You can win a copy of “Taming Tigers” courtesy of the good people at Finance Week this week through a competition designed to stir debate around my article for them on TIME.

What is time?

Surely it is our most scarce resource. No overdraft available. No “alternative source” if it runs out.

No, that shouldn’t be a scary thought. It should be an exciting one! We don’t “manage/spend/waste” time. We invest it - it always brings a return of some kind, whatever we choose to do with it.

There is so much possibility out there, so much to enjoy, so many fascinating people to meet and engage with, so many stimulating projects and challenges to take on - both personal and professional. We can’t invest this precious resource in “same old same old”, surely?

I’ll let the article do the talking on the subject. Do leave a comment and they’ll enter you into the draw.

One question before I go, though. That one-off occasion called Wednesday 25th February 2009. What are you going to invest it in? What Tiger will you face down to clear poor investments from it in order to make something stunning happen - and what is the return that you will ensure you get from that investment?

Which day could be better than the 25th Feb for changing your world a little?

(You can visit the Finance Week article and competition here.)

Who should decide upon the leader’s direction? The leader, by definition.

Rule 6 - There is no safety in numbers. The second of the Leadership Rules in Taming Tigers.

Once upon a time, the trend was for leadership by principle and consideration of what the “right path” might be to achieve the grand vision. We voted for people we would trust to make the right call. Often they failed, for sure, but there was a direction and a “lead” provided to the country.

It then became apparent that if your plan was to “market” a party to the highest number of voters, rather than to risk “selling” your vision for the nation to those voters, then leadership by focus groups was a more effective strategy. Let the people tell you what they want to be sold, then sell that. The ideas may be ill-informed, but you’ll win. “Wikigovernment”. Not even Mrs Thatcher would have trusted “the market” in ideas to provide the direction.

In these desperate times, we see an even more philosophically barren level of “leadership by listening to popular opinion - (which has been conceived and gestated by the media pack and then in turn born into reality and reported as fact by the media) - and then responding because you need to be seen to respond”.

Yes, yes, I know it’s always been there - but not to this extent and now it’s getting dangerous - and also interesting learn from.

The government, a team of accomplished, professional vote-winners - is entrusted to run a number of businesses, UK plc being one such. Royal Bank of Scotland Group being another. You and I own shares in both of these - and we need both to flourish.

Now I run a business too and I am also employed by my business. I believe that (one element of) the right path is to reward effort and to reward achievement. If I fail to get that part right, my superstars may become your superstars and I don’t want that to happen. I’ll fight to stop it. Sorry.

Few people feel sympathy towards “fat cat bankers”. But that is not relevant to this post. Leadership and the quest for the right path is our puzzle here.

So in RBS Group there are, I am told, some very profitable divisions run by talented and dedicated people. Let us imagine that the foreign exchange dealing operation is making good money. This is good news for you and good news for me. We NEED to be behind RBS Group’s success, even if our media likes to sell doom to us and many like to consume it. It’s good for our economy and now it’s also good for the provision of government services like hospitals and schools. It’s good for our children’s rate of taxation and national debt.

Let us say that you are a forex dealer at RBS Group.

Let us say that you have lost your bonus for your hard, dedicated work and your achievements within a highly successful business unit and that you are in difficulty because your outgoings are calculated on the basis of your bonus being paid to reward you. Your family is in difficulty as a result. You want to end the difficulties, naturally.

Let us say that another bank, run by professional businesspeople wanting to impress shareholders and not professional vote-winners wanting to impress the media and “the people” is aware of your skills and gives you a call.

Let us say that this is happening today - at this moment - as you read this.

Let us say that you and I are losing our RBS stars to banks to which our children’s rates of personal taxation  are not inextricably linked.

Brains bigger than mine must decide if we need to regulate bounses (this must, of course, be a global regulation rather than UK or read the above suppositions again with the words “Wall Street” or “Frankfurt” inserted before the bank coming to lure away talent and acheivement - and the “global” part is impossible). That may or may not be the “right path”

But to act against one employer <em>in order to be seen to bow to “overwhelming public opinion”</em> is bad leadership. The Tiger is at work. The terror of doing the rational, commercially viable thing is trampled on by the need to please “the people”.

Rule 6. There is no safety in numbers. Sometimes we have to stand firm and do the right thing even when many people who are not responsible for the consequences - have nothing at stake other than pub talk and a column to fill - may criticise us. AP McCoy and Frankie Dettori know that truth and that risk when they take a bold, professional call to kick for home early on a horse against the safe, risk free alternative of running home with the field. That’s partly why they lead their game. It’s partly why it sometimes goes wrong, also.

The people running one of our biggest personal investments do not seem to know that. They are running with the media pack at the very time we need principle and consideration of what the right path may be to rule their actions.

Whether we are leaders of a family, a team, a business or a nation, we all face this same dilemma regularly. Who sets the leader’s direction? Once we have taken the advice, done the consulting, do we have the courage to make the best call we can in the face of criticism and stand by it?

Do we allow the children to feast daily on crisps, cola and satellite TV? Keep ‘em happy and get a new job before problems we created become apparent?

Or do we try to set the path we believe to be right?

Trust.

It’s a theme that I touched upon previously in an article for Finance Week. It’s a theme that was brought to the front of my mind by the stimulating BBC Radio 4 program “Bottom Line”, hosted by Evan Davis and broadcast yesterday, 7 February. You can listen to the show through the link above.

Assisting leaders to build the fragile emotional contract between leader and follower, in order to inspire performance and creativity or create change, is key to much of the work we do here at Taming Tigers.

The ability to build this fundamental relationship defines a leader and, in the age where we have to move from the industrial age (yes, lots of folk are stuck there still), through the information age (very 90’s?) and on to the “creative” or “ideas” or “purpose” age (the jury is out on nomenclature at present), it is likely, in turn, to define the pace and success of the organisation.

Trust is clearly at the heart of this - as of any - relationship. And it is a more complex process than the single element that I deal with in this post. As followers we are asked to trust on a number of levels. But are followers in an organisation repaid with being trusted even to order stationery in return? And can anybody truly trust somebody who is so terrified of trusting them?

It isn’t as complex as you may think to achieve a strong bond that creates the desire in people to perform and achieve for you. People are generally good and honest and want to excel and achieve. It does require most leaders to tame quite a few Tigers, however. Indeed, assisting leaders to take this leap of faith was the original reason for the creation of the Tiger and is its most common application in our leadership coaching and change work. We are in the area of willingness to take personal risks and to change behaviour. Only the best of leaders are up for that personal challenge.

Many leaders still see people as a P&L cost rather than as an asset on the balance sheet. The words, of course, say differently, but what about the actions? And, vital though words are, won’t you be building relationships with actions as well as words this Valentine’s day?

I’ll not pass any judgment or bias your thinking on the discussion on the show. But listen throughout for the differences in willingness of the leaders to trust those that they lead - listen closely to the vocabulary. Partly, you may argue, this is difference caused by the sectors in which they operate. But having watched great trust be built in certain British manufacturing companies - across crevasses previously bridgeable only through bristly union negotiation, I believe that stating that certain “types” of workers “cannot be trusted” will soon be as outdated and unacceptable as Ms. Thatcher’s description of a certain tennis player.

Then ask yourself what kind of leader you might be able to build and maintain a strong emotional contract with - whom you’d perform well for - who fits in the Ideas Economy and deserves you on their team.

Then, being Taming Tigers, it’s action time. Time to decide what your thoughts mean you should start to do. Address your own style of leadership? (it certainly had me doing some careful soul searching). Or is it time for a one-to-one to ask for more trust (give specifics of what you’d like to be trusted to get on with - and then be sure to deliver on your promises and justify the trust).

Over to you.

We’re well into the 21st Century. “Salesmen/women” exist in only small pockets now. Darwin’s laws in action.

Those who are still “selling” are in trouble. In 2009, they may die out. There is a new mindset. “Features, benefits and objection handling” are still in there - but they are buried deep and barely visible within a new framework. If these elements plus a few “closing techniques” plus some half remembered NLP “mindtricks” multiplied by the number of calls per week made make up a cornerstone of your strategy for claiming an increased share of a market with decreasing total spend - I wish you luck. You will surely need all you can get.

Instead?

Make friends, earn trust, solve problems. This does two things:

1 It makes “selling” a whole lot easier to deal with (and more fun and stimulating) for the person “selling” - It removes the Tiger for most people once you phrase it - and approach it - like this. And whether you are reading this with “HR Director”,”Head of Market Research” or “Events Organiser” on your card or whether you are in “sales” - you sell something and in this particular year you’d better deal with the Tiger and up your game. And we’re already nearly at the end of January (Rule 1 is currently paying big dividends to Tiger tamers in a tough market).

2 It increases your chances of making a successful “sale” to your internal or external clients.

Why? People want to deal with people they like and, critically, trust. Did you ever trust a “salesman”? Thought not. Me neither.

People buy things to solve their problems. Whether that problem is how to impress when they pull up at the office in their nice car or whether it is to get their accounts done with the minimum of time and effort or [insert your customers' problem here - and if you cannot, take a walk NOW and think it through] , they buy from you to solve it.

Find out that problem. Don’t assume. It’s subtler than that. Make friends with the person and demonstrate your ability to solve it for them. Act with integrity at every stage and demonstrate that you deserve their trust.

And care. Care beyond hitting the numbers. I know if you care because I have budget. I know if you care because you want to work with me to solve my problems. You know too. So do “they”. If you could fake it well enough that “they” couldn’t tell, you’d be in Hollywood.

And, of course, deliver.

Simple as that folks. Except, of course, it’s not. It’s a big shift in mindset and involves skills that may or may not be intuitive. If you want to ensure that you and your people are making friends and solving problems rather than selling, take a look at the Taming Tigers Learning course “Sell”.

Or ring up your current training partner and see if they want to solve your problem for you.

Every success out there!

Jim.

Rule 3 is “Head in the direction of where you want to arrive- every day”. Of course to do that, you need some inkling of where you want to arrive. It asks for a thought process. Reflection. Taking stock. A little time travel to the nursing home and back again to see if any tweaks are required.

But finding, or re-discovering, a sense of purpose is like charging the batteries. It brings energy and, fundamental to the Rules and how they work, allows you to tame Tigers. Why? Because you know why you are taming that Tiger! If the Tiger roars and there is no reason to do battle with it, the path of least resistance is an intelligent route to take. If the Tiger roars and you need to get past it to continue being the person you have decided to be, you can hear the roar as a mere whimper and use the Rules to get past it. And when you have purpose, you can put a plan in place to get there and you can do something to advance that plan every day.

I hope you enjoy the third of our videos. If you’d like to see all of the videos that we now have on the Rules, please visit the all new Taming Tigers website. Let the team and me know what you think of it. It’s there for you!

Over to you…

Jim

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Rule 2 -Re-write your Rulebook - Challenge it hourly!

I’ve had a number of my Rules challenged over the past few years and each challenge has led to a new step in my life or the life of my business. Challenging the Rulebook is the cornerstone of growth and development.

The “Rules” I am referring to, if you’ve not read Taming Tigers or been to a Taming Tigers Live Event, is the collection of assumptions (that seem so very real) that we make about ourselves, the world and how we can and cannot interact with the world that keeps us safe from harm. And safe from progress. It’s that thing that is being examined in every boardroom, sales team meeting, shared services team meeting and production line meeting across the world at present as we have to re-think and move from the status quo faster than ever in our history - or disappear. Of course some companies were examining it and challenging it a year ago as a matter of habit and good practice. They have a head start. As always.

Whether an individual’s Rules or a company’s collective Rules, they only exist in our heads. I had Rules in my head about who could become a jockey (and 35 year old, unfit, non-riding fat men like I was were not top of the list). Luckily my mentor Gee Armytage (see Rules 1 and 5 if you want to find a “Gee” of your own”) did not have those Rules so I was able to race. I had Rules about being Taming Tigers Group being unlikely able to find staff with certain skills and attitudes to take us forward. Luckily those around me did not share those Rules and we have hired the talent that we needed.

This week’s second video is about the challenging the Rulebook. Your Rulebook. Your family’s Rulebook. Your team’s Rulebook. Your boss’s Rulebook. Your children’s Rulebook, if they are losing confidence.

So MIND THE GAP between your Rulebook and the reality of what could be done. Of course, you may be most interested in challenging that Rule in the Rulebook that says who you are attractive enough to approach in the bar! But more of that in the video…

Enjoy!

Jim.

Over the month of January, there is a lot happening at Taming Tigers.

• we advertise the new Live Shows - 1 day seminars and a London theatre show - and the book with a radio campaign starting on 12 January
• the new Taming Tigers Website goes live on 12 January (you can buy tickets on there also)
• the new Taming Tigers Learning team are taking to the road to deliver the most cost effective - and inspiring - skills training on the marketplace

We are celebrating with a brand new collection of videos to remind you of the 10 Rules. Here is the first one.

Please feel free to forward this post on to any friends that you think would enjoy the film.

Act Boldly!

Jim.

(Due to huge demand we are keeping the free download of the book available on the site for now)

… for the new year. Take something on instead.

Write a chapter of your story in 2009 that you’ll be really proud of and really inspired to get on with creating.

Start it today or within 3 hours of arriving back at work. Try Rule 1 - “Time is limited, act boldy today!” Do something stimulating and different to get the 2009 chapter started and get face to face with the Tiger that you’ll be up against.

“Giving something up”, starts the year with a hardship. Sure, go ahead and quit smoking, cut down on the units, cut up the credit card, get those running shoes out - whatever you need to do. But do it as a way to achieve the big thing. Do it as an exciting step that you want to take on route to the thing that inspires you.

Not with me? Well how about climbing a mountain to raise money for your local children’s hospital - could the thought of all those happy faces make an exciting reason to give up the fags? And just think of the weight you’d lose in training…

Wishing you a great 2009,

Jim.

PS - If the profits of doom [sic] are spoiling your plans for 2009, please scroll down to the “Mind the Gap” post below and check this lone voice out from today’s UK Times newspaper. Nice thoughts for Travellers on these Winter’s Nights, eh?

There is only one topic that periodical editors are asking me to write on for them at present:

“How do we get the best from our people/motivate our people when we really need them on fire like never before?”

Various articles are being penned at present and you’ll see them go up as clippings on the press page at www.jimlawless.com. I thought I should give you Blog followers an advance version of some of the main points though. I hope you find them interesting, certainly, but I have to confess to an ulterior motive - I’d like to create a debate and to hear your thoughts also. Let’s get a conversation going here. We can carry it over to Taming Tigers Facebook page if we need a forum environment - but let’s kick it off on here and see what happens.

My starting point on this is clarity. Clarity on five points:

Clarity about what it is that the organisation is trying to achieve -”A clear and vivid Picture of success”

Clarity about what the strategy is to get there - “A clear Roadmap to success”

Clarity about what the individual can do and is expected to do to contribute - “My clear Role in achieving success”

Clarity about the rewards for success and the consequences of failure - “My clear Responsibility for delivering success”

Clarity within the leadership about the task of creating and maintaining clarity. Visibly. Daily. The Day Job! - “The leader must learn to conduct, not play - and then conduct the same tune - every day, with everyone - to achieve clarity about… (start song again from “Picture of success” and repeat for the foreseeable future… ).

And for my money, and not everybody is agreeing with me on this out there, there is a sixth. Clarity about the reality of the organisation’s position. They may as well know that it is now or never if it truly is now or never.

It’s only my starting point, as I say. I’ll share more detail if there’s an appetite and you’ll see it in the articles. But come on people - what’s missing here? What are YOU doing right now?

I’ll send a copy of Taming Tigers to the best addition or alternative approach.

Rule 5 - the tools for taming Tigers are all around you. Let’s work together.