The Apprentice, George Best, Sir Alf Ramsey and Belbin's Team Role Theory

The Apprentice

Do you watch The Apprentice? As it happens I don’t, but I know that a new series started on BBC1 last week (week commencing 13 October 2014). I know this because I read a very interesting review of the programme by Michael Deacon in the Daily Telegraph. You can read it here if you want. If you don’t want to read the whole thing I’ll give you the gist of what Deacon had to say. He suggested that some of the things said by the contestants are so absurd that they make David Brent sound moderate. Here’s a little nugget from Deacon’s article: 

“…a sample gem from Daniel Lassman, one of its (The Apprentice’s) contestants. “There’s no ‘i’ in ‘team’,” he advised the camera, exactly as Brent used to do. “But there are five in ‘individual brilliance’.”   

I can imagine how toe-curlingly, cringe-makingly embarrassing that might have been for you had you watched it. That was the thing about watching The Office; you’d start by thinking “what’s he (Brent) going to say”; then Brent opens his mouth and you start to think “oh God is he really going to say what I think he’s going to say”; and when he said it you just wanted to curl up and cringe. 

And yet as cringe-worthy as Daniel Lassman’s quote to the camera might have been; when I was his age (I’m guessing he’s in his twenties or thirties) I’d have agreed with what he said. I really used to think that the best teams were made up of individually brilliant people. But now I’m not so sure. I think I’m now inclined to the view that a great team may not necessarily contain the most outstanding individuals. 

George Best and Sir Alf Ramsey

Something very special happened on July 30 1966: England won the football world cup by beating West Germany by four goals to two. It’s been almost fifty years since that day and during that time the nation’s team has not managed to reach those soaring heights of footballing excellence again. 

Mention the names of any of those England players from 1966 to England football followers of a certain age and you are met with the wistful, glassy eyed look of one lost in fond nostalgic remembering. There was, however, one player who did not play that day. George Best was ineligible to play for the simple reason that he was from Northern Ireland.

In the opinion of many, Best is regarded as one of the most outrageously gifted individuals ever to grace a football field. When the Manchester United club scout, Bob Bishop, saw the teenage Best play for the first time, he told the United Manager, Matt Busby, that he thought he had found a genius: and he had. And yet it is highly debated whether Best would have been chosen to play for England even if he had been eligible.

Sir Alf Ramsey, the England manager at the time, firmly believed that you do not necessarily pick the best players available for your team; you pick the best team from the available players. This is all about achieving the right balance in your team. There may be better individual performers who will not perform as well in your team as less gifted individuals. Watch the following video from about 1:45 as Jack Charlton explains why Ramsey chose him to play for England.

Belbin’s Team Role Theory

When I first heard it said that Ramsey might not have chosen Best (had he been able to) I thought there were few sporting debates more ridiculous. However, as I have spent more time in management my views have changed. I think Ramsey, on the whole was correct. Everything in a team is about balance. This is what Belbin’s team role theory is all about.

Anyone who has been involved for even the shortest period of time in the process of recruiting staff will know that successful recruitment is far from an exact science. Experienced recruiters will tell stories of how they were absolutely convinced that a particular candidate was a perfect fit for the job only to be left bitterly disappointed by the same candidate’s actual job performance.

Team role theory is simple, appealing and feels intuitively correct. No individual has all the qualities a good manager needs. The ability to select the right people relates to how well a team achieves its goals. Many would agree that although a degree of homogeneity is important, a good team needs a combination of differences.

Belbin developed his theory at the staff colleges at Henley and Melbourne. He suggested eight, later revised to nine, team roles that successful teams require to be occupied. Belbin found that the best performing teams in business games were those that had an optimal balance of the roles.

The nine team roles are: The Coordinator, or Chair, The Plant (for creativity), The Resource Investigator (to explore opportunities), The Shaper (for challenge and drive), The Monitor Evaluator (for judgment), The Teamworker (for co-operative working), The Implementer (to get things done), The Completer (to deliver on time) and The Specialist (for knowledge and expertise). In some cases, one person may carry out more than one team role. To determine a person’s preferred team role, Belbin developed a questionnaire, The Belbin Team Role Self Perception Inventory (BTRSPI).

Belbin’s team role theory is not a magic bullet that will give you the ability to predict how well a candidate will perform in your organisation. It does, though, offer an extra recruitment tool that can provide a little more information about prospective candidates.

In Conclusion

I would once have agreed with Daniel Lassman from The Apprentice. I truly believed that to put together the best team you just found the best individuals. But not anymore. Whilst I will never believe that there would be no place for the genius of George Best in England’s 1966 team, I do believe Ramsey’s team philosophy was just about spot on.

Sir Alf Ramsey was an astute football tactician. He changed the way the game was played. He also knew a little about selecting team members. Whether he would have left out of his teams the sublimely talented Best is a debate that will continue. What is beyond doubt is that, Ramsey’s Belbin type selection system brought him success at the highest possible level in his profession. What might Belbin do for you?

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet, a domiciliary care provider with offices in Margate, Kent. Caremark Thanet provides home care services throughout the Isle of Thanet. Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet.

Content Marketing and the importance of a Content Marketing Strategy

What Is Content Marketing?

We British are more than used to being criticised for our food. We are sneered at by the French; scoffed at by the Germans, and made to salivate every time we walk into our local Indian restaurant. Therefore, it is somewhat galling that we insist on judging the quality of our very best restaurants by a French benchmark: Michelin Star awards.  

I know you will be well aware of Michelin Stars, although, like me, you may be a little unsure about precisely how they get awarded. You’re probably also familiar with the Michelin Guide. At any rate you will have heard of it even if you haven’t, in fact, read a copy of it. The first printing of the Michelin Guide, believe it or not, was back in 1900. It is a first class example of what in contemporary marketing language we call content marketing. 

Content Marketing Is Enlightened Marketing

There was a time, and it was not so long ago, when the emphasis in many marketing departments was on selling and not much else. Marketing was said to have a sales orientation.  I’m not saying that this orientation has completely gone from the marketing world. It is, though, true to say that marketers today generally take a more enlightened approach to marketing. And this demands an orientation that is much more customer focused.

Content marketing is uncompromisingly customer focused. The emphasis is on communicating with your customers: and this communication is manifestly not aimed at directly selling your goods and services to your customers. The aim of content marketing is to build customer loyalty. This is done by providing customers with high quality material that educates and informs, and is valuable and relevant for customers and prospective customers. 

Building customer loyalty was the aim behind the first Michelin guide. In the days when the Michelin Guide found its first readers, the term content marketing had not been coined. That phrase, it is suggested by some, dates from a meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1996. 

Content Is King

Content always was king, at any rate good content always was, and always will be king. And for that reason it is the customer who rules. Content, however, is not just text, it is also images. We live in visual age, and we have been living in it long before social media platforms like YouTube and Pinterest. Commercial television and cinema have provided outlets for marketers’ and advertisers’ creativity for decades. 

Marketing thought leaders have been telling us for some time that a content marketing strategy is not something that should be happening in isolation from social media marketing. Content marketing permeates everything that a company does. If your social media marketing strategy is not leading to your customers being provided with interesting, valuable and relevant information, then something is wrong. 

A poor or non-existent content management strategy is not going to help you gain traffic to your website. Social media marketing is the process of getting web traffic through the use of social media platforms. It will be an uphill struggle to do this without good quality content. 

It is hardly surprising that some of the largest corporations have taken on board this thinking. Multi-National Corporations have become increasingly aware of the importance of having an integrated content marketing approach. It is not uncommon to see senior marketing roles in companies with such titles as Content Marketing Director, Chief Content Marketing Officer and Content Marketing Strategy Officer. 

When you think about it, a content marketing strategy is a perfectly rational approach to take; if for no other reason than different social media platforms require different types of quality content. Visitors to different sites will look for different things, and what works well on one site may work less well on another.  

In Conclusion

The Michelin Guide’s publishers knew precisely what they wanted to achieve. Using today’s marketing language; we should say that they had put together a pretty decent content marketing strategy. Michelin’s customers were a small but growing body of car drivers, a group of people who, the people at Michelin undoubtedly reasoned, wanted a publication that offered them information that they would find useful.  

Just like customers through the ages, Michelin’s customers would talk amongst themselves and to other prospective customers. The Michelin Guide would come to be seen as an authoritative text written by experts. This would encourage customer loyalty. In a sentence or two; that just about sums up content marketing.

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet, a domiciliary care provider with offices in Margate, Kent. Caremark Thanet provides home care services throughout the Isle of Thanet. Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet.

The Enlightened Marketing Lessons You Can Learn from Santa Claus

Introduction
Let me give you an example of enlightened marketing. Have you seen the film Miracle on 34^th Street? If you have you may recall the scene where Kris Kringle (played by Edmund Gwenn in the 1947 version) working as a department store Santa Claus starts advising customers where to go to find the toys that his store doesn’t have. It seems the store has hired someone who not only believes he really is Santa Claus but he’s also helping to drive away the store’s customers by advising them to go elsewhere.

However, it turns out that what Kris does is a very successful bit of company PR. Kris's conduct helps the store to be seen as a company which can be trusted and has the best interest of its customers at the centre of its business activities. The store’s sales increase all thanks to Kris. Okay, so this is part of a fairy story, but the principle behind what Kris does is what today we’d call an example of enlightened marketing.

What Is Enlightened Marketing

Kris Kringle may have been acting out of naivety or innocence. Then again he may have realised that a customer is for life not just for Christmas. (Don’t Santa’s customers come back time and time again?) He may have decided to do the store’s marketing for it and take the long view of things. The philosophy that underpins enlightened marketing, says mbaskool.com, is

"…that a company should make good marketing decisions by considering some of the long term factors in mind. Those factors should support the best long-run performance of the marketing system. Essentially Enlightened Marketing is broken down into five principles: 1. Consumer-Oriented Marketing… 2. Innovative Marketing… 3. Value Marketing… 4. Sense-of-Mission Marketing…5. Societal Marketing."

Let’s look at each of these principles in turn.

Consumer-Oriented Marketing

It’s very simple: businesses should look at everything through the eyes of the customer.

Without customers you haven’t got a business. That’s not to say that companies shouldn’t look after their staff. They should. But without customers you don’t need staff.  I know, I know: that’s a pretty trite thing to say. I’ll bet you, though, that even in the last few days you have had an experience with a company that has forgotten that its customers are the most important people in the world.

Have you visited a website that looks fantastic but was clearly designed for web geeks not you the customer? Have you tried to work out the best tariff for you mobile phone only to realise that it’s probably easier to have worked out the solution to Fermat’s last theorem.  You get the picture, don’t you?

To repeat a point: it’s very simple. Marketers must look through the eyes of the customer.

Innovative Marketing

When you’ve been in business a while it’s very easy to become complacent about what you do, especially when things are going pretty well. However, a company that adopts an enlightened marketing approach will never accept that things can never be improved. In other words, it is always seeking to innovate. It must be stressed, however, that innovations should bring about real and lasting product and/or service improvements. Scott Thompson of Demand Media says that if, for example

"…a product can be redesigned to last longer for the same price, enlightened marketing holds that this innovation will be welcomed by the consumer and ultimately rewarded by the market over the long term."

Value Marketing

It’s difficult to believe that any marketer would forget that the aim of marketing is to build long term customer loyalty. There are plenty of things that can be done to gain short term increases in sales, but when customers recognise that they are not really getting anything that has truly added value they’ll vote with their feet (or computer mouse) and go to a competitor. Real improvements that add value to the goods or services you sell will be rewarded with customer loyalty. Will Charpentier of Demand Media gives an excellent example of adding value in a way that delights customers:

"Enlightened marketing’s approach to real value goes back to the first time a baker put an extra doughnut into the box of a customer who ordered a dozen. The idea was simple: the bit of profit the baker gave away in a single doughnut was insignificant when compared to the profit from that customer’s return visits."

Sense-of-Mission Marketing

When it comes down to it, any business is in business to make a profit. If it’s not profitable, a business is not going to last very long. However, that does not mean that a business should focus on profit to the exclusion of everything else. Enlightened marketing demands that companies look to the wider interests of each of the stakeholders it is serving. Businesses are a part of the societies within which they operate and accordingly have responsibilities towards those societies.

Operating in an ethically and socially responsible way is not inconsistent with running a profitable business. On the contrary, it is an approach that will help secure a company’s long term success.

 

Societal Marketing

There is a dilemma that will face many marketers. On the one hand, they will want to provide what consumers want in the long term. On the other, consumers sometimes want what is not necessarily good for them or for society in the long term. A first class example of this is the provision of tobacco products. The evidence is overwhelming that such products are not good for an individual’s health and consequently can have a deleterious effect on society in general. And yet people want to use tobacco products.

Societal marketing dictates that companies should attempt to meet consumer needs whilst at the same time acting in a way that is good for society in the long run.  Carl Hose puts it succinctly:

"In this type of marketing, a company uses its socially conscious stance as a way to attract consumers who may appreciate the company's desire to market its products with consideration for society." 

Enlightened marketing is not something that is new. Kris Kringle was doing it well over sixty years ago. It’s probably true that it is one of those things that we have only more recently put a name to. Santa Claus may not be real, but enlightened marketing will bring real results.

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet, a domiciliary care provider with offices in Margate, Kent. Caremark Thanet provides home care services throughout the Isle of Thanet. Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet.

The Surveillant Society and the Prescience of George Orwell

The Price of Freedom Is Eternal Vigilance
No-one is sure who first uttered the aphorism about freedom’s price being eternal vigilance. It might have been Voltaire; it might have been Thomas Jefferson or Tom Paine; it might have been John Philpot Curran. It matters very little who it was: it matters that the aphorism is true. Today, there is no threat to our freedom more insidious than the surveillant society.  


In 1949 George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was published. The novel depicts a dystopian world of the near future: Nineteen Eighty-Four is compulsory reading for anyone concerned about the liberty of the individual. 


Superficially, you can read the novel and sigh with relief that Orwell’s totalitarian vision has, on the whole, not materialised. The Berlin wall came down, the iron curtain went up, God’s in his heaven - All’s right with the world. 


There is a great deal more to the novel, however. A number of disturbing themes run through it, including the prescient portrayal of the surveillant society. Big Brother represents a contradiction that can be seen as a triumph of the state’s psychological manipulation. On the one hand, he is to be feared because he knows everything and you can never escape him. On the other hand, why would you wish to escape this supreme source of protection? 


Orwell describes a chilling image of what has been called “panoptic surveillance”: “The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover … he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.”  

Big Brother Is Watching You
Panoptic surveillance derives from Jeremy Bentham’s design for a prison called the Panopticon, a circular shaped prison with a central observation tower. In the Panopticon prisoners would never know when, or if, they were being watched. Referring to this the French writer and philosopher, Michel Foucault, said; “…in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen.” 


Orwell’s vision was chilling enough; however, when Foucault referred to Jeremy Bentham’s never realized prison design, to allow, amongst other things, the efficient inspection and maximum surveillance of inmates, he was using it as a metaphor for the more widespread surveillant society.

Far more chilling than mere surveillance is how surveillance leads to social control: far more insidious than mere social control is how panoptic surveillance leads to self-regulation. The surveillant society is not new. Governments have always wanted to keep people under surveillance because it is an effective means of social control.

All governments, not just totalitarian ones, have an interest in social control. The difference today is the increasingly sophisticated means that are available to governments to keep people under surveillance.  And the most effective surveillance is that which forces you to modify your behaviour because you might, you just can’t be sure, you just might be being watched.  


We live in a surveillant society where a similar psychological manipulation takes place to that depicted by Orwell in his novel. Governments have means to collect data about the lives of individuals: and you know that. Governments may misuse the data they collect: and you should remember that. Governments argue that data collection is necessary, and used only, for your safety: Do you believe that?
                                                                                               

Remember: the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet, a domiciliary care provider with offices in Margate, Kent. Caremark Thanet provides home care services throughout the Isle of Thanet. Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet.

Four Uses of the Phrase Work Smarter Not Harder During Appraisals: Part One

Introduction

I should guess that at some time in your working life you have been told that you must work smarter not harder. You may very well have said it yourself to someone. This is one of those odious management-speak phrases that are at best annoying and at worst downright deceitful. The phrase is often uttered during the course of appraisals by the appraiser to the appraisee – there are, of course other occasions when it is used – but very often it is during appraisals. Managers addressing staff collectively in meetings are wont to utter the words, but that’s another story. 

For the sake of brevity, let’s stick with appraisals. There are at least four circumstances that immediately come to mind when this objectionable phrase may be used during the course of an appraisal. There are probably a good many more, but I’ll stay with four for the time being. I’ll look at two of these circumstances in this blog and the other two in a subsequent blog.  And if I think of any more, I may well devote further blogs to the topic. 

The “We’re All in It Together Use”

The first circumstance when it might be used is where an appraiser uses it without truly thinking about what she is saying. Perhaps she is using it as filler; perhaps she is using it because her boss uses it; perhaps she is using it because she thinks it’s that right thing to say. In this type of usage, the phrase will generally not be aimed at you as an individual. More likely your appraiser says something like: ‘we all have to learn to work smarter rather than harder’. And it will usually be followed by a self-deprecating, conspiratorial comment like: ‘heaven knows I’m doing my best to work smarter, aren’t we all’. This usage is just meaningless and pretty irritating whilst at the same time, perhaps, being understandable and forgivable 

It’s understandable and forgivable because often the appraiser who uses it in this context is new to her role, a little unsure of herself and, perhaps, even a little intimidated by appraising you. She is using the phrase to show that she is, in fact, one of the group to which you belong. She just has to carry out this unpleasant duty of appraising you. There may, on some occasions, be a hint of criticism about how you are performing; however, at this stage in your appraiser’s management career she does not feel confident in articulating this criticism expressly. At this stage she’d rather you liked her. No doubt in the fullness of time, she’ll toughen up and things will then be different.  

The “I’m Trying to Help You Use”

The second circumstance when it might be used is one with some claim to acceptability. Its acceptability stems from the fact that, usually, your appraiser is genuinely trying to help you – inevitably she fails miserably – and has a degree of sympathy with your circumstances. There will, of course, be occasions when your appraiser is not too concerned about being helpful, but let’s stay with the charitable view that, usually; she’ll be trying to help you. 

Like it or not, when it is uttered in this circumstance it is usually the case that you are getting bogged down a bit with work. You may not want to admit this, but it is usually the case that you are struggling. This might be your fault – perhaps you are genuinely not up to the job. It might be your employer’s fault – quite simply your company is overloading you. More often than not it’s a bit of both.

In such cases when you are told that you should work smarter not harder you are rarely given any explanation about what that might involve. If you are lucky – or perhaps unlucky - enough to be given some advice about achieving the condition of smart working, the advice, generally, has something to do with time-management. If you are amazingly lucky you might get the chance to go on a time-management course! 

If we look a little closer at this circumstance we’ll see that, as admirable as your appraiser’s motives may be, suggesting you work smarter is nothing short of utter nonsense. To begin with, what precisely does it mean to work smarter? Let’s begin where the case where you are getting overwhelmed with work because, regrettably, you are not up to the job. 

As unpalatable as this may be, if you simply do not have the skills for the job, then no amount of smarter working (whatever that might be) is going to help. If working smarter is down to time-management – which may to be the case – if you are not capable of doing the job you will not be able to do the job even if your appraiser can miraculously give you an extra eight hours in the day. 

What you need is training. And this raises the question: what on earth are you doing in a job for which you do not possess the required skills. This is something that should have been identified when you were appointed – unless you lied at your interview. If it is the case that you have been appointed recently and this appraisal is determining what you need to do the job, your appraiser should not be talking a load of nonsense about working smarter. And why on earth use an appraisal to determine your training needs? This should have been done on appointment. Unless this is taking place the day after appointment, in which case we’d have no idea at this stage that you are not up to the job. 

On the other hand, what if the reason you are sinking under sheer volume of work is because your company is placing outrageous demands upon you. Telling you to work smarter in such a case may hit you as a little perverse however helpful your appraiser is trying to be. In such circumstances, how will better time-management help you one bit? I am, of course, still working on the basis that working smarter means doing something about time-management. The something that you might do is something that you are not currently doing or might do differently, or perhaps something you might stop doing. 

Any advice you might be given on time-management usually comes down to a small number of, let’s face it, fairly obvious ways of working and a few of the adviser’s own pet time-management essentials. Those ways of going about your working day that are preached by almost every self-styled time-management expert include: planning, setting targets, prioritising, delegating and making a to-do list. I don’t suggest for a moment that the preceding list is an exhaustive one. 

If you are competent at your job but just have too much work for any one human being to handle, then no amount of planning and whatever else will make any difference. Indeed, you probably plan, target, prioritise and delegate along with the best.  

What if you are competent at your job but – and this is highly improbable - you are the world’s worst time manager? If you have too much work for any single human being to handle, how in the name of all that is reasonable is working smarter (managing your time better) going to improve things? Indeed it might have the effect of making things significantly worse.  

Are There Any Exceptions?

Time-management experts (so-called) will say that the above are extremes and that there are many people who by working smarter – that is planning and all the rest – can become significantly more efficient workers. The exhortation to work smarter not harder in these cases is quite legitimate. I’m not so sure. 

I am convinced that planning and all the rest is something that either you do as naturally as you breathe, or you don’t do because it is as unnatural to you as walking backwards. If you fall into the latter group no matter how often you are told to work smarter, and no matter how many time-management courses you attend, it will make little or no difference.  

There is a third group. This group comprises those who just waste time. You’ll always find them drinking coffee, on the internet, chatting and generally avoiding work (sometimes doing all four things at the same time). To this group the exhortation is not work smarter it is simply: start working. 

In a future post I’ll look at two other uses of the phrase work smarter not harder.

 

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet, a domiciliary care provider with offices in Margate, Kent. Caremark Thanet provides home care services throughout the Isle of Thanet. Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Synergy between Enlightened Self Interest and Social Responsibility

How would you answer the question: why are you in business? Would your answer differ depending upon who was asking? Would you be bold enough to answer that you’re in business to make money and that there is nothing wrong with making a profit? You might hesitate before you answered like that, and you wouldn’t be alone. Like many, you might start off by talking about social responsibility, making a difference and serving your customers and community. And there’s nothing wrong with that.  

Greed is one thing. Enlightened self-interest is something entirely different. The simple irreducible minimum is that businesses have to interact with the environment. Managers would not be doing their jobs if they didn’t seek out opportunities to further the interests of their businesses. There are always competing interests; however, acting socially responsibly is not something that competes, but is something that synergises, with business interests. You might want to consider this: enlightened self-interest and social responsibility are not diametrically opposed pursuits. They are not just compatible pursuits: they are synergistic pursuits.  

Enlightened Self-Interest

Adam Smith got it about right when he wrote that ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.’ 

In her book, Body and Soul, Body Shop founder Anita Roddick very succinctly explains how enlightened self-interest and social responsibility work together when she talks about looking for ‘…the modern day equivalent of those Quakers who…made money because they offered honest products and treated their people decently…’ There’s nothing wrong with making money: it is how that money is made that counts. 

If you go into business you must believe that it is the right thing for you to do. However, it does not follow from this that when you act you must only take into account your own interests. On the contrary, acting in ways that may appear to be in competition with your interest may be decidedly advantageous. As Lynn MacDonald on smallbusiness.chron.com says: 

‘Enlightened self-interest recognizes that a company's prime purpose is to make profits, but that this goal can be achieved by fulfilling its social and environmental responsibilities.’ http://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-enlightened-selfinterest-business-22880.html 

Social Responsibility

It’s little wonder that the business world gets a bad press. Stories are heard too often about corporate greed, unethical selling practices, misleading advertising, shoddy goods, even shoddier customer service, poor treatment of employees and the list could go on.  The thing that is quite simply downright mystifying is why do people in the business world insist on behaving like this when acting socially responsibly is better all round?  As the Times Business Case Studies explains: 

‘Corporate social responsibility can bring significant benefits to a business. For example, [it] may: attract customers to the firm's products …make employees want to stay with the business…attract more employees wanting to work for the business… [and] attract investors and keep the company's share price high…’.

http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/cadbury-schweppes/ethical-business-practices/the-importance-of-ethics-in-business.html#axzz2ijYBrr1Z 

This makes it perfectly clear that acting in a way that is socially responsible is an act of enlightened self-interest. By acting responsibly, you are acting in a way that best promotes the interests of your business.  

You may be the owner of a small business or a large business. You may be a junior manager, middle manager or senior manager in a small medium or large corporation. You may be the chief executive officer in a multi-national conglomerate. Whatever your position in the business world the message is that acting in a socially responsible way pays dividends in the long run.  

So how would you answer the question: why are you in business? The socially enlightened answer will explain that your business is there to make a profit from socially responsible business practices.

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet, a domiciliary care provider with offices in Margate, Kent. Caremark Thanet provides home care services throughout the Isle of Thanet. Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet.

Candidates for the Philosophers' Job Interview

Over the years I’ve done hundreds of job interviews. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over that time it is that there is no perfect selection procedure for choosing the right person for the job. It really doesn’t matter how many tests, assessments and interviews you throw at the candidates, the truth is you never know how those you select will turn out. And, of course, you never know how good those you rejected might have been. 

At one particularly long – excruciatingly long – selection centre I was involve with a colleague and I got to thinking about how some of the great philosophers might measure as job candidates. What follows is very much a slimmed down version of our musings. 

Heraclitus

Heraclitus was very much a self-taught philosopher. If you are looking for someone who deals well with change, Heraclitus is your man. Indeed, he’ll probably write in bold on his application form that the only permanent thing in life is change.  

He’s not the perfect candidate by any means. He can at times be a little cryptic (just ask him about stepping into the same river twice), so communication can be a weak spot. He can annoy co-workers by insisting on stating the obvious, like his observation about the sun being new each day. Oh, and it’d be wise to check his sickness record. He’s known as the Weeping Philosopher because of his debilitating bouts of melancholia. 

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

If you’re looking for an optimist to join your team who else would you go for but German born Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. He is the living, breathing, walking incarnation of optimism. As far as Leibniz is concerned this is the best of all possible worlds. Another plus point, he’s got this thing about evil in the world that makes him passionate about good causes. 

On the downside, he does have a bit of an ego, but then so would you if you had been labelled the last universal genius. And whatever you do don’t take his stapler from his desk. Newton (yes, Sir Isaac himself) allegedly borrowed the calculus from him and they’re still arguing about it now. 

Jean-Paul Sartre

Sartre scores highly when it comes to accepting that nothing just happens and it’s down to us to get things moving. He believes firmly that we are all the authors of our own destiny. He’ll tell you over and over again that we are condemned to be free. We have to choose because no-one will choose for us.

JP can be a poor team player. If team playing is important for you, make a note that his friend Albert (Camus) played soccer (as a goalkeeper) at university. JP’s very much against awards. He refused the Nobel Prize for Literature. So don’t try giving him the rosette for employee of the month.

Who would you choose? Not easy is it. Not much to choose on paper. Each has his strengths and weaknesses. Whoever you choose, the question is how well he will perform in practice. And the truth is you never know.

 

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet, a domiciliary care provider with offices in Margate, Kent. Caremark Thanet provides home care services throughout the Isle of Thanet. Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet.