This week I had the pleasure of being involved with the signing of our first Indian retail real estate business which will be located in Delhi, India.  The signing ceremony was attended by the Chairman of our company together with our Financial Controller and the two parties from India.  As we sat down and talked about the final stages of the Agreement, we were about to sign and the Indian parties said “we just need to hold for a moment”.  They went to the corner of the room and had a short discussion then they came back and we all proceeded to sign the documents. 

We then exchanged the documents, and I then went to shake hands but immediately the senior person from the Indian delegation got up, came around to my side of the table and gave me a hug but held on for longer than I expected.  He then went around the table and did this with each person in attendance from our side.  I suddenly learnt that expressions of gratitude are very much part of a cultural understanding and while the agreement will remain as part of confirmation that we have a relationship, the gesture to bring his culture to ours seemed to give the agreement and the relationship so much more.   The way we do things is to shake hands – I wonder what that would have meant to them?

I ask him later why did he have a short discussion before he signed – he said to ensure the order of gratitude.

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What is the ideal balance between Speed and Perfection? The pressure is on more and more in regards to the need for speed.  In the day and age of transportable information the use of speed should be something that benefits us all.  Has it increased or decreased our productivity? 

Currently I am working on implementing changes to our business because of new legislation that is coming into place over the next 4 weeks.  One of the documents is an Independent Contractors Agreement which will be used across our company for our sales team.  I am working with a legal person who I expect to ensure that this document is perfect (in the sense of the word being able to protect us), but I am also working to a timeline, and it brings forward the question of the need for speed but also for perfection. 

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I am about to board a plane to Queenstown and although I do not think about it much I am going to be putting my life in the hands of one company, one plane, and hopefully two pilots.  The reason why I don’t think about much is because 99.99% of flights land safely in a track record that is unrivaled by any other industry.

On a daily basis worldwide there are 68,000 flights through different companies, flying different planes with different pilots and different passengers but with Read the rest of this entry »

When will you ever have more time than you do right now?

When we talk about resources for leaders in economic terms three usually come to mind:  labour, capital and land.  There is a fourth resource that may be considered for an individual to be far more important – that of  TIME.  

Time management experts have developed a model which helps prioritise leadership activities and to make the use of time more effective.  This is broken up into the areas of Important and Non-Important, Urgent and Non-Urgent.   On the left hand side of the quadrant graph is the area that effective leaders spend their time.  The area on the right hand side of the graph is potentially the leader who is run by crisis management.  Lets take a closer look at the left hand side of the graph:

Urgent and Important:  There activities are deadline driven, importance based on consistency, potentially demanding problems, response to a specialised area with the business.  This area of the quadrant should take up 40% of a given week.  These activities are generally prioritised first, however they can cause stress because they sit in a time sensitive zone.

Important, but Not Urgent:  There is no doubt that the best leaders spend the most amount of time in this area of their business.  It includes preparation and planning, execution of projects, crisis prevention, long term diary management, recruitment and skill improvement.  Whenever a leader in a business is undertaking these activities they can focus on the future successfully and begin to prioritise the direction of the business. 

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This week I have come into contact with two people who are going through the experience of committing to a business decision through the form of a contract, agreement  or handshake.  Which one has the greatest ability to be built on?

The first experience was of a friend who was looking at a franchised business opportunity that involved a significant financial committment but was a relatively new business model into the marketplace.  He met with the franchisor and was impressed with their desire and committment to the direction of the proposed business.  He took the step of a handshake to further his potential relationship with this opportunity.  From there he received a franchise contract which was Read the rest of this entry »