now or never” and that very knowledge renders us incapable of performing – making choking a key psychological concern for many people, even those at the top of their game.
Choking was first recorded as a phenomenon by Dr Roy Baumeister who described in his paper Choking Under Pressure (1984) a “sudden, catastrophic breakdown in skilled performance…characterized by an inability to perform well-learned and well-practiced skills”.
And the symptoms are not just psychological. Golfers describe the “jerks” or “yips”, which are spasms impacting the lower arm, and cricket, snooker, bowling and darts all have their own physical symptoms – Eric Bristow’s “dartitis” in the 1980s being a famous example.
Yet the most famous episode of choking I can recall – or most other people come to that – involves tennis: the 1993 Wimbledon final between Jana Novotna and Steffi Graf. In fact, this incident is so famous Malcolm Gladwell uses it as his key case study when writing about “The Art of Failure” in his 2009 book, What The Dog Saw.
I’ll let him describe what happened (although most people already know):
“There was a moment in the third and deciding set...when Jana Novotna seemed invincible. She was leading 4-1 and serving at 40-30, meaning that she was one point from winning the game, and just five points from the most coveted championship in tennis. She had just hit a backhand to her opponent, Steffi Graf, that skimmed the net and landed so abruptly on the far side of the court that Graf could only watch, in flat-footed frustration...
“Novotna was in white, poised and confident, her blond hair held back with a headband – and then something happened. She served the ball straight into the net. She stopped and steadied herself for the second serve – the toss, the arch of the back – but this time it was worse. Her swing seemed halfhearted, all arm and no legs and torso. Double fault. On the next point, she was slow to react to a high shot by Graf and badly missed on a forehand volley. At game point, she hit an overhead straight into the net. Instead of 5-1, it was now 4-2. Graf to serve: an easy victory, 4-3. Novotna to serve. She wasn’t tossing the ball high enough. Her head was down. Her movements had slowed markedly. She double-faulted once, twice, three times. Pulled wide by a Graf forehand, Novotna inexplicably hit a low, flat shot directly at Graf, instead of a high crosscourt forehand that would have given her time to get back into position: 4-4. Did she suddenly realize how terrifyingly close she was to victory? Did she remember that she had never won a major tournament before? Did she look across the net and she Steffi Graf – Steffi Graf! – the greatest player of her generation?”
Of course, Graf went on to win the match, resulting in one the most memorable episodes in a women’s final. Gladwell again:
“At the awards ceremony, the Duchess of Kent handed Novotna the runner-up’s trophy, a small silver plate, and whispered something in her ear, and what Novotna had done finally caught up with her. There she was, sweaty and exhausted, looming over the delicate white-haired Duchess in her pearl necklace. The Duchess reached up and pulled her head down onto her shoulder, and Novotna started to sob.”
So what caused this faltering under pressure? For those with a fear of failure, these are the key moments where it all goes wrong – where the monkey on our shoulder gets the upper hand, no matter how hard we’ve practiced or how on top of our game (or material) we feel. Certainly, any High-FF (as I call those with a high fear of failure in What’s Stopping You?) watching that Wimbledon final would have nodded at the weeping Novotna and said, “yep, that would have been me”.
But why? What creates that all-important distinction between the Grafs and the Novotnas? Gladwell went in search of an answer and found Daniel Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginia. He told him about the difference between explicit learning and implicit learning, and their connection with choking.
Willingham sets his students video-game tasks and notices that they start learning sequencing games via explicit learning – focusing hard on each element of the task and consciously trying to acquire the skills and knowledge to master it. Progress with explicit learning is steady and deliberate but – because it is explicit and therefore based on awareness and concentration – slow.
Yet after a period of explicit learning, implicit learning takes over. It’s as if the brain has absorbed the conscious-learning requirements in order to master the basics and can now do them unconsciously, which allows the implicit learning system to take over. This takes place beyond awareness, so we learn faster and with far greater fluidity. Soon, we act like naturals, which is the take-off moment from which we move from good to great.
Yet, crucially for the choker, under conditions of stress, the explicit system reasserts itself. As Gladwell writes:
“When Jana Novotna faltered at Wimbledon, it was because she began thinking about her shots again. She lost her fluidity, her touch…in a sense, she was a beginner again [and one now facing Steffi Graf].”
And the same thing occurred to me when stuck in front of a camera. Ask me about fear of failure and I can bang on about it until the cows come home, get their washing done, catch up with their old mates and then leave for pastures new. Ask me to do it in front of a camera and I have to think about what I say. This is for the Amazon website so it has to make sense. It has to be accurate, fluid, confident. And it must have gravitas. Suddenly I’m no longer the cocky gobshite rattling off about 1960s experiments on American schoolkids. Suddenly, I’m staring into a camera and wondering whether my facts are correct and my turn of phrase suitable. And – as truly as if I’m facing Steffi Graf on the other side of the net in a Wimbledon final – I’ve become wracked with doubt, and that monkey on my shoulder has notched up another victory.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
The upper-lower middle-class class barrier
Lunching with a friend the other day we got onto the thorny issue of class and, not least, its connection with personal progress. Just how big a barrier is it? Are the English stymied by class from the word go – a very relevant question with an Eton boy now in 10 Downing Street and a Westminster boy as his deputy?
We decided the answer is “no”, as long as you can adapt and adopt the ways of the upper middle classes, the key group of people “running” the UK. As with my earlier post on “adopting group norms” in order to fit in, giving those you want to impress the required (or acquired) certainty that you are of the “right stock” may be to your ultimate advantage.
Both my friend and I decided we were “upper lower-middle class”, which we came to define as people from a lower-middle class background who had managed to fool the upper-middle classes that we belonged in their camp. Yet we then got into listing the give-away signs that reveal you as from the right side of the tracks. That you are truly of the Upper-Middle Classes (rather than - like my friend and I - as arrivistes trying to bluff our way in).
Here were our thoughts:
1) Cars: The U-MCs drive a battered Volvo, or similar such car. Not for them the “flash mowtaa” of the wide boy, oh no. Cars are for ferrying kids and animals and large implements over potentially tough terrain – so something old, muddy and big is a must.
2) Media: Depending on their prejudices they may read various broadsheets but, at home, they all listen to Radio 4. In fact, the U-MCs may have R4 broadcasting away in several rooms simultaneously – some that have been unoccupied for weeks. The only acceptable alternative to R4 is Radio 3, perhaps playing quietly in a recess with a snoozing dog. And while our U-MCs shun the TV soaps (in fact shun anything on ITV), keeping up with the plot of The Archers is de rigueur.
3) Jobs: Mum doesn’t have one. This may seem old fashioned but, while the kids are school age, most mums are stay-at-home (yet still employ cleaners and nannies and the odd au pair). In this respect, qualifications – or past career highlights – are largely irrelevant (although she usually keeps her contact base up to date and the school PTA is staggeringly over-managed).
4) Animals: U-MC families tend to like them. Dogs and cats seem to co-habit in this world (perhaps both realising when they are well off and suspending their usual hostilities). Dogs tend to be Labradors or something else child friendly, and don’t be surprised if the odd horse, pig – or even flock of rare sheep – is loitering around somewhere in the background. Yet the opposite is true of plants – at least the indoor variety. Pot plants, I discovered to my embarrassment, are a distinctly lower-middle class taste.
5) Cooking: U-MC houses all smell of the most divine home cooking, usually prepared by the stay-at-home mum. Certainly, I’ve had to develop a tolerance for garlic (in both the primary and secondary sense). And while both men and women are accomplished foodies, they do occasionally follow a recipe, although the distinctly upper-crust intonation of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is preferred to the estuarial fruitiness of Jamie Oliver. Gordon Ramsay, meanwhile, is Scottish, working class and far too foul-tempered to be acceptable.
6) Kitchen: Perhaps oddly, the kitchen is the hub of the U-MC house (something French visitors find curious). In fact family life is often focused on a large kitchen table. And, like a branch of Starbucks, this table is capable of hosting several potentially-conflicting meetings or activities simultaneously.
7) TV: Not in the main living room (which U-MCs call the sitting room – never the “lounge”). While the latest model, TVs are usually small and tucked away in a “snug” – often a wood-panelled room with lots of yellowing books, soft furnishings and a real fire (again, often roaring away to itself).
8) Children: There are usually more than two. Peculiarly, the demographic curve for childbirth is very much U-shaped. So while the lower- and middle-middle classes produce one, two or – increasingly – no children, the U-MCs are breeding for England. It’s their badge of honour, especially if the aim is to privately educate the lot of them. Children to the U-MCs are like sports cars to a lottery winner: to be collected and displayed.
9) Arty kids: U-MC offspring all have a creative bent that many now pursue as a career – though rarely profitably. In fact, the entire concept of money is a weird one to the U-MCs. I’ve written about this before but the U-MCs have a strange attitude to their wealth: despite their obvious cash the acquisition of it is viewed as an evil. Indeed, most U-MC families only really know they’ve made it once the kids start spouting opinions somewhere to the left of Fidel Castro (please refer to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for an explanation).
10) Talents. U-MCs can all play musical instruments. In fact they can all play sports to a high standard – especially tennis, skiing and rugby and anything to do with horses (golf being a bit M-MC) – speak several languages (and certainly French), understand the basics of carpentry, gardening and animal husbandry and play bridge, chess and something called fives. Skills all acquired while the rest of us were watching Scooby-doo and playing knock-down ginger.
Good luck with the integration!
We decided the answer is “no”, as long as you can adapt and adopt the ways of the upper middle classes, the key group of people “running” the UK. As with my earlier post on “adopting group norms” in order to fit in, giving those you want to impress the required (or acquired) certainty that you are of the “right stock” may be to your ultimate advantage.
Both my friend and I decided we were “upper lower-middle class”, which we came to define as people from a lower-middle class background who had managed to fool the upper-middle classes that we belonged in their camp. Yet we then got into listing the give-away signs that reveal you as from the right side of the tracks. That you are truly of the Upper-Middle Classes (rather than - like my friend and I - as arrivistes trying to bluff our way in).
Here were our thoughts:
1) Cars: The U-MCs drive a battered Volvo, or similar such car. Not for them the “flash mowtaa” of the wide boy, oh no. Cars are for ferrying kids and animals and large implements over potentially tough terrain – so something old, muddy and big is a must.
2) Media: Depending on their prejudices they may read various broadsheets but, at home, they all listen to Radio 4. In fact, the U-MCs may have R4 broadcasting away in several rooms simultaneously – some that have been unoccupied for weeks. The only acceptable alternative to R4 is Radio 3, perhaps playing quietly in a recess with a snoozing dog. And while our U-MCs shun the TV soaps (in fact shun anything on ITV), keeping up with the plot of The Archers is de rigueur.
3) Jobs: Mum doesn’t have one. This may seem old fashioned but, while the kids are school age, most mums are stay-at-home (yet still employ cleaners and nannies and the odd au pair). In this respect, qualifications – or past career highlights – are largely irrelevant (although she usually keeps her contact base up to date and the school PTA is staggeringly over-managed).
4) Animals: U-MC families tend to like them. Dogs and cats seem to co-habit in this world (perhaps both realising when they are well off and suspending their usual hostilities). Dogs tend to be Labradors or something else child friendly, and don’t be surprised if the odd horse, pig – or even flock of rare sheep – is loitering around somewhere in the background. Yet the opposite is true of plants – at least the indoor variety. Pot plants, I discovered to my embarrassment, are a distinctly lower-middle class taste.
5) Cooking: U-MC houses all smell of the most divine home cooking, usually prepared by the stay-at-home mum. Certainly, I’ve had to develop a tolerance for garlic (in both the primary and secondary sense). And while both men and women are accomplished foodies, they do occasionally follow a recipe, although the distinctly upper-crust intonation of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is preferred to the estuarial fruitiness of Jamie Oliver. Gordon Ramsay, meanwhile, is Scottish, working class and far too foul-tempered to be acceptable.
6) Kitchen: Perhaps oddly, the kitchen is the hub of the U-MC house (something French visitors find curious). In fact family life is often focused on a large kitchen table. And, like a branch of Starbucks, this table is capable of hosting several potentially-conflicting meetings or activities simultaneously.
7) TV: Not in the main living room (which U-MCs call the sitting room – never the “lounge”). While the latest model, TVs are usually small and tucked away in a “snug” – often a wood-panelled room with lots of yellowing books, soft furnishings and a real fire (again, often roaring away to itself).
8) Children: There are usually more than two. Peculiarly, the demographic curve for childbirth is very much U-shaped. So while the lower- and middle-middle classes produce one, two or – increasingly – no children, the U-MCs are breeding for England. It’s their badge of honour, especially if the aim is to privately educate the lot of them. Children to the U-MCs are like sports cars to a lottery winner: to be collected and displayed.
9) Arty kids: U-MC offspring all have a creative bent that many now pursue as a career – though rarely profitably. In fact, the entire concept of money is a weird one to the U-MCs. I’ve written about this before but the U-MCs have a strange attitude to their wealth: despite their obvious cash the acquisition of it is viewed as an evil. Indeed, most U-MC families only really know they’ve made it once the kids start spouting opinions somewhere to the left of Fidel Castro (please refer to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for an explanation).
10) Talents. U-MCs can all play musical instruments. In fact they can all play sports to a high standard – especially tennis, skiing and rugby and anything to do with horses (golf being a bit M-MC) – speak several languages (and certainly French), understand the basics of carpentry, gardening and animal husbandry and play bridge, chess and something called fives. Skills all acquired while the rest of us were watching Scooby-doo and playing knock-down ginger.
Good luck with the integration!
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Got an opinion? Get it validated
We all need to be validated. External confirmation that we are making sense is vital for our self-esteem, which is why whenever we venture an opinion we immediately scout around for confirmation – and feel vindicated or isolated depending on our success in this respect.
This is the case with everyday needs – for instance, my parenting actions usually require my wife’s validation (although I notice this is less required in the opposite direction) – and the bigger themes in our life, hence the emotional exchanges when our young career choices frustrate our parents. Certainly, for my new book – a self-help book on overcoming fear of failure called What’s Stopping You? (out in April) – I sought validation. It has as its premise, an attack on the self-help industry, which not only over-promises (we knew that) but offers a cure for conditions that are, fundamentally, incurable.
Yet these are strong opinions, forcefully made: validation is required. Luckily I won it from no less a figure than Donald Kirkpatrick, the Chairman of the London Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. After many conversations and much guidance – helping me crystalise my own views on self-help and fear of failure – Donald agreed to write a summary for the book, thus giving my year-long pursuit that all-important sign-off.
Yet he did more than that. In fact, he so blew me away with his positioning of the book within the history of ideas and alongside current trends in psychological treatment I think it worth pre-publishing:
With my deepest thanks, here it is in full:
"Kelsey has identified a personal problem, the fear of failure, and – I think rightly – argues that this has a mass base. Certainly, the current zeitgeist of endless choice and 'reaching for success' encourages this, and encourages writers such as Kelsey to tackle it. Yet he actually taps into a rich tradition going back to fifth-century BC Greece.
“The people of Plato’s Athens were depressed because they had lost sight of what was good for them and were alienated by the pointless life they were leading. Then as now philosophers arose to offer an answer: that they did know what was good for the people. The project was then the injection of those good ideas into the citizenry by means of words – or rhetoric – the effect of which would be that the citizen would stop being depressed as they energetically pursued the good-life as prescribed by the philosopher.
“Kelsey has taken it a stage further and offered a criticism of this injection – stating that the positive effects of such rhetoric for the citizen are likely to wear off, rendering him or her further confused and potentially more deeply depressed.
“Yet this vein of resistance to what Plato would call the ‘philosopher kings’ also has deeply historical roots. Even in fifth-century BC Athens, Gorgias (Encomium of Helen) was profoundly disturbed by what he saw as the introduction of foreign ideas into a body. Is this not always a kind of poisoning or intoxication, he wondered? Socrates follows on: opining that the people of Athens were depressed precisely because they had been poisoned by swallowing someone else's idea of what was good for them.
“And this debate has more modern reflections. Consider the ‘positive hallucination’ first explored as hypnotism became formalised in 19th Century Europe. If via hypnotism we introduce a foreign idea into the subject's consciousness (‘I am a love God’, for example) the foreign idea sets up a forgetting of what one knows (‘I am terrified of women’) in favour of what someone else knows. The subject then negotiates the object via this ‘false connection’ and wrongly estimates his capacities – in this case rendering the hypnotised subject a clown strutting the stage as a ‘love God’ while we, the audience, snigger as the ones ‘in the know’.
“Skip forward 100-odd years and the concept of conditioning ourselves for success remains, as does the notion that success can be established on the back of a self-induced ‘false-connection’. Renata Salecl argues in her excellent new book Choice (2010) that in today’s abundance we are anxious to choose the right thing. And this often involves electing a temporary ‘authority’ that can tell us what to do. Most often in the secular modern world this authority is the self-help guru or life coach. And Sigmund Freud argues in his Group Psychology (1921) that putting anyone in a figure of ‘authority’ opens one up to ‘suggestion’ with ultimately negative consequences for our condition.
“It is in this tradition that we can understand the new authorities that are CBT and NLP, with life coaching and other motivational treatise its variants. This is sanctioned ‘positive hallucination’ (or ‘positive thinking’). If, with Plato, we accept that we do not know what is good for us, and if somehow we were off sick on the day that the ‘good idea’ was handed out, then we can accept this ‘positive thinking’ as a late and implanted alternative. Unfortunately the clinical evidence is stacking up: successes are temporary and fade away. Meanwhile, core beliefs remain unworked, and re-emerge.
“But how does it manifest? In an alternative school of hypnotism that arose in 19th Century France what was stressed was the negative-hallucination. Here a piece of knowledge is stripped out of the subject’s consciousness under hypnotic influence: for instance, ‘there is no furniture in this room’. If instructed to then proceed to close a door in a furnished room, interestingly the subject will avoid the furniture. But when asked why she took such a tortuous route, the subject offers excuses such as ‘a creaky floorboard’ or ‘I felt a draft’ rather than state the obvious truth of the furniture’s existence.
“This is the result that Kelsey is so alert to in his work. The hypnotist has not reduced the subject's knowledge of the world, instead simply reducing her knowledge of why she took the route she did. Secondly, and more importantly, is the demonstration that we do not tolerate gaps in our knowledge of the world. Faced with a ‘not knowing’ of the real reasons for what we do, we will compulsively manufacture glosses that create ‘false connections’ between things – clinging to those reasons against logical assaults.
“Kelsey’s thesis challenges this notion of ‘collective forgetting’ – as encouraged by the modern philosopher kings – in the way that a hypnotist can cause a ‘forgetting’ with a ‘negative hallucination’. He goes on to show how the omission of that particular knowledge (‘I fear failure’) leads to fictions that we then compulsively elaborate to explain how our world is, and which we then go on to defend.
“Kelsey’s philosophy is more in the Socratic tradition of pointing to the difficulty – stating that ‘fear of failure’ is a militant and systemic fact that we ignore at our peril. If we are aware that this particular conclusion (of fearing failure) pre-determines our actions, then rather than forgetting about it because it is too difficult – via rhetorical devices, or ‘negative hallucination’, or via ‘conditions of cure’ such as NLP that offer ‘suggestion’ and ‘authority’ – we bear it in mind and keep it in our sights, judging each of our actions accordingly.
“This may not lead to the glorious outcomes we hoped for, but it will lead us away from false and temporary pursuits that can ultimately underline, rather than undermine, our negative core beliefs. It also offers a strong building block for sustainable treatment by psychoanalysis, based on the underlying structures established by Freud in the 1880s.”
Donald Kirkpatrick – psychoanalyst and a founder of the London Association for Counselling and Psychoanalysis.
This is the case with everyday needs – for instance, my parenting actions usually require my wife’s validation (although I notice this is less required in the opposite direction) – and the bigger themes in our life, hence the emotional exchanges when our young career choices frustrate our parents. Certainly, for my new book – a self-help book on overcoming fear of failure called What’s Stopping You? (out in April) – I sought validation. It has as its premise, an attack on the self-help industry, which not only over-promises (we knew that) but offers a cure for conditions that are, fundamentally, incurable.
Yet these are strong opinions, forcefully made: validation is required. Luckily I won it from no less a figure than Donald Kirkpatrick, the Chairman of the London Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. After many conversations and much guidance – helping me crystalise my own views on self-help and fear of failure – Donald agreed to write a summary for the book, thus giving my year-long pursuit that all-important sign-off.
Yet he did more than that. In fact, he so blew me away with his positioning of the book within the history of ideas and alongside current trends in psychological treatment I think it worth pre-publishing:
With my deepest thanks, here it is in full:
"Kelsey has identified a personal problem, the fear of failure, and – I think rightly – argues that this has a mass base. Certainly, the current zeitgeist of endless choice and 'reaching for success' encourages this, and encourages writers such as Kelsey to tackle it. Yet he actually taps into a rich tradition going back to fifth-century BC Greece.
“The people of Plato’s Athens were depressed because they had lost sight of what was good for them and were alienated by the pointless life they were leading. Then as now philosophers arose to offer an answer: that they did know what was good for the people. The project was then the injection of those good ideas into the citizenry by means of words – or rhetoric – the effect of which would be that the citizen would stop being depressed as they energetically pursued the good-life as prescribed by the philosopher.
“Kelsey has taken it a stage further and offered a criticism of this injection – stating that the positive effects of such rhetoric for the citizen are likely to wear off, rendering him or her further confused and potentially more deeply depressed.
“Yet this vein of resistance to what Plato would call the ‘philosopher kings’ also has deeply historical roots. Even in fifth-century BC Athens, Gorgias (Encomium of Helen) was profoundly disturbed by what he saw as the introduction of foreign ideas into a body. Is this not always a kind of poisoning or intoxication, he wondered? Socrates follows on: opining that the people of Athens were depressed precisely because they had been poisoned by swallowing someone else's idea of what was good for them.
“And this debate has more modern reflections. Consider the ‘positive hallucination’ first explored as hypnotism became formalised in 19th Century Europe. If via hypnotism we introduce a foreign idea into the subject's consciousness (‘I am a love God’, for example) the foreign idea sets up a forgetting of what one knows (‘I am terrified of women’) in favour of what someone else knows. The subject then negotiates the object via this ‘false connection’ and wrongly estimates his capacities – in this case rendering the hypnotised subject a clown strutting the stage as a ‘love God’ while we, the audience, snigger as the ones ‘in the know’.
“Skip forward 100-odd years and the concept of conditioning ourselves for success remains, as does the notion that success can be established on the back of a self-induced ‘false-connection’. Renata Salecl argues in her excellent new book Choice (2010) that in today’s abundance we are anxious to choose the right thing. And this often involves electing a temporary ‘authority’ that can tell us what to do. Most often in the secular modern world this authority is the self-help guru or life coach. And Sigmund Freud argues in his Group Psychology (1921) that putting anyone in a figure of ‘authority’ opens one up to ‘suggestion’ with ultimately negative consequences for our condition.
“It is in this tradition that we can understand the new authorities that are CBT and NLP, with life coaching and other motivational treatise its variants. This is sanctioned ‘positive hallucination’ (or ‘positive thinking’). If, with Plato, we accept that we do not know what is good for us, and if somehow we were off sick on the day that the ‘good idea’ was handed out, then we can accept this ‘positive thinking’ as a late and implanted alternative. Unfortunately the clinical evidence is stacking up: successes are temporary and fade away. Meanwhile, core beliefs remain unworked, and re-emerge.
“But how does it manifest? In an alternative school of hypnotism that arose in 19th Century France what was stressed was the negative-hallucination. Here a piece of knowledge is stripped out of the subject’s consciousness under hypnotic influence: for instance, ‘there is no furniture in this room’. If instructed to then proceed to close a door in a furnished room, interestingly the subject will avoid the furniture. But when asked why she took such a tortuous route, the subject offers excuses such as ‘a creaky floorboard’ or ‘I felt a draft’ rather than state the obvious truth of the furniture’s existence.
“This is the result that Kelsey is so alert to in his work. The hypnotist has not reduced the subject's knowledge of the world, instead simply reducing her knowledge of why she took the route she did. Secondly, and more importantly, is the demonstration that we do not tolerate gaps in our knowledge of the world. Faced with a ‘not knowing’ of the real reasons for what we do, we will compulsively manufacture glosses that create ‘false connections’ between things – clinging to those reasons against logical assaults.
“Kelsey’s thesis challenges this notion of ‘collective forgetting’ – as encouraged by the modern philosopher kings – in the way that a hypnotist can cause a ‘forgetting’ with a ‘negative hallucination’. He goes on to show how the omission of that particular knowledge (‘I fear failure’) leads to fictions that we then compulsively elaborate to explain how our world is, and which we then go on to defend.
“Kelsey’s philosophy is more in the Socratic tradition of pointing to the difficulty – stating that ‘fear of failure’ is a militant and systemic fact that we ignore at our peril. If we are aware that this particular conclusion (of fearing failure) pre-determines our actions, then rather than forgetting about it because it is too difficult – via rhetorical devices, or ‘negative hallucination’, or via ‘conditions of cure’ such as NLP that offer ‘suggestion’ and ‘authority’ – we bear it in mind and keep it in our sights, judging each of our actions accordingly.
“This may not lead to the glorious outcomes we hoped for, but it will lead us away from false and temporary pursuits that can ultimately underline, rather than undermine, our negative core beliefs. It also offers a strong building block for sustainable treatment by psychoanalysis, based on the underlying structures established by Freud in the 1880s.”
Donald Kirkpatrick – psychoanalyst and a founder of the London Association for Counselling and Psychoanalysis.
Monday, February 28, 2011
As a political message, social mobility beats morality every time
I went to a Conservative Party gathering last week. It was a question and answer session entitled: “Are we getting the message across?” I was a guest of my mother-in-law. Despite being charmed by a fundraiser (and despite various political flirtations throughout my life) I've no particular party loyalty and intend keeping it that way. But my haste to caveat this column with that distancing should surely be an answer to the question they set themselves: no, the Conservatives are not getting the message across.
In fact, I came away deeply concerned. This was a political movement that had lost touch with what it stood for. Even from the panellists (including Tim Montgomerie, the articulate founder of ConservativeHome.com), I found no popular message worth propagating. And I don’t mean that as a disagreement. I mean that as a PR man who spends his day delivering “key messages” to “target audiences”.
To illustrate the problem, let me first state the core Labour Party message as I see it: social justice. Ask any Labour Party activist what motivates them and it will not be long before these two words fall from their lips. It is clear, it has meaning and it is a strong positive message that’s hard to refute: to not agree with social justice is to, presumably, support social injustice – so non-believers are immediately on the defensive. That’s a powerful message.
Yet I listened in vain for equivalent clarity with the Conservatives. Going by the discussion, here’s what this unselective grassroots Conservative gathering (and their “political class” panellists) think about their messages.
1) That “Conservative values” are nothing to be ashamed of (yes, but what are they?) and should be more robustly stated.
2) That the Big Society has no meaning and is a sop to the left (which they were potentially confusing with the majority of voters).
3) That there are too many people on welfare.
That's it (and I’m being generous). The rest of the debate was about the inherent pro-state (and therefore anti-Tory) bias of the BBC (I would agree to claims of it being anti-business) and the fact the CBI (that hugely popular mass movement!) should do more for small business, or maybe not.
The one word I wrote down in the entire “debate” – because it was the only statement delivered with clarity (by Montgomerie) – was “morality”. That here was the Party of Morality, he claimed. This went down well with the audience, but the trouble is, as a message, it is fraught with danger: one person’s morality is another person’s condemnation. Morality can be viewed as a form of judgement upon others that can quickly look and sound (and act) like intolerance. And wasn’t being seen as the “Nasty Party” one of the core problems with the Conservatives’ brand (at least according to Theresa May)?
So what’s all this got to do with fear of failure? Well, apart from the fact fear of failure stopped me from standing up and berating the lot of them for their appalling lack of vision, it’s the fact that my book, What’s Stopping You? is about coping and overcoming barriers to personal progress. It is about “achievement motivation” – the opposite to fear of failure and a goal for High-FFs (those with a high fear of failure). Yet Britain as a society puts up needless and destructive barriers to personal progress. Sometimes these are through prejudicial hurdles such as class, gender and race (although in my view class is the most pernicious as it cuts across gender and racial divisions) – but sometimes through structural ones such as our lowest-common denominator education system and our overly-complicated benefits arrangements that trap people in their current, often destructive, circumstances.
So why isn’t the Tory message one of "social mobility" – encouraging people to take control of their lives and improve their circumstances, not through government handouts but through their own determination and productivity? Certainly, there are some in the Tory party that state this – and some policies that encourage it – but as a unifying message it seems to get lost. And it also seems to be diluted by the obvious air of privilege that permeates the party, as it did the gathering I attended.
As a riposte to the “social justice” message of the left “social mobility” has the same degree of clarity, and is equally hard to refute as a cause. It at least can be claimed as inclusive, which is more than can be said for “morality” as a popular message in one of the world’s most liberal countries.
Yet, despite the efforts of Iain Duncan-Smith, I cannot help concluding that the Conservatives have lost the agenda with respect to social mobility. The party of the grammar school leaders (Heath, Thatcher, Major, Hague, Duncan-Smith, Howard), is now the party of the Eton boys. No less than 15 ministers went to that one school, which led even the Sunday Times to regret the fact “David Cameron has more Etonians around him than any leader since Macmillan”. Unfortunately, my audience also reflected this: I was at a pretty posh gathering with the odd “wide boy” millionaire being tolerated (presumably because of his donation). As activists, this lot were going to have difficulties turning a message of social mobility into votes.
Indeed, most of the entrepreneurs I meet are a long way from supporting the Conservatives (or at least admitting it) because they perceive a party of big business, landed interests and privately-educated privilege – the very elements of society most of them had to overcome for their business to prosper. Small businessmen are the bulwarks of the private sector. They are the very elements producing a net benefit to the UK’s economy – as are ambitious people generally. Yet the ones I meet seem to dislike the very party that is supposed to represent them. This is a disaster for the Tories and yet I see no attempt at trying to address this with respect to their core messages.
These days, the Conservatives advocating social mobility feels like a brewery advocating temperance. And this is a calamity for the Conservative Party in terms of its electoral chances (especially if the country adopts AV). It is also pretty bad news for the country. In fact, this state-educated Essex Boy so despaired of what he was witnessing he would have walked out had he not been required to escort his mother-in-law to Charing Cross Station after the event (which ended early anyway because the panellists all had other engagements, no doubt with their chums within the Political Class).
Yet the low point was to come. Archie Norman (another panellist: the former Tory Chief Executive – now Chairman of ITV) talked of the social mobility aspects of the X-Factor. This made me boil with anger – the previously inherent social mobility of the UK has been so eroded that the best the party of "getting on" could muster was some pathetic reality-TV programme that invites desperados to make total tits of themselves in their squalid attempt to be given the same life chances as the posh kids. Given me a break! Please remember Archie, of the thousands queuing at the auditions one kid makes it into your Magic Kingdom (and is spared the life of the Newcastle council estate) – one! If that’s what counts for social mobility in the UK of today, then we really are in trouble.
In fact, I came away deeply concerned. This was a political movement that had lost touch with what it stood for. Even from the panellists (including Tim Montgomerie, the articulate founder of ConservativeHome.com), I found no popular message worth propagating. And I don’t mean that as a disagreement. I mean that as a PR man who spends his day delivering “key messages” to “target audiences”.
To illustrate the problem, let me first state the core Labour Party message as I see it: social justice. Ask any Labour Party activist what motivates them and it will not be long before these two words fall from their lips. It is clear, it has meaning and it is a strong positive message that’s hard to refute: to not agree with social justice is to, presumably, support social injustice – so non-believers are immediately on the defensive. That’s a powerful message.
Yet I listened in vain for equivalent clarity with the Conservatives. Going by the discussion, here’s what this unselective grassroots Conservative gathering (and their “political class” panellists) think about their messages.
1) That “Conservative values” are nothing to be ashamed of (yes, but what are they?) and should be more robustly stated.
2) That the Big Society has no meaning and is a sop to the left (which they were potentially confusing with the majority of voters).
3) That there are too many people on welfare.
That's it (and I’m being generous). The rest of the debate was about the inherent pro-state (and therefore anti-Tory) bias of the BBC (I would agree to claims of it being anti-business) and the fact the CBI (that hugely popular mass movement!) should do more for small business, or maybe not.
The one word I wrote down in the entire “debate” – because it was the only statement delivered with clarity (by Montgomerie) – was “morality”. That here was the Party of Morality, he claimed. This went down well with the audience, but the trouble is, as a message, it is fraught with danger: one person’s morality is another person’s condemnation. Morality can be viewed as a form of judgement upon others that can quickly look and sound (and act) like intolerance. And wasn’t being seen as the “Nasty Party” one of the core problems with the Conservatives’ brand (at least according to Theresa May)?
So what’s all this got to do with fear of failure? Well, apart from the fact fear of failure stopped me from standing up and berating the lot of them for their appalling lack of vision, it’s the fact that my book, What’s Stopping You? is about coping and overcoming barriers to personal progress. It is about “achievement motivation” – the opposite to fear of failure and a goal for High-FFs (those with a high fear of failure). Yet Britain as a society puts up needless and destructive barriers to personal progress. Sometimes these are through prejudicial hurdles such as class, gender and race (although in my view class is the most pernicious as it cuts across gender and racial divisions) – but sometimes through structural ones such as our lowest-common denominator education system and our overly-complicated benefits arrangements that trap people in their current, often destructive, circumstances.
So why isn’t the Tory message one of "social mobility" – encouraging people to take control of their lives and improve their circumstances, not through government handouts but through their own determination and productivity? Certainly, there are some in the Tory party that state this – and some policies that encourage it – but as a unifying message it seems to get lost. And it also seems to be diluted by the obvious air of privilege that permeates the party, as it did the gathering I attended.
As a riposte to the “social justice” message of the left “social mobility” has the same degree of clarity, and is equally hard to refute as a cause. It at least can be claimed as inclusive, which is more than can be said for “morality” as a popular message in one of the world’s most liberal countries.
Yet, despite the efforts of Iain Duncan-Smith, I cannot help concluding that the Conservatives have lost the agenda with respect to social mobility. The party of the grammar school leaders (Heath, Thatcher, Major, Hague, Duncan-Smith, Howard), is now the party of the Eton boys. No less than 15 ministers went to that one school, which led even the Sunday Times to regret the fact “David Cameron has more Etonians around him than any leader since Macmillan”. Unfortunately, my audience also reflected this: I was at a pretty posh gathering with the odd “wide boy” millionaire being tolerated (presumably because of his donation). As activists, this lot were going to have difficulties turning a message of social mobility into votes.
Indeed, most of the entrepreneurs I meet are a long way from supporting the Conservatives (or at least admitting it) because they perceive a party of big business, landed interests and privately-educated privilege – the very elements of society most of them had to overcome for their business to prosper. Small businessmen are the bulwarks of the private sector. They are the very elements producing a net benefit to the UK’s economy – as are ambitious people generally. Yet the ones I meet seem to dislike the very party that is supposed to represent them. This is a disaster for the Tories and yet I see no attempt at trying to address this with respect to their core messages.
These days, the Conservatives advocating social mobility feels like a brewery advocating temperance. And this is a calamity for the Conservative Party in terms of its electoral chances (especially if the country adopts AV). It is also pretty bad news for the country. In fact, this state-educated Essex Boy so despaired of what he was witnessing he would have walked out had he not been required to escort his mother-in-law to Charing Cross Station after the event (which ended early anyway because the panellists all had other engagements, no doubt with their chums within the Political Class).
Yet the low point was to come. Archie Norman (another panellist: the former Tory Chief Executive – now Chairman of ITV) talked of the social mobility aspects of the X-Factor. This made me boil with anger – the previously inherent social mobility of the UK has been so eroded that the best the party of "getting on" could muster was some pathetic reality-TV programme that invites desperados to make total tits of themselves in their squalid attempt to be given the same life chances as the posh kids. Given me a break! Please remember Archie, of the thousands queuing at the auditions one kid makes it into your Magic Kingdom (and is spared the life of the Newcastle council estate) – one! If that’s what counts for social mobility in the UK of today, then we really are in trouble.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
....and where spending is essential
Blogging last week, I wrote about bootstrapping and where start-up companies should scrimp. I was making the point that the costs of starting a business are far less than many assume and much of the propaganda (trying to warn off the dreamers perhaps) states.
Yet there are also things not to scrimp on. Bootstrapping doesn’t mean “winging it” or cutting corners on vital requirements. Start-up businesses are also vulnerable businesses, and too many are exposed – perhaps to larger rivals or even the overly punitive employment laws.
Bootstrappers should know where to save money, of course. But they should also know where to spend it. Hopefully, some helpful suggestions below:
Accountants. A good accountant will save any small business a great deal of money. Tax, like death, is an inevitable feature of life but any entity should only ever pay its legal minimum. We should let the inefficient entities subsidise the efficient ones by investing in a decent accountant that can navigate the Byzantine world of any country’s tax structure. Moorgate’s accountant charges around 0.5 percent of the company’s turnover, and saves it around 5 percent (not just from tax efficiency). That’s a pretty good ratio in my opinion.
Compliance. Insurance, health & safety, anti-discrimination legislation, benefits etc etc. Like taxes, regulations are inevitable and seem to grow year-on-year (perhaps because politicians need to justify their existence). As with our financial phobia, compliance is also a classic area for those with fear of failure to neglect – leaving us potentially exposed, or – more likely – deterred from starting our own business. The solution is to treat it like a project – setting time aside to get to grips with the issues. Either that or we should hire someone to do it for us. Some small business accountants (including mine) can also act as outsourcing compliance officers, making sure the regulatory burden is met.
Presentations. These are the modern shop window for most companies – especially service providers – and it’s worth investing in pitch presentations that compete with the big boys in terms of image and message.
In Life’s a Pitch (2007), design and advertising consultants Stephen Bayley and Roger Mavity point out that the pitch is when you are asking someone to judge your future, which makes pitch documents worth investing in.
“The pitch moment, those crucial moments which give the opportunity for big change, all have one thing in common,” write Bayley and Mavity. “You are trying to get someone else to do what you want them to do – to hire you, to sleep with you, to lend you a million pounds to start your business…A pitch does not take place in the library of the mind, it takes place in the theatre of the heart.”
Or as Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) said just before pitching Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas) in the all-time business classic Wall Street (1987): “If life all comes down to a few moments. This is one of them.”
So make it a good one. There are 100s of freelance designers out there, many willing to work cheaply to build up their portfolios. Find one and use them to produce a tip-top presentation, although make sure it is a template that can be self-updated as freelance designers tend to have disappeared by the time they are next needed.
Same goes for branding – ask the freelancer to come up with a decent logo. Anything we do ourselves will be awful, no matter how good we think it is.
Get on the plane/train. It may seem obvious that clients/customers are impossible to win without first meeting them but this is an area where many bootstrapping entrepreneurs fall down. Interest from a client in another city or country will never be firmed up by email or phone. It requires a meeting, and that requires us to make the effort to see that person at their place of work, no matter where it is. So get on the plane and visit prospective clients, although always travel cattle-class. And if an overnight is unavoidable, source other potential meetings in the same city.
Sales. Never ever let go of sales and never scrimp on the sales effort – lunches, visits, presentations, whatever. And that usually means that the role of head salesperson remains with us, the company’s founder and owner. I'm often approached by “pearlfinder” type organisations on a regular basis that promise to set me up with meetings with prospective clients. I always make the same statement – I’ve researched my potential client base down to the 50 or so accounts I must have. With this done, I just keep banging on their door until I’m let in. The individuals may change, I may get passed from office to office, but that’s fine – the more people that know me inside the building the better. But I never delegate that role or buy in sales on a commission. Selling is my job.
Legals. Lawyers, like politicians, seem to like making work for themselves. And who can blame them given what they can charge? However, they are also a necessary evil and – at times – cannot be avoided. I learnt my lesson after having a PR agency attempt to poach a team-member despite them signing my self-written non-disclosure agreement that included a clause about not coming after my staff. Assuming I had a case for compensation, I went to a lawyer who said it was not worth the paper it was written on (and kindly didn’t charge me for the advice). Anything someone has to sign should, therefore, be seen by a lawyer (at least in template). That includes NDAs, contracts, staff dispute resolutions, confidentiality memos – the lot.
As a High-FF (someone with a high fear of failure), I absolutely hate handing money over to a lawyer. It feels like booking a yacht on the same basis as a metered taxi except I cannot see the meter. The answer? Like finding a good dentist, find a lawyer you like and stick with them – building up a relationship. And always ask for a quote beforehand – every time (by email at least). At that point they are bidding for the work, so they’ll pitch it lower than after you’ve engaged them. And I complain like hell if I feel stung. Lawyers hate complaints, which means they usually collapse when challenged on their charges (and they are some of life’s most accomplished horse traders, so don't be too afraid to ask).
Until he retired, I used a country solicitor from the Midlands – a friend of the father of my ex-girlfriend. He was an Aston Villa season ticket holder and we bonded over some great football chats at my not-quite-father-in-law’s rugby club. He was also as good as any London lawyer, far more trustworthy and a fraction of the price.
People. Moorgate’s juniors start on a better rate than the competition and have their salary raised more often. This means I get good employees that can absorb heaps of responsibility. Of course, we struggle to compete at the higher level so offer equity for long service. And that's genuine equity - not a smoke-and-mirrors profit share scheme that so many equity option-schemes turn out to be on closer inspection. So we may not have a Christmas trip to Paris or a bar on the roof for after work drinks, but employees are paid a good rate, move along faster, do more meaningful work and become a part-owner of the company – so who cares about the tired office block and scuffed desks?
Yet there are also things not to scrimp on. Bootstrapping doesn’t mean “winging it” or cutting corners on vital requirements. Start-up businesses are also vulnerable businesses, and too many are exposed – perhaps to larger rivals or even the overly punitive employment laws.
Bootstrappers should know where to save money, of course. But they should also know where to spend it. Hopefully, some helpful suggestions below:
Accountants. A good accountant will save any small business a great deal of money. Tax, like death, is an inevitable feature of life but any entity should only ever pay its legal minimum. We should let the inefficient entities subsidise the efficient ones by investing in a decent accountant that can navigate the Byzantine world of any country’s tax structure. Moorgate’s accountant charges around 0.5 percent of the company’s turnover, and saves it around 5 percent (not just from tax efficiency). That’s a pretty good ratio in my opinion.
Compliance. Insurance, health & safety, anti-discrimination legislation, benefits etc etc. Like taxes, regulations are inevitable and seem to grow year-on-year (perhaps because politicians need to justify their existence). As with our financial phobia, compliance is also a classic area for those with fear of failure to neglect – leaving us potentially exposed, or – more likely – deterred from starting our own business. The solution is to treat it like a project – setting time aside to get to grips with the issues. Either that or we should hire someone to do it for us. Some small business accountants (including mine) can also act as outsourcing compliance officers, making sure the regulatory burden is met.
Presentations. These are the modern shop window for most companies – especially service providers – and it’s worth investing in pitch presentations that compete with the big boys in terms of image and message.
In Life’s a Pitch (2007), design and advertising consultants Stephen Bayley and Roger Mavity point out that the pitch is when you are asking someone to judge your future, which makes pitch documents worth investing in.
“The pitch moment, those crucial moments which give the opportunity for big change, all have one thing in common,” write Bayley and Mavity. “You are trying to get someone else to do what you want them to do – to hire you, to sleep with you, to lend you a million pounds to start your business…A pitch does not take place in the library of the mind, it takes place in the theatre of the heart.”
Or as Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) said just before pitching Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas) in the all-time business classic Wall Street (1987): “If life all comes down to a few moments. This is one of them.”
So make it a good one. There are 100s of freelance designers out there, many willing to work cheaply to build up their portfolios. Find one and use them to produce a tip-top presentation, although make sure it is a template that can be self-updated as freelance designers tend to have disappeared by the time they are next needed.
Same goes for branding – ask the freelancer to come up with a decent logo. Anything we do ourselves will be awful, no matter how good we think it is.
Get on the plane/train. It may seem obvious that clients/customers are impossible to win without first meeting them but this is an area where many bootstrapping entrepreneurs fall down. Interest from a client in another city or country will never be firmed up by email or phone. It requires a meeting, and that requires us to make the effort to see that person at their place of work, no matter where it is. So get on the plane and visit prospective clients, although always travel cattle-class. And if an overnight is unavoidable, source other potential meetings in the same city.
Sales. Never ever let go of sales and never scrimp on the sales effort – lunches, visits, presentations, whatever. And that usually means that the role of head salesperson remains with us, the company’s founder and owner. I'm often approached by “pearlfinder” type organisations on a regular basis that promise to set me up with meetings with prospective clients. I always make the same statement – I’ve researched my potential client base down to the 50 or so accounts I must have. With this done, I just keep banging on their door until I’m let in. The individuals may change, I may get passed from office to office, but that’s fine – the more people that know me inside the building the better. But I never delegate that role or buy in sales on a commission. Selling is my job.
Legals. Lawyers, like politicians, seem to like making work for themselves. And who can blame them given what they can charge? However, they are also a necessary evil and – at times – cannot be avoided. I learnt my lesson after having a PR agency attempt to poach a team-member despite them signing my self-written non-disclosure agreement that included a clause about not coming after my staff. Assuming I had a case for compensation, I went to a lawyer who said it was not worth the paper it was written on (and kindly didn’t charge me for the advice). Anything someone has to sign should, therefore, be seen by a lawyer (at least in template). That includes NDAs, contracts, staff dispute resolutions, confidentiality memos – the lot.
As a High-FF (someone with a high fear of failure), I absolutely hate handing money over to a lawyer. It feels like booking a yacht on the same basis as a metered taxi except I cannot see the meter. The answer? Like finding a good dentist, find a lawyer you like and stick with them – building up a relationship. And always ask for a quote beforehand – every time (by email at least). At that point they are bidding for the work, so they’ll pitch it lower than after you’ve engaged them. And I complain like hell if I feel stung. Lawyers hate complaints, which means they usually collapse when challenged on their charges (and they are some of life’s most accomplished horse traders, so don't be too afraid to ask).
Until he retired, I used a country solicitor from the Midlands – a friend of the father of my ex-girlfriend. He was an Aston Villa season ticket holder and we bonded over some great football chats at my not-quite-father-in-law’s rugby club. He was also as good as any London lawyer, far more trustworthy and a fraction of the price.
People. Moorgate’s juniors start on a better rate than the competition and have their salary raised more often. This means I get good employees that can absorb heaps of responsibility. Of course, we struggle to compete at the higher level so offer equity for long service. And that's genuine equity - not a smoke-and-mirrors profit share scheme that so many equity option-schemes turn out to be on closer inspection. So we may not have a Christmas trip to Paris or a bar on the roof for after work drinks, but employees are paid a good rate, move along faster, do more meaningful work and become a part-owner of the company – so who cares about the tired office block and scuffed desks?
Sunday, February 20, 2011
How NOT to spend it
I’ve been writing a lot about bootstrapping lately – my favourite entrepreneurial word. Partly this has been in the context of the funding required for a start-up business, which is far less than many people assume. Much of the propaganda states that start-up companies must be well-funded. Yet this is not my experience. Most of the successful start-ups I know started small and stayed within their means for the first few years of operation. Meanwhile, many of the swanky companies that strutted around showing off their venture capital (VC) “round” of funding were in reality driving at break-neck speed towards a brick wall.
In his book Start Small, Finish Big (2000) Subway sandwich-chain founder Fred DeLuca (written with John P. Hayes) describes how he started with less than $1,000 worth of investment and bootstrapped his way to a fortune, citing Kinko’s founder Paul Orfalea as another example.
“Start small,” he implores, “it is better than never starting at all.”
By starting small, he states, we learn what to do and what not to do.
“Just because it is small doesn’t mean the business can’t grow,” he writes. “And while it is small you will have the time to learn the lessons that are essential to your future success.”
This is reinforced by two U.S. entrepreneurs Anthony Iaquinto and Stephen Spinelli Jr in Never Bet the Farm (2006). Indeed, starting with a shoestring operation is their ninth principle (of 15) for entrepreneurs.
Modest beginnings cushion your business against financial losses, they state, while the need to be efficient with money can spark creativity. And, if costs are kept low start-up companies can charge less for their products, meaning they can undercut the competition.
“Never reach for a gallon when you only need a quart,” is their pithy way of describing bootstrapping, although I would add some more practical measures:
Offices – the quickest way for any company to go bankrupt is to take high-spec office space that suits the inflated ego of the CEO rather than the cashflow of the company. If the office is a showroom for clients, this may – perhaps – be acceptable (although why not be clever and renovate a quirky space in the wrong area?). If not, a short-lease in a tired building in the secondary business district is an imperative, especially since there are no longer any IT barriers. Of all the business failings I’ve seen, the most common cause has been the inability to pay the landlord. If a flash office is a must (for meeting clients perhaps), you could always find the company with the office you most covet and approach them for a sublet on a desk-rate basis. My guess is at least one in four will agree.
Furniture – one rule of any central business district is that there is more office furniture in circulation than there are offices to put it in. If a bit of mixing and matching is acceptable, I reckon an office can be furnished virtually for free – something we managed at Moorgate because the landlord had a storeroom full of furniture from a previously bankrupted tenant (nice stuff it was too – no doubt from a company that had burnt through its VC money).
Computers and other equipment – again, don’t buy the best. Our printers are from eBay and our computers collected from a variety of unlikely places (though swept for bugs and backed-up nightly). They do the job and are unseen under the desk, so – unless you absolutely need high-spec computers – just buy the minimum needed only when needed.
Transport and travel – take the tube or the bus. Never take taxis – they were for when the old company footed the bill. As for air travel – I used to envy the guys at the front of the plane. Now I see it as their compensation for having to work for some soulless organisation that’ll make them redundant in a heartbeat.
Entertainment – don’t throw big parties. They are impersonal and wasteful and you’ll never compete with the big boys. Targeted one-on-ones are far more effective, or maybe some (very) judicious mixing. And instead of a headline-grabbing restaurant why not source an intimate family-run bistro (maybe outside the central business district) and make it your own. If you go often enough the owner will greet you like an old friend, which will act as an informal business reference to boot. Bonding events for staff can be treated in the same vein – even the end-of-year gig. Again, fantastic Christmas parties are for the corporates offering compensation for a yearlong endurance of a soulless organisation, although young employees may value them nonetheless. Instead, I buy the team individual gifts, usually a nice book tailored to the preferences they have shown throughout the year. And the family-run pub host our very atmospheric and festive gig.
Recruitment agencies – use only as a last resort. With both Metrocube and Moorgate I have been almost constantly recruiting with about a 50 percent success rate over all (i.e. keeping an employee to the point they are promoted). Yet I have noticed that staff sourced from recruitment agencies are no better – though sometimes better qualified – than those I have sourced from free or cheaper options such as the gumtree.com or Craigslist. We have also learnt to be clever – online university careers boards are a great option, and we offer incentive schemes for staff introductions. Anything is better than the dreaded 20 percent of annual salary agency fee for a candidate that had, usually, done no more than put their CV on monster.co.uk, or had simply answered the agency’s advert on gumtree.com.
Club memberships – avoid. Especially in London (though I suspect other cities are no different), the noughties saw a proliferation of private members clubs for PLUs and wannabe PLUs. Yet unless our potential clientele consists of Shoreditch Twats (or their equivalent in other cities) or trainee or junior architects and graphic designers you are simply wasting your money. If you need such clubs to impress clients they are nearly all desperate enough to rent rooms by the hour (and those that are not are probably too trendy to make a good impression on a client).
Otherwise, such clubs will suggest to a client that you are either trying too hard or are perhaps too keen on your social life. Many even have a no suits rule, which is hardly the way to make your clients feel comfortable. Instead, why not be imaginative and meet contacts at an art gallery or museum café – some, such as the Tate Modern in London, even have membership areas for a fraction of the price of those up-themselves hangouts?
I would also extend this rule to those overly-flash gyms. Certainly, my gym membership is a vital part of my existence – my bolt-hole when the stress is getting to me, as well as my daily sanctuary allowing me to think and reflect and produce enough endorphins to get me through the day. Yet it’s in the same building as our office and, given the tired building, is also a somewhat tired gym, which I love. The monthly fee is less than half that of the flash gyms in the same area and has all the equipment I need. It also has friendlier staff – not least because they leave me alone.
In his book Start Small, Finish Big (2000) Subway sandwich-chain founder Fred DeLuca (written with John P. Hayes) describes how he started with less than $1,000 worth of investment and bootstrapped his way to a fortune, citing Kinko’s founder Paul Orfalea as another example.
“Start small,” he implores, “it is better than never starting at all.”
By starting small, he states, we learn what to do and what not to do.
“Just because it is small doesn’t mean the business can’t grow,” he writes. “And while it is small you will have the time to learn the lessons that are essential to your future success.”
This is reinforced by two U.S. entrepreneurs Anthony Iaquinto and Stephen Spinelli Jr in Never Bet the Farm (2006). Indeed, starting with a shoestring operation is their ninth principle (of 15) for entrepreneurs.
Modest beginnings cushion your business against financial losses, they state, while the need to be efficient with money can spark creativity. And, if costs are kept low start-up companies can charge less for their products, meaning they can undercut the competition.
“Never reach for a gallon when you only need a quart,” is their pithy way of describing bootstrapping, although I would add some more practical measures:
Offices – the quickest way for any company to go bankrupt is to take high-spec office space that suits the inflated ego of the CEO rather than the cashflow of the company. If the office is a showroom for clients, this may – perhaps – be acceptable (although why not be clever and renovate a quirky space in the wrong area?). If not, a short-lease in a tired building in the secondary business district is an imperative, especially since there are no longer any IT barriers. Of all the business failings I’ve seen, the most common cause has been the inability to pay the landlord. If a flash office is a must (for meeting clients perhaps), you could always find the company with the office you most covet and approach them for a sublet on a desk-rate basis. My guess is at least one in four will agree.
Furniture – one rule of any central business district is that there is more office furniture in circulation than there are offices to put it in. If a bit of mixing and matching is acceptable, I reckon an office can be furnished virtually for free – something we managed at Moorgate because the landlord had a storeroom full of furniture from a previously bankrupted tenant (nice stuff it was too – no doubt from a company that had burnt through its VC money).
Computers and other equipment – again, don’t buy the best. Our printers are from eBay and our computers collected from a variety of unlikely places (though swept for bugs and backed-up nightly). They do the job and are unseen under the desk, so – unless you absolutely need high-spec computers – just buy the minimum needed only when needed.
Transport and travel – take the tube or the bus. Never take taxis – they were for when the old company footed the bill. As for air travel – I used to envy the guys at the front of the plane. Now I see it as their compensation for having to work for some soulless organisation that’ll make them redundant in a heartbeat.
Entertainment – don’t throw big parties. They are impersonal and wasteful and you’ll never compete with the big boys. Targeted one-on-ones are far more effective, or maybe some (very) judicious mixing. And instead of a headline-grabbing restaurant why not source an intimate family-run bistro (maybe outside the central business district) and make it your own. If you go often enough the owner will greet you like an old friend, which will act as an informal business reference to boot. Bonding events for staff can be treated in the same vein – even the end-of-year gig. Again, fantastic Christmas parties are for the corporates offering compensation for a yearlong endurance of a soulless organisation, although young employees may value them nonetheless. Instead, I buy the team individual gifts, usually a nice book tailored to the preferences they have shown throughout the year. And the family-run pub host our very atmospheric and festive gig.
Recruitment agencies – use only as a last resort. With both Metrocube and Moorgate I have been almost constantly recruiting with about a 50 percent success rate over all (i.e. keeping an employee to the point they are promoted). Yet I have noticed that staff sourced from recruitment agencies are no better – though sometimes better qualified – than those I have sourced from free or cheaper options such as the gumtree.com or Craigslist. We have also learnt to be clever – online university careers boards are a great option, and we offer incentive schemes for staff introductions. Anything is better than the dreaded 20 percent of annual salary agency fee for a candidate that had, usually, done no more than put their CV on monster.co.uk, or had simply answered the agency’s advert on gumtree.com.
Club memberships – avoid. Especially in London (though I suspect other cities are no different), the noughties saw a proliferation of private members clubs for PLUs and wannabe PLUs. Yet unless our potential clientele consists of Shoreditch Twats (or their equivalent in other cities) or trainee or junior architects and graphic designers you are simply wasting your money. If you need such clubs to impress clients they are nearly all desperate enough to rent rooms by the hour (and those that are not are probably too trendy to make a good impression on a client).
Otherwise, such clubs will suggest to a client that you are either trying too hard or are perhaps too keen on your social life. Many even have a no suits rule, which is hardly the way to make your clients feel comfortable. Instead, why not be imaginative and meet contacts at an art gallery or museum café – some, such as the Tate Modern in London, even have membership areas for a fraction of the price of those up-themselves hangouts?
I would also extend this rule to those overly-flash gyms. Certainly, my gym membership is a vital part of my existence – my bolt-hole when the stress is getting to me, as well as my daily sanctuary allowing me to think and reflect and produce enough endorphins to get me through the day. Yet it’s in the same building as our office and, given the tired building, is also a somewhat tired gym, which I love. The monthly fee is less than half that of the flash gyms in the same area and has all the equipment I need. It also has friendlier staff – not least because they leave me alone.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Before you die: get a life
Currently reading Help! Oliver Burkeman’s wonderfully-engaging book on the self-help and psychology world, based on his regular column in The Guardian. There’s plenty in it, so I doubt this will be my last sampling, yet one recently-read passage has already caused me to nod in agreement: on those “things to see/do before you die” books.
My objection to these books isn’t their content, which is little more than a ranking of places, cities, films, books, hotels etc: vertical guide books, if you like. It’s the notion that we must see and do certain things to have lived the required “good life”. Such lists discourage us from pursuing a good life, defined by our own values and desires and standards. This is shallow in the extreme: life as a “seen that, done this” box-ticking experience that will surely leave us in despair – there being a near-endless supply of boxes to tick in order to prevent feelings of inadequacy.
Burkeman, meanwhile, is surprised by the phrase “before you die” – finding it a strange concept to embrace in a culture “so intent on avoiding thinking about death”. Instead, he recommends the Russ Harris approach. In The Happiness Trap the psychologist sought perspective in the pursuit of the good life by suggesting that we transport ourselves to our 80th birthday and ask ourselves two specific questions.
1) “I spent too much time worrying about….”
2) “I spent too little time doing things such as….”
As an exercise this is not dissimilar to the goal-setting recommendations of many self-help gurus who ask us to imagine our own funeral in order that we can judge whether we took the right path prior to our arrival at this final destination. That said, the guru’s exercises also cause me to react. Again, they subject us to what others think of our life, rather than encouraging us to properly evaluate what we want (our funerals inevitably being judged by the number and quality of attendees and by the speeches given on our behalf). Hence Harris’s questions being a refreshing alternative to both the “before you die” fashionable-life fascism and the “live a good life” (according to others) fashionable-funeral fascism.
This still leaves us with the dilemma of answering Harris’s questions, however. Here’s my go (done in 10 minutes over an early-morning coffee):
1) I spent too much time worrying about....
....trying to become somebody I wasn’t.
....other people’s principles rather than my own.
....being liked by shallow people.
....what I must see before I die.
2) I spent too little time doing things such as....
....following my own path.
....enjoying the moment.
....enjoying my own family.
....telling fashionable thinkers where to get off.
That said, I’m guessing my funeral might not be the event of the century.
My objection to these books isn’t their content, which is little more than a ranking of places, cities, films, books, hotels etc: vertical guide books, if you like. It’s the notion that we must see and do certain things to have lived the required “good life”. Such lists discourage us from pursuing a good life, defined by our own values and desires and standards. This is shallow in the extreme: life as a “seen that, done this” box-ticking experience that will surely leave us in despair – there being a near-endless supply of boxes to tick in order to prevent feelings of inadequacy.
Burkeman, meanwhile, is surprised by the phrase “before you die” – finding it a strange concept to embrace in a culture “so intent on avoiding thinking about death”. Instead, he recommends the Russ Harris approach. In The Happiness Trap the psychologist sought perspective in the pursuit of the good life by suggesting that we transport ourselves to our 80th birthday and ask ourselves two specific questions.
1) “I spent too much time worrying about….”
2) “I spent too little time doing things such as….”
As an exercise this is not dissimilar to the goal-setting recommendations of many self-help gurus who ask us to imagine our own funeral in order that we can judge whether we took the right path prior to our arrival at this final destination. That said, the guru’s exercises also cause me to react. Again, they subject us to what others think of our life, rather than encouraging us to properly evaluate what we want (our funerals inevitably being judged by the number and quality of attendees and by the speeches given on our behalf). Hence Harris’s questions being a refreshing alternative to both the “before you die” fashionable-life fascism and the “live a good life” (according to others) fashionable-funeral fascism.
This still leaves us with the dilemma of answering Harris’s questions, however. Here’s my go (done in 10 minutes over an early-morning coffee):
1) I spent too much time worrying about....
....trying to become somebody I wasn’t.
....other people’s principles rather than my own.
....being liked by shallow people.
....what I must see before I die.
2) I spent too little time doing things such as....
....following my own path.
....enjoying the moment.
....enjoying my own family.
....telling fashionable thinkers where to get off.
That said, I’m guessing my funeral might not be the event of the century.
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