How to shine online with cool things to help you be a Digital Superstar

Tags

Digital Superstar, Lady Val Corbett, Lady Val Corbett Network, Susan Hallam

We gathered eagerly for the tips that promised to make us Digital Superstars. Let’s face it …. few of us really ALL have the skills to do this, or if we have, have we made the time to prioritise this? Well, listening to Susan Hallam MBE last week at Lady Val Corbett’s networking lunch (and this essentially is a bring your own cuppa or fav tipple and settle down with your iPad instead of congregating in London’s Theatreland venue if Browns) it not only sounds vital but also do-able. (There is a summary and great list of resources at the bottom of the post).

Susan, founder of a leading digital agency, did not disappoint. Her powerful presentation which thankfully was recorded, took us through 13 areas where we most likely are missing out and inadvertently making blunders. I defy you to find a few where you are already shining!  As Susan rightly pointed out, we are living in a post-pandemic world and this has changed where and how we work so our online presence is even more important than ever. The hour’s journey that Susan took us through is well worth the watch and here are the 13 areas highlighted for you to start attending to! Click here for the video and find Susan at 56 minutes in.

Susan was awarded an MBE for services to entrepreneurship and innovation in the Queen’s Honours 2018. That same year Susan was named a BIMA 100 CEO & Leaders shaping the digital industry, and she was made a Fellow of the Institute of Data & Marketing. She is a Freeman of the City of London, the chairman of Nottingham’s Creative Quarter, and a Trustee of Nottingham Castle. Born in the USA, Susan has resided in the UK since 1985. Susan employs more than 60 specialists with clients including the United Nations, Speedo, the BBC, and Suzuki Cars. In 2019 Hallam was awarded Google’s top agency accolade for EMEA, the Growing Businesses Online award. Who better to be our Digital Superstar guide for Lady Val Corbett’s event!? Her tips were brilliant.

1. Your LinkedIn profile needs to be 5-Star

• No excuses. Get the basics right. 
• A really good headshot photo 
• Use the banner background with an image for your business. Don’t leave it blank
• Keep it up to date
• Use every section can to show your authority
• There is a section showing who people “also viewed”. You never know what company you are keeping so the advice here is .. turn that feature OFF
• Visual is powerful so include videos, images and PDFs
• If you don’t highlight good visuals, LinkedIn will choose some for you
• Use the Recommendation feature to the max; what others say about you is very powerful
• Increase your recommendations by leaving them for others .. think of who you can be grateful to

2. Follow Up Afterwards

• Having gone to so much effort for an event, why waste that effort by not following up on there contacts you have made.
• Hubspot is a recommended site for listing contacts and seeing what they asked for or were interested in
• Create trigger emails and standard follow-up messages

3. Measure the Results

• Again, you put in the effort but it’s good to know what works best and has the most impact
• When you share content check to see how many times it was shared, what engagement there was
• If there is a good piece of content re-purpose it for another site or blog
• make a few edits and perhaps change the image (but basically the same blog)
• Measure what is happening soon your website with Leadfeeder website tracking software
• Here you can see what companies visit, and who in that company in particular 
• Learn more about how folks behave

4. Leverage Google to the hilt

• 92% of searches are on Google!
• Google have a number of free services and resources. Use them.
• Google My Business is a must. This presents the information on the right hand search panel. 
• Keep the info up to date, add stories, add reviews
• Use this space to tell people what you want them know  

5. Don’t Forget to target specific Prospective Clients 

• Create targeted advertising on platforms like LinkedIn with really detailed criteria .. when you know exactly who you want to attract. This can be very cost effective
• Explore Frictionless Marketing where the customer does not even have to fill in the form. Make it easy for people to respond and work with you

6. Keep in touch with Existing Clients

• Don’t forget to communicate with your old and existing clients
• It can be tempting to put too much focus on new business and forget about them
• Do you have a Covid-19 statement at the top of your website showing how you are being helpful to clients? Tell your folks what are you doing differently in these times.
• Don’t assume all your customers know all about what you offer, and all your new services. You may have expanded so keep them up to date with developments.

7. Social media does not replace Email Marketing

• Email marketing has the highest return of all digital techniques; there is a much higher conversion rate than social media marketing
• Even the auto-messages are very effective. Yes they may be transactional but they are good manners.
• They give a 44 times return rate!
• 21% of emails are read within the first hour. Know all your stats and use the knowledge

8. Zoom meetings still need Good Etiquette

• Don’t subject others to views up your nostrils or the top of your head.
• Take care to be well-positioned in the centre of the shot
• Make sure your face is well lit 
• Remember to create a good background, one that reflects your brand. Curate well what can be seen by others.
• Maintain eye contact in meetings and don’t leave the screen or get distracted by non-essential events around you. 

9. Daily Social Contact slot

• Don’t be anti-social on Social media
• People appreciate it when you engage with them
• Acknowledge when people comment .. say thank you .. engage. Liking and commenting is good manners.
• There is a lot that can be accomplished in just ten minutes a day if you have a disciplined routine 
• Share the Love. Give back, share other people’s important campaigns and projects where you can make a difference .. highlight other people’s success and initiatives. 
• Engage with people .. keep the conversation 2-way, don’t just put stuff and communicate one way. 
• Me me me is not so god .. focus on others. It will have a huge impact on your effectiveness

10. Engage and Personalise

• Taking the time to handcraft a personal message is important of you want a response.
• Don’t just invoice folks into a group with a general request .. they will leave the grouping by one and it won’t look good
• Avoid corralling people a spam-like way. It is not productive. Behave online in the same elegant way we do offline, in-person.

11. Know what your Customers want

• There is nothing like walking a day in the shoes of your customer. What do they want? What do they need?
• What or who is the Persona you are selling?
• Research what questions people are asking so that you can answer them
• Answer the Public is a great free search tool to find out what people are asking about. Be a great digital warrior. Now you know what content to create or speak about. It comes from Google data, and is a collation of their research. You put in a word that relates to a product or service. It then brings up all the questions that are asked by potential customers.

12. Don’t Forget Mobiles

• Ignore mobile at your peril. It could be that over half your targets reach your email or check your website from their mobile
• Do you know if your website is mobile-friendly?
• Google checks this out and if they don’t think so they will exclude you from a search. The Google mobile friendly test can be used to check that google thinks your website is suitable for google users.  https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

13. Plan for the Inevitable 

• Remember Death and Taxes are life’s most certain events .. plan for your demise
• Who has your passwords to access you accounts?
• Who will access your Facebook account to manage the final postings? Grim idea but you need think about a Legacy Contact…. now. Facebook does have a legacy contact function. Somebody needs to be able to get access

SUMMARY of all the Resources Susan recommended are located here.

Great Links from Susan.

1. How to Create an All-Star LinkedIn Profile
2. Measuring your social impact using BuzzSumo
3. Leadfeeder: tracking your website visitors
4. Creating a great Google My Business profile
5. Targeting your ideal customer using LinkedIn advertising
6. COVID Marketing Hub
7. Don’t forget to use email marketing
8. Using Zoom well
9. Be more social on your social media
10. Creating your customer personas
11. Using Answer the Public to research what your customers are searching for
12. Focus on your mobile marketing
13. Don’t forget the inevitable…. Facebook legacy contact

The Hallam Agency is a fantastic resource for guidance and tips .. do check it out

Advertisement

New values are creating a shift in business

Tags

Benita Matofska, Corbett Network, Generation Share, Global Sharing Week, Lady Val Corbett, Lady Val Corbett Network

Business is shifting into something that is not the old normal …  and it is being led by Change-makers, courageous individuals who are bringing the different values of caring and sharing to the commercial space once largely driven by wealth creation.  This was the assertion of the guest speaker Benita Matofska at Lady Val’s lunchtime Zoom meeting this month.

Lady Val Corbett hosted the group of women leaders from her network of supporters who donate to the Corbett Network charity for ex-Offender reintegration. This is actually a regular networking lunch but in these times, this means the fund-raising has shifted online, along with the conversation… we pay less for our tickets and make our own grub at home!  There is no travel and no need to dress up. That’s what it’s like for all of us these days .. adaptation is the key word. But wherever we are, in the dining room at Browns in London or in our own kitchens, it is wonderful to listen to a speaker who is passionate about her subject.

And Benita Matofska was passionate indeed sharing her purposeful life-calling of alerting people to how they can become change-makers themselves.  Interestingly, as she itemised a 4-step process that she takes businesses through to become a ChangeMaker organisation, it is reassuring to see that some of us are already running change-maker businesses but perhaps we have not thought about them in quite that way. Or we have not applied this new vocabulary to what we do. 

Benita is an international expert on the Sharing Economy.  She is the founder the global charity The People Who Share and created Global Sharing Week, an annual campaign reaching over 100 million people. Her unique insights to people and companies enable them to adopt new mind-sets and become ‘change-maker businesses’ fit for the future.  Benita has accomplished a great deal in her 30-year career and received many awards including Inspirational Woman of the Year and has spoken to audiences including: the European Parliament, European Cities Marketing Summit, Global Women’s Forum, Financial Times European Sharing Economy Summit, House of Commons, House of Lords,10 Downing Street, London School of Economics and TEDxFrankfurt. 

She has developed an expertise in the Sharing Economy, something that has taken root over the last decade and was seeded out of the global financial crisis. 

Of course the upside of a good crisis is the potential to create much needed change for without the impetus of that, things just roll on as normal. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention. So much has changed in the last four months that it is clear the world is not going back to normal.  In her capacity as a counsellor for the One Young World Congress she met Desmond Tutu, and she quoted him as saying “A time of crisis is not just a time of anxiety and worry. It gives a chance, an opportunity to choose well, or to choose badly.” Never has that been more pertinent than during this pandemic. It is time for us all to choose well. Benita highlighted the potential for business to thrive if choices are made around different values.

The swift arrival of the coronavirus crisis, meant that businesses had to change very quickly in order to survive.  Having become a spokesperson in the media and her increasingly high profile consultancy, Benita has been well-placed to see and draw attention to the potential for change in the pandemic. She said she has seen three types of sharing that has been taking place in the last few months. 

1. Shared action. We’ve had the biggest volunteer effort since the Second World War, 750,000 people came forward to volunteer for the NHS in just 48 hours.  There has also been another pandemic happening .. that of a kindness pandemic all over the world where people have come out in their communities to help feed others and to make sure that people receive the necessary supplies. It’s been an extraordinary time for action.  As well as individual volunteers delivering food, businesses have been taking action as well coming together and forming partnerships and collaborations across sectors, even with competitors. That shared action has been incredibly important for businesses to look at how can their normal products and services they sell commercially now be adapted to be of support in a time of need. Businesses have pivoted and changed to participate in this shared action, with for example perfume suppliers reconfiguring their businesses so they can make and deliver hand sanitizer. 

2. Shared understanding. COVID-19 has led many of us to reevaluate who we are, what we can contribute, what’s important in our world, spending more time at home, really starting to be grateful for, and value the things, that are important in life, and also to spend more time in nature.  There has been a shift in values with this whole idea of identifying key workers who are the people who are saving and transforming lives in our society. These are the people, many in low paid caring and cleaning roles who have previously been invisible.  Everyone has been forced to re-evaluate and take a really hard look at what value we bring. It is no longer the case that we can solely focus on commercial value, we need to be considering environmental value, and social value. 

3. Shared responsibility. We’ve been staying at home to protect lives. Social distancing was unheard of a few months ago.  We have all stepped into the collective responsibility that we need to protect each other and that we’re in this together. We really responded to the need to work together in order to consider the greater good, and to save millions of lives. We have witnessed this as an extraordinary effort around the world too. But what we’ve also seen is the shared responsibility in terms of business know-how, a business’s understanding that to survive in the future they need to adapt and change, and take on this collective responsibility for people and the planet. Benita urged that only those businesses that can and will do that, and become what she referred to as Change-maker companies .. they are the ones who will survive, not just this crisis but into the future.

Benita spent the last four years working on an extraordinary project called Generation Share. She wanted to find out more about ChangeMakers .. who are the people themselves, the social entrepreneurs, the innovators, the business people who all care about people and planet and want to transform communities and societies at large, and not just focus on wealth creation. Who are the people leading a shift in business? The resulting book Generation Share, is the world’s first collection of successful, new, impactful business models and initiatives that are transforming lives and became a best-seller last year. Through stunning photography, social commentary and interviews with 200 change-makers, Generation Share showcases extraordinary stories demonstrating the power of Sharing. She found a hugely diverse range of projects and people including a rebel supermarket, fashion library, low carbon logistics companies and trust cafes. 

Benita gathered a vast amount of intelligence on the who and how of change-making and during her fund-raising she was contacted via LinkedIn by a young girl in Mumbai.   

“I hope my voice will reach you.  My name is Aarti Naik. I’m a slum-based young girl Change-maker. I run, the Sakhi School, a slum School for Girls in Mumbai, India. We share knowledge and the chance of a positive future for girls. I would like to be part of your project because I am Generation Share. I strongly believe that because of you and your initiative my slum based girls voices’ will reach globally.”  Wow, how extraordinary, moving and inspiring to receive such a communication from a young girl across the world, working in a slum.  

Benita’s book project is becoming a powerful voice bringing visibility to extraordinary initiatives like Aarti’s.  She explained that the goal of Generation Share has been about changing the narrative. She read us an excerpt from the introduction to her book:

‘You only find things or people when you go looking for them. I went to look for Generation Share for the brave, positive change-makers. I intentionally sought out the positive stories, the stories of hope. Positivity is an important characteristic of the sharing economy, because it provides a much needed antidote to the disease of cynicism and negativity that’s destroying our world. It’s the language of the new economy. It offers people healing, and hope and inspiration, much needed at a time when hate, totalitarianism and populism are winning votes. We have a global crisis of responsible leadership, but to tackle complex problems, we need solution-focused socially-conscious, but above all, positive leaders …. change-makers.   I believe that by elevating the status of good, positivity and consciousness, we can begin to change our malfunctioning world.’

Benita asked a very simple question: “What does sharing mean to you?”  When she asked this question of Kenyan campaigner Nanjira Sambuli who enables women in sub-Saharan Africa to access digital resources, her reply was “Sometimes when we talk about sharing, it’s tangible stuff. We never talk about the softer stuff, your time, your energy, the idea of always showing up, being present.  There’s still that inequality. I can go into a room with men and be the only black woman but I have to keep showing up because unless I do, one day, that door is going to be locked. Even if you’re the person for the diversity poster. If you’re in a room and everybody looks the same, and they are making decisions about the world, it’s a problem. So keep on showing up, have a voice”. 

There’s a lesson to be learned for all businesses. What can we do to ensure that through our businesses, we are able to share that voice, that we’re able to offer that opportunity and ensure that we are more diverse? How can we reach out to help to redress that imbalance in the inequality that so clearly exists in our world?

The whole idea of dependence on others has become very apparent during the COVID-19 crisis, the idea that we cannot get through this pandemic without the support of others.

We are all surrounded by an invisible infrastructure of support

Jacob Berkson is an extraordinary change-maker who set up Thousand 4 £1000 a crowdfunding platform to raise rent for refugees. Jacob is a disabled man in a wheelchair. When asked what does sharing mean to him, this is what he had to say: “One thing that’s nice about being disabled, is that it makes you aware of your own dependence on other people. I can’t get dressed, go to the toilet or eat without assistance. Of course no one else can either, right. We invisiblise the sewage worker. We invisiblise the people who make the clothes. They are somewhere else, but your dependence on them is enormous.”

Sharing is just very visible when you’re disabled, and how interesting is it that during this crisis. These key workers have become so much more visible. As businesses, what can we do to increase that visibility? What can we do to share that value to enable people to be able to access the resources that they need. How can our businesses make a positive contribution?

Valuing the Milk of Human Kindness – literally

Another change-maker is an extraordinary woman a doctor called Natalie Schenker who set up the UK’s first human milk bank, sharing breast milk to enable sick or premature babies to survive. It’s estimated around the world that over 1.2 million lives of babies have been saved through the sharing of breast milk and milk banks. Benita asked one of the volunteers who works with Natalie about sharing and she said ”You have to imagine you’re in an ICU unit, your child is in an incubator, there are tubes and cables everywhere, and he can’t even breathe by himself. Knowing that my baby could still be fed by donor milk, was the moment I thought, I’m so thankful that somebody took the time to share their milk. It came through a chain of people who were willing to share. We need to get back to that and not be so engrossed in our own lives. All women who are able to share their milk are heroes to me”.

Lessons in exchange for football

Another young change-maker featured in Generation Share with whom Benita has kept in touch during the pandemic is Ashok Rathod, a football coach who founded the Oscar Foundation. They work with slum-based children to enable them to have an education, using football, as a way to entice those children into education.  The kids don’t get to play football, unless they have succeeded and attended various courses in maths English literacy, science and so on. During this pandemic, Ashok has been safely delivering food to over 5000 slum-based families in southern Mumbai. The team’s mission has been, how can we ensure that our communities survive, whilst at the same time being able to find ways to deliver education in a digital way so that those slum-based kids can stay safely at home. 

Buying the Book makes a positive contribution

The innovative Generation Share book co-authored with photographer Sophie Sheinwald is an inspiring read. Every single copy of the book, helps to feed and educate a girl in the slums in Mumbai, and also plant a tree through the Eden reforestation project. Benita believes that whatever type of business, charity or social enterprise we can all find ways to make a positive contribution to society. In the future, unless we become these Change-maker businesses and organisations, she says we simply won’t survive. So as businesses we need to become change-makers, in order to survive this pandemic, and the future crisises that will happen.  Buy your copy here.

Learnings from these Generation Share change-makers 

From the extensive research for her book, Benita identified six key characteristics that every single one of these change-makers had. Take these onboard and your business is more likely to survive further crises in the future.

1. The ability to share:  Change-makers show us that we need to ask important questions. How can your company share? What’s your collaborative advantage, because in the future, how well you can partner and collaborate will determine your future success. 
2. Bravery. Change-makers are brave. They reinvent the rules…. because what has now become clear … there’s no such thing as business as usual.
3. Adaptable. Change-Makers are adaptable.  Your company can only survive and contribute to the planet and society at large if you can change and adapt.  
4. Love. Change-makers put love at the heart of everything that they do,  love and care for people and the planet. They consider the impact of their actions. Businesses that do put more love into their operation will be the ones to thrive in the future. 
5. Positivity is an important characteristic of Change-makers.  They are positive and solution-focused. 
6. Future facing. Change-makers see the bigger picture. They consider the wider impact of what they’re doing. And they’re interested in systemic change. 

To weather the uncertainty that the world is clearly going through, even without the challenges from COVID-19, companies need to become Change-makers and learn lessons from these brave young people.  Benita works with companies helping them make this shift.  She takes them through a four stage process. She gave us a few highlights of some of the key questions she asks her clients. 

These are helpful for you to ask yourself about your own business endeavour

1. What does your business currently do that is needed in a time of crisis? 
2. Using your existing capability, consider what could your company do that is needed in a time of crisis?  
3. What do you do need in order to make that happen?
4. What aspects of your core business, could you deliver digitally? What we need to acknowledge is that technology has transformed the way we’ve been able to respond to this crisis. More and more businesses are now operating online because they have to, while before they could not see the possibility. Who would have though in just February of this year that you would be consulting your doctor on Zoom, court cases would take place online .. even the Prime Minister’s cabinet meeting would be online on Zoom instead of in Downing Street. Those are big shifts that people have had to adjust to, in just weeks and in some cases days.

Along with the many efficiencies that have been made we have had many important benefits in terms of our climate crisis too. It’s clear that your sustainable future as a business depends on you becoming a change-maker company, how well you can:

• share 
• be brave 
• be adaptable
• be positive 
• show love for people and the planet 
• consider the future impact of everything that you do. 

The power of a great question

Benita started out with the quest of finding out who are these change-makers and what does sharing mean to them. During this journey she discovered that sharing is everywhere….if we look for it. It’s in our homes or communities or schools or businesses or cities or villages, it’s an unlimited supply within each of us.

Sharing is something that goes beyond gender and culture. It’s simply a human thing. This Generation Share shows that to share is to be human. And these human values powering our businesses will make the difference that will help us all survive and ride out future storms.

To watch a video recording of Benita’s talk then click here. (Start at 15 mons 30 secs to hear Benita)

If you want to find out HOW your business could become a Change-maker company contact Benita.

Mastering the online space to promote your business

How to Grow Your Business Online – with QVC legend Dexter Moscow

Lady Val Corbett hosted a fund-raising lunch for the Corbett Network’s work in helping ex-offenders create a new life. After the keynote speaker Dame Inga Beale talking about leadership times of great change, we had a workshop explaining how to be successful online.

Who better to guide us to getting our messages across now when we are not allowed to meet in person than someone who spent years perfecting selling from a screen via QVC. Dexter Moscow opened his workshop session with a reminder to us that we are more powerful than we think and we should so be proud of the power that we can bring to this new online environment. Having more confidence in what we do and what we can offer is a great starting point for promoting yourself online. Dexter seems to be a master of not only online promotion but also at teaching others.   He used to be a trainer of presenters on QVC TV and was also a presenter himself selling millions of goods and items. 

Dexter referred to today being Shakespeare’s birthday who said that all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women are merely players. Within this new working environment of today’s new reality, we are very much on a stage. We need to learn to do what he helped his QVC with, being more natural and more authentic when we are operating in an environment where effectively, we are selling to an invisible audience.   We can speak to people and we can see them but we have to adjust to compensate for not being present in the same room and reading the signals we might have seen more easily.

Dexter said that there are three key elements to master: 

1. The actual technology 
2. The content that we can create to make these video conferencing calls, or videos,  more effective. 
3. The delivery mechanisms, the way that we can actually connect with people. 

Business is now very personal 

The key to being successful when presenting from a screen is to make an emotional connection. People buy emotionally. They decide, logically. So everything we do is through an emotional filter. 

But it isn’t about selling anymore, even when I was on QVC we didn’t talk about selling, we talked about influence and persuasion. So we need to be more influential in the way in which we connect with people. 

Remember any aspect of what you has to be based on understanding that you have been invited into some somebody’s home. This was the whole concept of QVC, and the whole concept of QVC was about telling stories. 

When you are making a pitch, don’t tell people what you do. Tell them what you have done for others. And that’s a story. When people can step into that personal experience, or that company’s experience, they are emotionally connected. So it’s not just about what you do, but what you do that has had an a positive impact on others, or that it resolved the problem for others. You are a writer, you’ve written a dozen books .. what benefit are they to people? That is the key.

Presenting on video, live or recorded, is key to business success now. As people increasingly take in and consume information on video, rather than text, this way has become the new norm. Video consumption has been rising by 100% every year, and 60% of younger people in the millennial or Gen Z groupings will consume video on a daily basis, as a preference.

3-Part Framework for testimonials 

because that’s what we’re talking about with testimonials or stories, and often when we see testimonial testimonials we we hear this or we see this. If this was a very lovely person to work with. 

You can tell story on your video format. Here’s how: 

1. The problem that that person brought to me was … 
2. What I did to resolve that problem was…
3. And the result was …..

This formula was always successful at QVC.

1 Master the TECH – Take the time and trouble to get it right

1. The first thing is to be aware that the camera is absolutely key. Because if you want to convey information, either in video or if you want in this environment. The quality of the camera is essential. No fuzziness or you lose credibility.
2. The second element is good sound. You need a lapel microphone or good digital mic on your computer.
3. Be steady. If you’re going to use an iPad or smart phone use a tripod.
4. Make sure you have a good background view. You can use a virtual one but they are a bit disruptive when you move. Better to set up a good studio setting behind you and attend to all the details of what can be seen. Simple, clean and uncluttered is good.
5. Whatever camera you use, the eyeline is absolutely key. Make sure you have a good view and your viewer has too,
6. Have a good shot of you when you camera is off-line, like a good logo. There might be space for a key branding message.
7. The last element of this equipment is lighting. Make sure you are not in harsh light or dark shade. Test out various options or buy a professional portable lamp.

2 Master the CONTENT – invest time in crafting this 

Plan: Don’t wing it for any Zoom or conference call.

If you want to get a message across, craft it first. Create an agenda just as you might for for a physical corporate meeting. It helps steer and to know where you are going.  Share the agenda. The advantage there is that people will know what you’re going to say, they can communicate with you more effectively and that keeps you on track.

If the meeting is not live then get your message across on video. That is what is expected now. Add sub-titles so that people can view/listen and read. People often watch in crowded spaces or while traveling and have the sound down but read the words.

Keep up your understand for how people like to receive information. Some like to hear and enjoy podcasts others like to read and scroll down the text. Give all the options.

Keep it short: The perceived wisdom is that each video should be no more than about two minutes. Certainly a story within a video should be no more than two minutes.  Once you have their attention, people are watching videos longer, but they do have to be compelling.  The average slot on QVC was about 12, minutes, and those 12 minutes were three individual four minute slots of repetition. So the massage was about four minutes.

Good Opening: You have to start with an engagement. How do you engage people? By telling a story. Even sharing a good joke makes it less stuffy.

Be passionate about what you do. Be excited. Let that come through in your voice.

 

The two minute story – there are three elements to an emotional storytelling environment. 

1. There’s the incident (which is the overarching element of the story) 15-30 seconds
2. The action (what did you actually do to address the overarching. It could be a problem addressed, which is recommended then people can step into that experience, because then they know how that’s resolved. What you actually did is the majority of that storytelling aspect). Remember: Don’t tell people what you do tell them what you’ve done for others. 
3. The benefit. (What was the quantifiable result of you solving that problem for them). About seven to 10 words and therefore about 15 seconds. What was the result of your interventions. 

3 – Master the DELIVERY – Use the four cornerstones of an effective presentation 

This is a framework that we used all continually on QVC where we had to influence or persuade people to do something that is the hardest thing in the world to do … pick up that phone and come online and order.  The quality of what we did was always marked by how much we sold.

1. Firstly, what right do you have to talk about what you’re talking about. Describe who we are so we establish credibility.  How long we’ve been in our particular sector or, again, the information that we’ve given to others that has been helpful. 
2. The second element is the companies that you’ve worked with, or the departments that you’ve helped. So it personal credibility then company credibility. Who have you been involved with that gives you further credibility. 
3. The third element is the difference between emotion to logic. Emotion is the way in which  you connect with people, but you still have to offer some logic. Offer 3-4 key facts about what you do and how you do it. And that can involve the numbers as well, that can be the turnover increased, or the effect that you had on an individual to improve their lives. Stories and data.
4. The fourth element is the most important. WIFM   What’s in it for me?  Think from their perspective. That should be your mindset. When you are communicating with people, your agenda is important but it should also combine what they want out of it.

Successful selling comes from having a strong belief in what you are providing, that it has value for other people.  You have to appreciate the value that you’re giving. Then once you can start  asking questions to elicit a response, you know if you are talking to the right audience and whether what you have will be beneficial and resolve their problems. If what you have is of genuine value then there is no need to be  afraid or ashamed. If you have good material then be proud.

During your online presentation, you can offer something that is an invitation so that people can experience your expertise and the quality of what you do. But don’t make it free. People are less likely to respect things when they are given away.

Final Tips

• Have fun with what you’re doing, because if you are excited about it, they will be too and they will relax
• Share your message throughout all  social media because people want to have problems addressed and this is the moment this is the age of face to face communication
• Look at the camera directly – that is where to make eye contact
• If you are working live (TV or Facebook)  never talk to millions, just one person
• Engage your target audience so that they are prepared to listen. Grab them in those first 30 seconds with a great quote, fact, joke or topical story. Keep them engaged by asking questions
• Enlighten them – either by confirming something they already know but had not thought about before, or did not realise that they did not know
• Entertain them – whatever the subject be approachable and have fun. Remember this is an entertainment channel
• Excite – Be excited yourself. Let that come out in your voice. Bring in your passion, be sincere, authentic .. if you are, people will buy your ideas, or products.
• Do not make a video unless you are aware of the problem that exists and how you are solving it
• Think about the experience that they are having that you know you can help with 

Bringing Balance to Boards

Tags

#BalancedBoards #LadyValCorbett #WomenonBoards

At the February Business Women’s Networking lunch hosted by Lady Val Corbett, we are lucky to have specialists give advice on how women can grown their business and expand their reach in the world. Today was about how we might get onto a Board .. if that is a goal in our sights.

Our workshop speaker was Jeff Green, founder of Balanced Boards. His motivation behind launching this consultancy was his belief in the importance of inclusion, equality and equitable opportunities for all, regardless of gender, race, or age.

Jeff has many senior contacts in the city and particularly among senior executives at Board level. He confided that some of his male colleagues who are on the receiving end of his passionate crusade to rebalance the country’s Boardrooms .. and have been known to resist conversation about what a few call “diversity nonsense”. To get them re-engaged Jeff has reframed the diversity agenda as social inclusion and mobility. Now that he says, they are much more willing to get behind. When they are reminded, these executives do actually want their own daughters and grand daughters to have equal opportunity, now and in the future. To have balance on a board it’s not just women’s voices that are needed, it’s everyone from all those other under represented groups of race, social class and under privilege. Then the Board is more likely to have the richer and diverse debate about an organisation’s more sustainable future.

Jeff is now actively engaged with US-based companies who have, or want to have, a global reach. It is easy to open up these leaders to the possibility of taking on a woman when he points out that they are aiming internationally and yet all their board members speak the same language and in no way reflect the markets the company aspires to. As they look east to Europe and Africa, Jeff is proposing non-American women for the vacancies that are opening up. Sounds like a pretty neat move. 

• Getting onto the Board: If you want to makes change you have to be on the inside of the system and get as high up as you can get … even if you are actually a diversity hire. Grab the place and start working for others to join you. (Watch the movie on Amazon Prime called Late Night where this is the core story with spectacular results for change to the mono-culture of a Emma Thompson’s script-writing team who are all male, and white. See what happens when the female Asian woman joins the group!)
• What is a non-exec director? A non-executive director typically does not engage in the day-to-day management of the organization but is involved in policymaking and planning exercises. In addition, non-executive directors’ responsibilities include the monitoring of the executive directors and acting in the interest of the company stakeholders.
• Time and money:  can be 1-2 days a week with typical payment of £48,000 to £980,000 per year
• Starting out: some advise getting on a charity board as a good start. Yes it does give you some Board experience but Jeff says this may not be the best way, unless the charity is a passion project for you. Being a school governor also gives you good experience. 
• Good cv is needed: tailor your cv to really highlight your special skills and experience from which a company can benefit. Forget where you went to school, focus on what you can bring that will be of benefit and help grow the company.
• Soft skills are now much in demand so conveying your ability to be charismatic and articulate is helpful. Remember men are just as capable of these soft skills and the empathy, compassion and relationship building ability that women are deemed to have more of. It is often the culture that holds back these values so potentially the arrival of a woman (or more women) may create a bigger shift.

Jeff Green, founder of Balanced Boards, was guest workshop leader at Lady Val Corbett’s Women Business Networking lunch Feb 2020

• Your special contribution: How can you help the company innovate? what can you do to support the increased focus on mental health.
• Networking:  women often do not know where to network and they can end up networking with each other and not finding the right contacts for board positions. Jeff says to network in your particular domain, in your special industry or skill area. Contacts to higher levels can be gleaned if you focus there. He called this the lowest hanging fruit.
• Creating Change: Once on a Board you might find the need to shake things up … it is best to hold back on this until you have a sponsor to support you, preferably the Chair
• When to start: why wait til you are older? Young women in their 20s should start planning their progress to Board level, now.

Contact Jeff Green on Balanced Boards for more help getting onto a Board

After our session today with Jeff Green more women are on the case to the change this given the tips and roadmap that he highlighted for the Women’s Network

Secrets to Powerful Public Speaking

Tags

#EstherStanhope #GinaLazenby #LadyValCorbett #ImpactGuru, #WomensNetworking #PowerfulSpeaking

Powerful Public Speaking .. some really helpful tips

As a a former senior producer with the BBC Esther Stanhope has met them all  … the most senior politicians and the Hollywood greats. She has helped prepare them for interview and calmed their last minute nerves. She was confident, competent .. brilliant at her job. Then someone asked to speak on a stage about her role and she realised she was utterly terrified of public speaking. So, after leaving the BBC and starting her own business she developed mastery of a field she felt initially she had absolutely no confidence in.

Esther with our host Lady Val Corbett

And what a shining example she is of a Zero-to-Hero transition in a field of expertise. She was an absolute knockout of the speaker at our bimonthly women’s Business networking lunch run by Lady Val Corbett’s Network at the end of February.

Esther Stanhope has become a great asset to both junior and senior people in many organisations. She is particularly helpful if you feel highly competent in your job but not confident about being in the spotlight. Does that resonate with you? How many of us are confident in one area of life but not all? Esther wants us to be visibly brilliant as well as technically brilliant. Ever heard of Imposter Syndrome? She says “Get over it”, you are fabulous and if you believe you are, others will too.

Esther is a great speaker and presenter, and really funny too. But the goal is not to copy her and try to be like her ….. it is to have the skills to be our own authentic self and use her tips to put our unique personality into a situation or onto a stage with faith that we can come across well. If we can make that breakthrough in confidence then we can inspire others and become the best version of ourselves. Are

Good speaking changes your life

Speaking up and speaking out is a skill we can all learn .. and Esther says we absolutely should learn how to create impact on a stage, in a boardroom, during a pitch .. anywhere where we would like to have influence. She said “When you learn to speak in front of an audience, it changes your career, it changes your life. It attracts people to you immediately. It is unbelievably powerful. It transforms your businesses. It transforms you and your confidence levels, it just takes you to another level.” Yes there are times when you will be worried and scared but that means you are really living ….. you are stretching yourself!

Esther now speaks at conferences all the time and gets paid handsomely. She has proved to herself that she can do it. So she encourages .. nay she challenged us to do the same …. “Go out and get yourself speaking gigs … keep at it.”

“First of all” Esther said, “ Everyone has got good bits and bad bits. It’s about finding your good assets….  finding the your own superhero powers and really really working with them and are.”

That little voice of doubt on the shoulder, 

Have you got one of these sitting on your shoulder criticising you? Esther gave hers a name …. she named her cruel inner voice Cyril. She recognises when he mutters at her and tells him to be quiet.  What can you call your critic? 

TIP: tell yourself “I’ve got this .. I am nailing this” .. stop the negative internal chatter and reinforce yourself with good positive statements.

What is your confidence rating?

Esther gave us a scale of 0 to ten, with ten being the best. Where are we with our speaking skills she asked the audience of 80 women? At a recent gathering of Mumsnet women hoping to return to work, she said the average audience score was just 2.1 … our audience had an average of 6.2. Ok we are better but we need to aim for 9.8.

Have you experienced one of these problems?

• Being interrupted at meetings
• Feel like an idiot
• Had difficulty speaking up in a boardroom and getting heard, perhaps as the only woman
• Not expert enough
• Legs go shaky
• Mind goes blank
• Somebody walked out of the audience, put me off my stride
• Missed something out of your intended script
• You think the audience does not like you
• You are boring people with too much data
• All your slides are too full of words

Esther has tips for everything and gave us some good basics to boost our confidence and skill levels. She has written a book called: “Goodbye Glossophobia – Banish your fear of public speaking”. It’s a great read and somehow reassuring when she emphasises how nervous and horrible she used to feel. A million miles away from the delightful and relaxed woman who entertained us for 40 minutes.

She reminded us that we can make up so much nonsense in our heads …. OK so we left something out of the speech .. does the audience know, or care? they have got blank faces .. may be they are concentrating on what we are saying?  

TIP: one of her first tips was “Do not imagine audience naked!”  ..  It’s not a pretty sight and does not help at all.

Start with the basics

The actual physical side effects of anxiety and nerves have a really quick fix.  The first thing that you need to do if you start feeling nervous in any situation, whether it’s public speaking, or a job interview or maybe you’ve been invited to do a webinar, is a breathing exercise. 

TIP: Smell the roses, blow out the candle. 

This is a really good quick fix, an instant stress buster. Simply breathing through the nose and then slowly out through the mouth. Three times, for around about 45 seconds. You can rid your body of cortisol, the stress hormone; you can rid your body of panic in under a minute. Do that before you go on stage. Smell the roses, blow out the candle. There is loads of science to say this works and it immediately gets your heart rate down.

 

Don’t be the woman behind the scenes .. with the clever pen!

Esther loves to work with women and sometimes notices when working with major international firms and senior leaders, quite often, the women are writing the speeches… but not giving them.  They’re the ones with the vision, doing all the work ….. they’re the ones with the roadmap to the new regime. And yet it’s the senior guys that are doing this public speaking, chairing the meetings, being seen at the town hall sessions. Many women want to stay in background … their fear holds them back. We can’t let that continue. The only way we’re going to change that is by doing it ourselves. get out there and SPEAK UP. Be brave. Learn how stand in your power.

Esther’s challenge to you: Get yourself a speaking gig. Do more. Encourage other women to speak more.

The Simple Art of Telling a Story

So you say to yourself … “I’m not a writer .. I can’t tell a story!” Yes you can! As a human being you have a story. Stories are where it is at right now. They are SO important. You can draw on anything and the idea is to paint a picture for your audience so that you can connect with them.

1. Start the sentence .. I remember one time when …
2. Give an image or feeling .. Connect with audience. Paint a picture for them, engage their senses
3. Mark Zuckerberg’s assistant blow dries his armpits on his T shirt before he makes an appearance. That gets a laugh.
4. Picture the story in your head then you don’t need a script. It is in your memory easy to access when you choose some real life event or anecdote.
5. Come up with a nostalgic memory that takes people back to their own childhood or youth

BIG TIP: Power pose

This is a a very quick way to look good, sound good, and feel good. The power pose. The Amy Cuddy TED Talk explains the science behind taking a powerful pose. Her 2012 Ted Talk has had over 56 million views.. and counting. Watch it. Are

Instructions: 

1. Find a private space like a toilet before going yo your speech location
2. Stand with your legs hip width apart. You want to feel the gravity under on your feet, 
3. Keep like the for 2 minutes
4. You will feel more confident because you fill your body up with testosterone which makes you feel more courageous.
5. Neuroscientists also suggest you put your hands in the air, and expose your armpits too. Imagine Wonderwoman. 

Strike a P.O.S.E.

Esther came up with this acronym when supporting her nervous guests before live TV and radio interviews. Four tips for a quick fix.

Posture, Oomph, Speech .. and Smile!

P is for Posture

• There is so much science behind having the right physicality.  Your brain thinks you are powerful with the right posture
• Do not totter around on wobbly heels. Good posture means you look more confident, it is better for your voice, even sitting at table 
• Spread out and take up space. Look at how then men sit
• Presence is as important as content

What to do with hands?

Option 1 – Keep your hands in front .. men could look like a bouncer.

Option 2 – Keep your hands behind your back, like Prince Philip

Option 3 – For TV you need are them to be in the square of the screen above the hips so do that and just hold on to your third finger to steady your hands .. like Tess Daly

O is for Oomph 

• You need energy, enthusiasm
• Think about where you get your energy from
• Have enthusiasm .. “give it some welly!”
• NLP advocates will show you a power move that galvanises all your energy

S is for Speech

• Vocal warm up
• Use a Tongue Twister to get your chops working … like Unique New York
• Try an Evil Laugh (best to be on your own with these!)

E is for smile

• Smile and people will think you are confident and relaxed 
• Smiling moves nerves upward in face
• Have power and warmth and you will look confident 

TIP: for connecting with the audience

Maybe you have been given a difficult subject or one that your audience has been told to listen to and which they fear or find difficult .. be open and honest, acknowledge how difficult it is for them, help them relax .. acknowledge and let them share their feeling honestly. This authenticity should break down any barriers you feel.

Sign up to Esther’s great mailing list for more tips: 

 

.. and get out there and speak .. see you on the stage!

Esther Stanhope, the Impact Guru with author Gina Lazenby

The power of common purpose

Gina Lazenby at the Common Purpose event in Skipton with Helen-Ann Hartley, Bishop of Ripon (centre), and convener Marion Tweed-Rycroft, North Yorks County Council

Good news is actually  … good news

The fact that I find positive stories so uplifting must mean that I have been tuning into too much TV news reports recently where there is hardly ever any good news (and even the bad stuff seems to get worse). You just might fall into the trap of thinking that there is nothing good happening in the world.  Yesterday my heart was uplifted when I happened to attend “by chance” an event designed for the voluntary sector and faith groups in Skipton and Craven district. Not my normal milieu as I belong to neither community, but something about the event name .. Common Purpose .. called me in. Even though I was not on the invite list I was warmly welcomed and that about sums up everything about the day … the human capacity to reach out to a stranger with a smile and a word of welcome, and then afterwards ask who they are.

The full-capacity meeting was convened by Craven District’s Stronger Communities Delivery Manager, Marion Tweed-Twycroft.  The attendees were representatives across all faiths and local charitable networks. It’s quite astounding that so much is going on ..behind the scenes and with so many unsung heroes and heroines. The idea of the day was to bring everyone together and make more of what is already available by encouraging more partnership activity.

Collaboration is key

You might assume each church does its own thing with its own membership. Not at all. There is a strong spirit of collaboration and cooperation among the local churches to the point where the group name has apparently become the ‘Church of Skipton’. Congregation sizes might be getting smaller but the activities of the churches are growing with a strong outreach.

In 2015 a survey was done nationally by the Cinnamon Network to determine what was being provided at community level by faith groups. In Craven district that year, 150,000 hours of volunteer time were recorded with a financial value of £1.37 million added to the community. And two thirds of the faith-based projects were collaborating with other groups to make their initiatives even more effective. 

Times of Austerity call for greater creativity

There is an expression about necessity being the mother of invention. In these times of cutbacks that slash community budgets that hit welfare support, whatever resources have been to hand are now being leveraged to the hilt. The approach has been one of determining all the assets that everyone has in terms of buildings, resources, skills and connections. If a church building is used by only a handful of people for Sunday worship, it can filled with other groups through the rest of the week. The need to think outside the box and make more of what there is has grown many successful initiatives.  

Putting the kettle on 

Mark Waddington, CEO of Wellsprings Together, an initiative from the Diocese of Leeds, nailed the spirit of community effort when he said “The first step is to put the kettle on”. One of their most important projects is ‘Places of Welcome’ where he stressed the importance of creating spaces where people can come together, feel safe and connect. With the burden of spiralling mental health issues falling increasing across the community, he said it is crucial to have places where it is OK not to be OK.  

The Wellbeing Cafe is a project that appears to be run by Baptist church member Peter Smith in a United Reform Church where there is an open house to all for three hours every Thursday afternoon. This regular community space where you can get a tea, toasted sandwich and an art class is having a big impact on many people’s lives. The social interaction and support by friendly volunteers is giving people back their confidence and boosting self-esteem. There is no talk of religion, it is simply a space where the faith-based community provide a caring and judgement-free place for connection. A Muslim leader also spoke of the powerful impact on community cohesion by providing a place to cook food and share it together once a month with the different nationalities and faiths living in one neighbourhood.

The Medicine of Listening

There is increasing science behind the study of loneliness which says it not only makes you sick; it can kill you. Emotional isolation is ranked as high a risk factor for mortality as smoking. Putting that kettle on, providing an opportunity to sit round a table and have a chat or a meal, can literally be a life-saver for many. Being listened to and feeling heard is a much under-valued medicine and if it is provided as an earlier intervention it can stave off more serious mental health problems later on. Having access to a friend listening ear, someone who makes you feel valued by giving time, attention, and in that moment of being heard .. love. This is what the web of collaboration from a huge network of faith-based organisation is providing. 

The Bishop of Ripon, Helen-Ann Hartley, summarised the power of the morning’s gathering by drawing attention to the importance of making people feel welcomed and valued. She quoted a Maori chief in New Zealand, where she previously served as Bishop and worked closely with the indigenous communities, as saying “the most important thing in the world is people, people, people.”  She said everything that had been shared in the Common Purpose session had highlighted the many community projects that are providing help by wrapping around people with love and compassion.  So much more was being achieved by everyone working together. 

Making more of what we already have, being kind and compassionate .. what does that cost? Money may be tight but it not always the simple answer. Kind people are the answer, and especially those who reach out to each other to create a much-needed net of loving support which is the glue holding our social fabric together. 

Gina Lazenby hosts monthly events for the Conscious Cafe Skipton community where folks get together to talk about things that matter… find out more on MeetUp.

 

Why having a Digital Strategy is now the lifeblood of any business

Tags

#LadyValNetwork, Digital Strategy, Susan Kabani, ugenie

Susan Kabani, cofounder of Ugenie, leading the Lady Val post-lunch workshop

Susan Kabani, the co-founder of Ugenie, conducted an afternoon workshop for the Lady Val November Women’s Network lunch in central London to show us the power of digital tools to help our businesses grow. She is a non-tech founder of a tech business and that in itself was welcomed by our audience of women leaders and entrepreneurs, some of whom might admit to being a little fearful of getting to grips with the advancing digital world.  Her start-up business Ugenie provides private membership platforms for business communities and Susan is in line for a Best New Business of the Year award having made it to the final round of the Women’s Business Club New Business Award for 2019.

Susan started by pointing out that digital strategy is so much more than posting on facebook and Instagram, two things that many (older!) people dread using for business. She gave us a few definitions of what of it means and warned us that the way we are used to running our businesses today, can no longer be the way we run them in the future. Digital technology has connected us in such a way that there is no going back.  Any organisation’s business strategy today has to encompass digital. There is no longer a choice. So how do we really leverage digital tech to get more business?

To emphasise the power and impact that digital tech has been having in the world, Susan told us that 88% of the Fortune 500 companies that existed in 1955 are gone. These companies who looked invincible have either gone bankrupt, merged with another business or they are no longer in the Fortune 500 listing.  Most of the casualties came from not adapting their digital strategies in sufficient time and were replaced by others who had a better grasp of the changes being brought by the digital era. 

Susan Kabani workshop The audience was asked to think about brand name companies that we had grown up with which were now no longer here. Although no longer here, these once powerful businesses did not adapt to digital well enough .. Kodak and Polaroid are the stand-out examples of failures. Susan said that Blockbuster video, another big brand that had disappeared, had been approached by Netflix for joint ventures but they rejected them. Founded back in 1997 when Blockbuster was riding high on video cassette tape rentals with lifelong club membership, Netflix now has revenues (2018) just shy of $16 billion. If only we could see the future eh?!

If you don’t build digital into the plans today of your business, you stand a chance of going the way of Blockbuster …. losing out big time or disappearing altogether! Susan kindly shared her powerpoint as a great aide-memoire of the workshop. You can review that here. Highlights are summarised below: 

1. What’s important to know: Susan emphasised that getting a grasp of digital does not necessarily mean that you need to know the how of getting digital done, you just need to know it must get done. She pointed out that she is a non-tech founder of a tech company!  Bring in the right expertise. You need to have fluency about what can be done but not necessarily then implementing the tech you take on board.

2. Entry level to business is now lower: Digital has changed the economics of running a business too. Back in the day you needed to rent or own the real estate to run your business (all those Blockbuster Video stores on all those neighbourhood corners!) … now you can have a virtual location and even run a business from your sofa! The worldwide phenomenon Airbnb started in one room with one airbed!  When Netflix started out they did not need to invest in property. They invested in new tech instead.

3. Haphazard approach is not workable: MIT and Deloitte recently did a survey of companies… the first were just adding bits of tech here and there and determined that in order to be competitive, there was a need to embrace technology in a holistic way for the whole business.
4. The power of Gen-Z (cohort after the Millennials, defined as those born from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s): Young people today want to work with a company that has a clear digital strategy. If they do not have one, they are not interested.  In the ten years this generation is going to be 40% of the buying power of consumers. We have to know how to reach this group and understand today how they are consuming in readiness for them having more and more influential buying power.

5. Privacy is paramount: The next generation in particular are more sensitive about the privacy of their data. In this regard, Facebook is now a less trusted brand  .. and this might not bode well for this super-large company in the future unless they can turn that around.

6. Speed is everything: things are changing and upgrading so fast .. we have entered the era of exponential growth, so it is important to have digital data to give you feedback quickly. The goal posts are moving all the time now. You need to have your finger on the pulse to react quickly. A Digital Strategy has to be able to evolve constantly.

7. Communication confusion: There can be too many channels to choose form – is the message I am looking for in WhatsApp, or text, or Messenger .. or on email?? The advice is to choose one or two channels and stick with them. Keep it as simple as you can.   

8. Everything is included: Digital Strategy is not just able sales leads. It is as important for team communication as it is about customer feedback.

9. Tips about time: dob’t forget to include your own time in any project calculation. Even if your own business cannot afford to pay you at this stage, you must have an allowance for your strategy otherwise you can never afford to replace yourself.  Build a salary into your financial model. Make sure you value your time. And so you know what an hour of your time is worth? Are you able to calculate the return on investment of any activities you do?

10. What processes are we uses that saves us time? The workshop came up with a few digital hacks and apps that we are currently benefiting from:
    1. Trello helps us project manage and keep up with team activities, who has done what.
    2. Zoom brings us together across the world for meetings and conversations
    3. Movie is another communication program like Zoom but with the added benefit of a trained message stream
    4. Notability allows you to use an iPad and bring together handwritten notes converted to text with inserted photographs from a meeting which is very useful
    5. Copper brings together everything Google to manage leads and emails, putting relevant contacts into a leads generator. If you are looking for investment then being able to show you have ready-pipeline makes you more investable.
    6. So much about digital tech gives greater efficiency and not just sales leads

11. Building a Digital Strategy has to start from the top: you have to be informed to drive change with the right tech because you can meet resistance from people who feel they already have a solution. You need to know if what you are introducing is better. Build the data and track what is working. Take the time to acknowledge what is working when it is a success.  If it is not working .. be prompt in changing it. Bring in good tech for measuring.

12. Buy right the first time: do your research so that you do not install something that ends up being the wrong fit. It is more cost-effective to get it right from the start. And if you need to change it usually possible to migrate your data .. with the right expertise.

13. Women on the Web support: is a digital community with helpful, bite size how-to videos. If there is something you need to learn how to do, this is the place. You can even ask for specific subject to be covered and one of their community of 45+ women teachers will prepare something to add to the resource library. (For example Susan has prepared a video on how to load your photos from your computer up to Instagram, instead of your phone). Find out more and join.

14. Choosing advertising: Boosted Facebook adverts can add up and are they successful? Are you tracking them?   Where are the competition advertising? Why aren’t they using Facebook ? where are they placing their activity now? 

15. Before your Strategy comes your Vision: what are your specific objectives? Clarity helps with decision making. Is your networking producing leads? Have an objective for each event you go to. Is is able leads / contacts / intelligence? Do you know your key numbers? How many to reach to sign up as customers/sales?  Smart tech for finance: there is so much out there for assisting in organising finances, invoices and budgets. Use it. Find a person skilled in setting it up. 

16. Gen-Z want more support … track how you are helping them, with things like health and wellness. They are much more mobile. If they are dissatisfied they move on. They are also interested in the social values of your business. They have a whole new way of looking at the world that we older people need to understand as it will likely affect their business.

17. Good data management is at the heart of good decision-making: invest in getting the right systems or procedures to give you the data you need so you know where to put your effort, resources and money. You don’t need all the channels .. choose the best for you. Email still remains a very strong marketing tool as is local marking in your computer. With so much choice out there … keeping it local can keep it simple. Figure out where your audience is and choose the best channel for your key market … LinkedIN ..or networking / face to face meetings.

18. Simple simple: people get lazier .. they want things done for them or to put in minimum effort. Don’t ask too much of people. Spoon-feed. Be really clear with your call to action in your website. Don’t leave them in a quandary for what action to take .. at the right time. Don’t make them register their info twice. Be the same with your brand across all channels.

19. eCommerce remains huge:  Amazon is the biggest retailer in the Western Hemisphere. They have so much helpful data. You can track where your customer are dropping off in the sales process, where in the sales / buying journey is the weak spot you? Very useful info.

20. The Mayor of London’s Promotional Agency: has an initiative called the London and Partners Business Growth Programme. Businesses that have at least 3 people can apply for benefits. It’s all about bringing more employment to London. It’s worth investigating for possible support. More about this initiative here.

• About Susan Kabani: she was an IT lawyer who went straight into her family business to protect their trademarks & copyrights, specialising in sports law. When she started there fresh out of law school, she found they had no electronic record of past customers, all 2.000 of them!  In order for her to retarget the most valuable asset of the business she had to go back over all the paper invoices. Just putting these on a spreadsheet was the beginning of taking the company digital. 
• About Ugenie: Launching her current business with her other non tech founder, they saw a need to offer communities a private way to connect with each other. They saw that some groups were struggling to be in communication using Facebook or several WhatsApp groups. They have developed a private app that these communities can use more effectively by being digitally connected and not having to share all their data.

Prue Leith Queen of Cooking recalls her colourful life

Tags

#LadyValNetwork, Bake Off, Prue Leith

Bake-off star and cookery legend Prue Leith entered the room to a welcome of thunderous applause from the sold-out capacity gathering at Lady Val Corbett’s women’s networking lunch at the end of November.

Prue Leith and Lady Val were both involved with The Hoxton Apprentice, a restaurant that trained the long-term unemployed. Lady Val started her Women’s Network there in 2005 holding her lunches for 7 years. This event celebrated the Network’s 14 years of successful gatherings.

It was good to hear that Prue and Val have a history, with both coming from South Africa to the UK in their youth and staying in touch over the years. In fact, this lunch event was also a birthday celebration for Lady Val’s network which started 14 years ago in Hoxton Square in a training restaurant for the long term unemployed that both women were connected to. The two women and their ventures have gone from strength to strength.

With a female speaker for a large group of women, we are looking for gossip, insider secrets and tips for how we can emulate her success. Prue did not disappoint. She turned out to be a kick-ass business woman with a winning smile, a colourful presence and in her own words a “terrible show off”!

“Business is boring” ….. but is it?

It’s interesting how as a young woman Prue got the idea that business was boring so she chose a career that she thought was more creative, fun and involved people… cooking. She was good at it growing a team of cooks, then over the next year she found herself out of the kitchen … “Guess where I was …the team were in the kitchen doing the cooking, and I was on the phone, selling the stuff and making up the menus and doing the bills and organising the restaurants …. I was in an office doing business!”  To her surprise she found that she absolutely loved it getting as much of a buzz and “smug self satisfaction” from getting the right numbers on her profit and loss as she did from preparing a big wedding feast. 

Creative with Marketing

It not only helps to be a good cook but you have to seize the opportunities to move up the ladder and grow your business whenever you can. Prue spoke of a time when she was cooking for a wealthy woman in her Holland Park home. Through the server hatch she overheard the dinner parties guests give lavish praise for the food and ask for the name of genius cook. The hostess then claimed that she had cooked all the food herself and the “little girl in the kitchen” was simply there for clearing the dishes. That little girl resisted the temptation to shout through the hatch and instead came up with a great idea. A small sweet revenge. She took her business cards and wrote on each one that this was the person who had cooked their lovely meal then slipped them into the coat pockets of all the guests. Bingo!  Shortly after, she received a call from the secretary of the Chairman of Reed publishing inviting her to cook for the directors’ lunches. He was impressed with both her cooking and marketing skills.  Be brave and seize the moment.

Evolving with age

When Prue got to her mid century she wanted to heed a different call for creativity and write novels. Owning three very successful businesses took all her time and creativity so she decided to sell them all … her cookery school, Michelin star restaurant and catering company which now had 500 employees. That’s certainly a brave shift. She opened up space for her creative writing phase but after some time decided she actually missed the buzz of business. 

You’re never too old to start again

Recalling how Lady Val celebrates a woman’s love of handbags and shoes (a regular toast at her networking events) Prue pointed out that these items are either hidden under a table on the floor or on our feet and then tucked away in cupboards. She decided to be a bit more canny and showy and choose to channel her creativity into the design of a range of colourful Prue spectacles and gorgeous necklaces .. items that already formed part of her personal brand image and are always on display! Having previously enjoyed wearing colourful and inexpensive plastic jewellery, Prue’s range is a bit more eco friendly and not based on plastic but on beautiful gemstones which also make for a more sustainable business with better margins.

So having semi-retired from her businesses in her 50s .. here she is about to enter her 9th decade and back in the business fray, collaborating with jewellery and spectacle designers. It’s never too late to take on something completely new challenge.

Older women and Invisibility

Reflecting on her own journey through the years, she has noticed that women in their 50s can feel, and also look, invisible. She encouraged women to accept the fact that older men will let their gaze land on more nubile and younger women (that’s just what they do!) and we can still have a good time. Don’t give up on yourself she said … embrace colour. 

Finding love

Prue referred to her long and happy marriage with her first husband. He was 20 years older than her and sadly he died when she was in her sixties. She has been very public in her comments about her surprise and joy at finding love again in her later years. She is going to be 80 next year and is delighting in her wonderful marriage to a man who is seven years her junior which she called “the right ratio” to much applause from the audience.  

Women can often find themselves single in later life for a variety of reasons but she pointed out that even though we might not all enjoy the love and connection of a life partner, love is still hugely important in our lives and takes many forms. Appreciating the love we have from friends and even our pets is nourishing and important. Having love and being long sustains us.

 

Recipe for success

Prue says that because she seems to do a lot, and has accomplished so much, she is often asked about her secrets for success. This is a hard one for any of us to answer but she says she can only draw on her innate optimism. She says she is upbeat in her approach to life. “I do think I’ve been lucky ……. you know, if something goes wrong, I will more likely say, it was really worth a try. I’ll do it again…. Or that didn’t work so I’ll try something else. I think much more about what I’ll do next, rather than worrying about what I’ve done wrong….And I’ve done lots of things wrong.”  It can be so easy to focus on the mis-steps and the failures and let them hold us back but Prue maintains a focus on the future which sounds really healthy. Keep your eyes forward and don’t get hung up on the past.

Embrace the colour

Her other secret is her love of colour which she says has a great deal to do with how she feels … “maybe this is because I’m busy flogging colourful specs and colourful necklaces! … but I do think that if you wear a red jacket or a yellow coat on a miserable morning you immediately feel a little happier. So I’m really for us all having colourful lives, and that means having a go with everything.”

A new career phase with Bake-Off

When Mary Berry stepped out of the Bake-Off team when Channel 4 bought the franchise, Prue, already an old hand at TV work, wondered who they would find to replace the iconic female elder stateswoman of baking … she thought “surely they’ll never ask for yet another old lady…  Channel Four always want to do something different .. a young cool black woman perhaps …But they obviously didn’t want to mess with the formula”. So she was approached and is now a key part of the successful continuation of the series.

Everyone wanted their photo taken with the Bake Off star

The big faux-pas

As the first Bake-Off series involving Prue came to a close, she recounted how she was prompted to congratulate the winner after 10.30pm. Of course we all know it is a pre-recorded programme and the winner is a very well-kept secret (and has been for 7 years) until the recording is aired many weeks after the actual event.  On this occasion Prue was in Bhutan with very spotty phone reception so when that prompting message appeared on her phone, she looked at her watch .. 10.30pm …so she sent out that famously ill-timed message of congrats to the winner. It was certainly 10.30pm in Bhutan but much earlier in the UK and the show had not yet been aired. Her assistant spotted the spoiler message and deleted it so it was only up for 89 seconds .. but that was all it took to spread like wild fire. The spoiler-alert story made headline news. Instead of having her contract terminated as she fully expected, Prue was relieved to find a compassionate response at Channel 4, particularly as ratings soared when many new folks tuned in to watch the show.  The potential debacle had another upside when the Prime Minister of Bhutan called her for a chat … congratulating her and thanking her for putting Bhutan on the map .. in the most unusual way!

That is definitely a sign of a woman who is a pure magnet for good luck!!

Lady Val’s next lunch event for women in London is February 20th

The Possibility of Creating Real Change in the Brain – a Conscious Cafe conversation

Tags

#brainrewire #John Taylor, #BWRT #International Stress Awareness Week

Little did I know that an invitation to learn about re-wiring your brain and giving your flagging willpower a boost would resonate with so many people. Almost 60 of us attended our Conscious Cafe Skipton gathering in November to listen to local Psychotherapist John Taylor talk us through how our brains actually work. That’s the largest gathering we have ever had and shows the increasing desire people have, not only to connect and share in community, which is the core idea of Conscious Cafe, but also to learn more about what makes us tick (or stops us from ticking the way we want to!)

When I asked folks to share what had called them to this particular conversation, these were the issues named that people commonly live with and would like to resolve:

• • social anxiety
  • addiction (let’s just add sugar in at this point!)
  • not following through on good ideas that we have
  • daily anxiousness
  • PTSD
  • unhelpful habits
  • procrastination 

Our event was held on the first day of International Stress Awareness Week – a perfect opportunity to examine what it is that causes us stress .. and what to do about it. In addition to the anxiety list, people also expressed a desire simply to express themselves to others; gain further clarity on what they could do to support their own wellbeing; learn some more self-help tools  and satisfy their curiosity on the understanding their brain.

Here are ten insights from our Conscious Cafe evening exploration:

• Inner conflict – Why do we say YES then regret it?

John shared something we have all experience. We say YES to something, like agreeing to speak at a public event, then immediately afterwards we are filled with dread because we are now overwhelmed with fear .. and yet, we know, deep-down, that we do actually want to do that thing!

That was a conundrum that troubled John Taylor and his curiosity and desire to overcome said fear, led him to train in hypnotherapy and psychotherapy. He was particularly drawn to BWRT, BrainWorking Recursive Therapy, a new form of psychotherapy that uses the latest findings in neuroscience and is proving very helpful for changing behaviours and habits. successfully resolving many cases of PTSD, panic and anxiety as well as anxiety and phobias. We can be amazed at what makes us fearful but what is even more amazing is that we can actually overcome this.

2. Needs vs Beliefs – A core dynamic in the Brain

What underpins so many of the issues that we have as humans is the trio called, Needs, Belief and Conflict. And the conflict usually arises when a need comes up against a belief.  Our needs start with a sensation. The absence of something or the desire to get rid of something is experienced as a feeling. When we don’t have what we need (eg drinking water when thirsty) the body will get stressed. Equally, we can feel stressed if we have an unwanted experience (like anxiety) so we are triggered to get rid of the unwanted feeling, and relieve it. But sometimes, something stops us from taking care of our needs.

3. Human needs are diverse and form a hierarchy

• Survival is our most basic needs: water, food and shelter
• Security is also top, with feeling safe
• A sense of autonomy and control: having freedom over our life
• Emotional intimacy: feeling connected to family and having loved ones who know and understand us 
• Belonging: Feeling connected to and part of a wider community
• Privacy: having time and personal space to reflect
• Sense of status: within social groups. Being seen as an authentic person beyond any role we might have. We need attention, a sense of identity.
• Sense of competence and achievement: feel validated and recognised
• Meaning and purpose:  feel as though we can make a difference and our contribution is worthwhile.

4. Unfulfilled Needs – the beginning of many problems

Problems start when our needs are not fulfilled. There can be many reasons for this. Environmental factors play a part and these can mean we are not able to access the resources we need or perhaps we have a lack of knowledge for what might be available. One key aspect is that we don’t always recognise what our needs are, particularly our emotional ones may not be so obvious. We have never been taught to think of ourselves as having a range of needs and how to truly recognise when they show up. Finally our own brain software, made up of our beliefs, can get in the way of us getting that we want. 

5. Where do our Beliefs come from?

These come from an accumulation of our learned behaviour.  Listen in to the voice in your head – that is clue to what you believe. “I don’t believe I am worth it”. That thought is going to create a major conflict with one of your needs. Losing touch with our needs can go back to childhood when we heard family instructions like “You should be seen and not heard” or “Eat everything on your plate”.  Maybe you simply do things where there is no rational and obvious reason but they are traditions passed down through your ancestry when you learn how to do things… the way your family always does things. Superstitions can be passed down through generations and simply become part of our core beliefs, beliefs that others may not share.  Other than our parents, beliefs can be instilled in us from school education, our peer group and the powerful influence of advertising. 

6. Beliefs are strong and some can work against us

Belief has nothing to do with fact. Because whatever you believe is based on your own imagination. We can believe something will happen tomorrow, because that’s the way it’s always been before. It is  not just a belief in an outcome of something, it’s our self belief as well that has power over us. Our self belief of who we are, what we’re capable of (or incapable of) and what we can/can’t do, what would happen if we did try to do something or not try to do something. Our beliefs can be rigid and they fundamentally shape who we are. If we feel we have to suppress part of ourselves through some kind of external pressure, and that then means we are not able to meet our needs, our body can react to this suppression with anger, anxiety, chronic illness. 

7. Who or what steers the brain?

The thinking, rational conscious brain that pays attention, helps us makes decisions and is responsible for willpower … this gives us a feeling of control. But in fact, it is not in control. There is another part of the brain, the subconscious. This is the part that never sleeps. When a threat happens the subconscious brain will cause us to very quickly take action .. to protect us. That happens before our conscious part is even aware. And working to support us, it always tries to act on our beliefs, as well as our needs. Sometimes there is conflict between what you really want to do and what you feel your should do.  This is the nub of it! When a belief and a need are at opposite ends of a spectrum, you can’t act on both.  So this is where you end up doing nothing .. good old procrastination! It can also lead to perfectionism. This does not make us perfect, it simply stops us from doing something in case we are embarrassed. It saves face! 

8. It all gets wired into our brain 

“Cells that fire together wire together” is a key function in the brain and a foundation of the research and work of BWRT. Like a Pavlov dog, that has become wired to salivate for food .. we can continue to respond in a certain way after a strong initial reaction becomes wired into the brain. We form these neural pathways inside our brains which are links between the nerve cells inside our brains that fire off at the same time. And in just a third of a second, our brain starts to take action before we are consciously aware of what is going on. Research has shown that before a decision is made to take action, there is already neural activity inside the brain. All this can be good for us unless it causes a negative emotional response. 

9. Reprogramming the brain wiring that drives subconscious creates real change

Failure of willpower is where we are working with the conscious brain, unaware of the role that the unconscious has over us. It’s hard to make a decision NOT to do something when your system is activated to move forward programmed by your subconscious, which is simply acting in your interest, driven by your beliefs. Sometimes you are fighting against your survival instincts. 

So telling your brain to do something else instead is going to meet with resistance. Of course, you can make change because the more you do anything differently, the more successful you’ll be and the easier it will be. The best approach in BWRT is to stop the trigger in the first place rather than working on trying to resist.

10. 10.Tools for change

Getting rid of anxiety is not done by trying to think of something else, it involves activating the anxiety because that in itself has energy as it is a neural pathway.  Once activated it is immediately frozen to stop progressing. At this moment you can’t do two things at once .. you can’t stop anxiety and have it grow at the same time. By freezing it, your brain is called into a “wait state” and it is waiting for the next bit of information. This is when you  break your automatic response pattern, it’s called a pattern interrupt. Strangely, your brain is highly likely to accept whatever new instruction we give it next. You decide the new action you want to replace the old habit reaction. With repetition (this is the recursive element in BWRT) this new action actually sticks. 

This therapy overcomes the need for forcing change through willpower, it does not require long discussions about what is going on ..  you simply want to know what new behaviour you would like instead. These techniques come from the newest brain science and neuro plasticity which means that all things can change with every second of every single day. Previously we thought that the brain at age 30 was pretty much shaped for life. Now we know that’s not true. This is a new area of research and overturns a lot of what we previously understood about the fixed nature of the brain. 

John Taylor handed out a sheet of tools and tips with a Human Needs exercise. He is also very generously offered all attendees a personal and individual follow-up conversation during the next couple of months. He can be contacted on email and phone ‭01756 761604. Check out his website.

The bottom line is … our brain has an unlimited capacity to rewire and reorganise itself so all those old annoying destructive habits that we have got used to and suffer … they can all be changed.  It sounds like a good idea to get specialist help with some of this but real breakthroughs are possible.  It is helpful to study further and understand more about the enormous hidden powers that our brains have. The idea that our head is full of grey matter does not accurately reflect the powerful engine that controls every decision we make.  Seemingly, anything is possible. 

Conscious Cafe Skipton has more events coming up this year:

Tues Nov 19 – Sound Healing Lunch break – with Stuart & Debbie Harvey

Tues Dec 3 – What is a Life Well-Lived? – with Gina Lazenby

Tues Dec 17 – Conscious Cafe Christmas Party

Sun Jan 5 – New Year special event 

Mon Jan 20 – What is your Genius Groove? with Dr Manjir Samanta-Laughton

How the word ‘Compassionate’ challenges our thinking on Leadership

Tags

Compassion, Leadership

Compassionate Leadership

The Conscious Cafe Skipton community gathered in October with Emma Slade

Compassion and Leadership:  Bringing these two words and concepts together seems to trigger raised eyebrows. Do many of us fall into the trap of thinking like our speaker Emma Slade confided, that compassion is not a natural companion for leadership?  Perhaps we have seen so many examples of isolated, assertive, alpha male leadership that we just think that it is the norm? A complex discussion was opened up …..

A Journey through Compassion

In October we welcomed international yogi, teacher and author Emma Slade to take us on a journey through compassion, from her Buddhist perspective, and to explore nits potential for supporting leadership roles today. Emma joined our monthly Conscious Cafe Skipton at Avalon Wellbeing the evening before delivering a weekend retreat programme.  Since being ordained as a Buddhist nun, the first western woman to achieve this, she is also known as Ani Pema Deki. She has an incredible story to tell and this is most fruitfully discovered by reading her book ‘Set Free: A Life-Changing Journey From Banking to Buddhism in Bhutan’. She is also CEO of the charity “Opening Your Heart to Bhutan” which she founded to focus on helping children in need in the Himalayan kingdom.

Firstly – what is Compassion?  “Compassion is a mental state endowed with a sense of concern for others and the wish to see that suffering relieved.” This is the Buddhist interpretation. There are three motivations for Compassion:

• Cognitive – ‘I understand with you.’
• Affective – ‘I feel for you.’
• Motivational – ‘I want to help you.’

These motivations, or wishes, will potentially lead to a shift from simply ‘Me’ to ‘Me and You’ which becomes an understanding of ‘US and notions of WE.’  This shift to a more inclusive, collective thinking is perhaps the biggest challenge to our traditional thinking about what a leader is. 

What do we think the role of a leader is?  Emma asked us to consider this question in our Cafe discussion groups and to start with these possible categorisations:

1. To lead by example?
2. To give us wisest guidance – to tell us what to do?
3. To bring out the best in each individual?
4. To inspire others around a shared vision?

Have we ever considered leadership in the ‘We’ inclusive form?  

Emma said that the Buddhist texts contain only a few references to leadership and mostly in the context of letters to leaders like the King. They mainly focus on the pressure leaders have with a great deal of power and telling people what to do with their “wisest guidance”. 

The seeds of a Compassionate leader can be seen here in the concept of Level 5 Leadership:  Celebrated business author Jim Collins gives us a good insight into a different kind of leadership that is successful. He looked at why some companies go from good to great and the role of leaders in making that happen. Those instrumental in taking their companies to ‘greatness’ were known in Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great” as ‘Level 5 Leaders’ . He said these individuals were able to mix two apparently conflicting qualities; great ambition and personal humility. Their ambition was less personal for the SELF and more for the enterprise.  While Level 5 leaders can come in many personality packages, they are often self-effacing, quiet, reserved, and even shy. Every good-to-great transition in Collins’ research began with a Level 5 leader who motivated the enterprise more with inspired standards than inspiring personality.  Perhaps in this business language we begin to find the seeds of the Compassionate Leader.

How to develop these two qualities?  From the Buddhist point of view, whenever we talk about the conscious development of anything, we talk about the Root (or the ground), then the Path and followed by the Result.  These three levels of development provide a good structure for thought about anything, including our leadership conversation. 

• More than being nice. The study of Compassion has been very much part of Emma Slade’s journey and personal development. She says people can be quite fuzzy about it not realising that it is something that can be developed.  It is much more than just being “nice”. From a Buddhist point of view it has a very rigorous training. It starts from having a Bodhisattva intention, that is the idea of shifting ultimately from ‘me’ orientated to being connected and ‘we’ orientated. It is an essential shift in thinking. Even when thinking thoughts of peacefulness and calmness, if you are just thinking them for yourself it is not really being compassionate.  That is not going to take you from good to great.  

• “Who am I doing this for?” You always start any practice thinking about this question. The notion of shifting from me-to-we is always going to be in the Root of it. Once you have shifted your thinking from me-to-we then then how big is We? It’s limitless so it is termed immeasurable. Therefore, in order to respond to that immeasurable number of beings, the mind needs to have an immeasurable quality. That is sensible and appropriate.  The first quality to develop is Loving Kindness which means care and love for other beings.  Once you care and love other beings then of course compassion will follow so it is easier. If you love someone you do not wish them to suffer.

• Love is the Root, the immeasurable basis. From that compassion will naturally arise, you will not need to have to force it. 

• The need to be impartial. To start with the idea of immeasurable beings, we do have to develop a mind of impartiality and usually all of our human emotions are highly partial. We do tend to treat people differently when we feel that some people are more deserving of our love than others. 

• An impartial attitude of loving kindness must be developed, and to do that it is important to recollect the kindness that has been given to us by so many other sentient beings… and particularly in the Buddhist text the usual example is that of the Mother (or main care-giver). The detailed and practical example given of the Mother cites care that is given with some degree of hardship. That loving care required the Mother to have determination, patience and huge dedication of energy and time. All parents will understand this archetypal energy. Hardship is invariably experienced when dedicated care is given, even when this means things like lack of sleep.

• Expansion of limits. To understand compassion more deeply, we are invited to consider how the Mother was able to expand her own limits to give, and continue giving, when it is difficult. Feeding a child before one feeds oneself is a very practical demonstration of compassion.  In Buddhist terms, we are encouraged to see and treat all beings as if they have been our Mother.   The Buddhist teaching is literal but we can imagine how to apply the metaphor.

• Understand the Causes. Looking at the Root, the Path and Result, in Compassion practice, one wishes others to be free from suffering AND its causes because it is as important to examine what causes suffering as it is to want to relieve the suffering itself. When we more deeply understand the sufferer and the cause of the suffering, our response can be more appropriate. 

• Use the Power of Mother Love. The meditation practices for this are highly practical and visual examples of situations where your concern for your own mother would naturally arise. Based on the understanding that the love your mother has shown you, looking at that in very practical ways, understanding that she might be tired and needing support when she can no longer walk or she herself is in pain .. so the texts describe how you can step in to save the suffering of your mother. 

• The practice of compassion is seen to be perfected when one has done these two things: 
• Fully purified yourself from self-clinging  
• From the depths of one’s mind (our most inner mind) one desires all beings to be free from suffering.

The Buddha of Compassion: The visual expression of this perfected compassion is seen in the mind of Chenrezig, the most revered of all Bodhisattva, embodying the Buddha of Compassion. The image of him is depicted as having a thousand arms which is an attempt to show the mind of compassion as being unlimited and immeasurable. The multiple arms help to relieve the many who suffer and the causes of suffering. The palms of the hands have an eye which shows an ability to see, and not turning away, being able to respond. The face is very calm showing that the mind is very stable. Even though this entity is in the midst of profound suffering, the mind is still calm. This image is used frequently in meditation to help provide a tangible focus for developing greater compassion. 

The gathering divided into small groups for discussion then shared feedback 

Feedback on groups discussing Compassionate Leadership:  “Enormous”, “tricky” and “daunting subject”. Most groups found the subject to be huge, getting bigger the more it was discussed.  In a nutshell, it seems to be complicated and triggers many deeper and wide-ranging conversations. 

Different types of Leadership:  Looking around, leadership is not just happening at work in our organisations.  The church, for example, is full of leadership levels and ultimately, the Pope, has recently set an example of true compassion by shifting the Catholic Church from denial that paedophiles were among the ranks, to advocating an acceptance of the truth and a desire for the family of the church to move forward. Family life is led by parents who guide their children with their values.  Good leadership in family life is crucial for the next generation.

Leading by Example:  We are familiar with the old adage that you should “do as you would be done by”. And yet, treating others as we would wish to be treated carries an assumption that what is right for us, is also right for others. A Compassionate leadership approach would also involve empathy and a listening for what is really needed in each situation .. not necessarily what we ‘think” is needed. Our responses will be most appropriate if we take the time to truly understand others and their particular needs.

Compassionate Leaders are Rare:  Compassionate does not seem to be a normal or usual description of a leader. Some people gave examples of their surprise when they came across individuals for whom they had worked whose actions displayed compassion.  

What is a Compassionate Leader?  Compassion is not seen as a management competency, rather, it is a human skill that good leadership benefits from.

A number of traits and values were identified as being part of a profile for Compassionate leaders we have known:

• Honesty is key
• Authentic
• Humility
• Have integrity
• They work for the highest good
• Treat people with equal respect
• Is able to have courage to acknowledge their own mistakes
• They take responsibility, not blaming others
• A person who has the courage to express their core values while at work

Techniques for Embedding Compassion:  Knowing your people. This seems to be a key aspect of being a Compassionate leader. How to do this? Making it your business to know your people is a start … being interested in them and valuing the knowledge you have about them. Informal listening as well as formal conversations helps. Making sure people feel heard by deep listening is important. Taking time to start formal meetings with a “Check-in’ allows people the time and space to share what is going on for them. If everyone has the chance to share it helps to build a sense of loving kindness into the culture.

Compassionate Leadership is also about Tough Love:  It is not about being kind and nice to everyone. Tough decisions have to be made so it is not about softness. There are times when individuals have to be let go from a business, perhaps where they are causing disruption and making others suffer. It was acknowledged that such individuals would be helped but at the bottom line, sometimes it can be more compassionate to removed a person from a job and let them go. Tough love is about caring for somebody enough to help them see the truth.

Compassionate Economics:  When we look at our modern economy based on people being seen as consumers, and goods being produced as cheaply as possible, somewhere in the supply chain, it is likely that there is suffering. Cheap labour can have a high price that the end consumer does not necessarily pay. If we are to create a more compassionate world then it is important to look at what is hidden in our current notion of supply and demand economics. Creating change in this deeply embedded system requires individual acts of courage to ensure everyone is treated with respect. Anyone who steps forward to create change here, would be seen as a Compassionate Leader.

What happens when the Culture is not Compassionate?  Again, few organisations seems to be worthy of the description of being compassionate. In the average office, compassion is not necessarily part of the culture even when the organisation is non-profit. Very often it is not safe for a person to be their authentic self. In these circumstances, it can be even more difficult for an individual to go against the grain and be a Compassionate leader. It takes courage to make a stand and be authentic. Cultures don’t change without a struggle. Today, more and more millennials and young people are looking to work for organisations that do show compassion and allow authentic expression.

What does it take to be Compassionate?  Fully understanding the Buddhist perspective on being compassionate, we can see that it is important to really look and see the reality of the suffering that is happening around us and in the world.  Where do you decide to put your compassion on a daily basis so that you do not feel in overwhelm? Who do you support .. how do you handle moral dilemmas? It is easy to be kind and make someone a cup of tea but when circumstances get really difficult that is when we are really testing and trying helps us. We have to look and see what is happening in our own minds. The Root, the starting point, must be stable to provide a firm foundation for our subsequent response and action. We cannot be wavering in our response to suffering. You can indeed transform your capacity to be compassionate with mind training such as is advocated by the Buddhist teachings.

In summary .. it seems that we are seeing the beginning of change in our leaders and leadership styles. Having a deeper understanding of what compassion actually is, through this Buddhist thinking, and how it can be developed in uses enormously helpful. Starting with daily acts of Loving Kindness, we can bring Compassionate Leadership to our roles.

Conscious Cafe Host Gina Lazenby with Emma Slade (Ani Pema Deki) and Lisa Milnor who organised the weekend retreat

Emma signs copies of her book Set Free