Richard Maun

Author: moderncareers

  • In Business Or Just Playing At It?

    These are 'Lindenhof Lambs' from Canada. They make great wool, but rubbish business managers
    These are 'Lindenhof Lambs' from Canada. They make great wool, but rubbish business managers

    I’ve had three contrasting situations this week which have reminded me that it’s easy to overlook difficult decisions, or to avoid difficult conversations.

    Business is fun and yet it has it’s darker side too…where we have to take tough decisions and deal with tricky situations.

    Facing up to reality is what separates the sheep from the lambs and we all have to do it sometimes.

    Here are three little vignettes for you to consider:

    1) I have downsized my car this week to a cheaper and more economical Volvo (which I’m very pleased with). Much as I loved my Audi, my driving patterns have changed and it felt like my business now had a Director sat there drinking my coffee and doing less work. The car had to go.

    2) A colleague has an under-performing supervisor and has been keeping his fingers crossed that he’ll ‘improve soon’. So far he’s waited six months, to no avail. I suggested that his waiting was becoming part of the problem. He’s talking with the supervisor next week.

    3) A friend who is out of her depth and needs support had been passive about creating sales meetings. Selling can be tough and scary and daunting, but if you can’t sell you probably shouldn’t be running your own business. The trick is to make it feel safe by taking small steps and only doing one scary thing at a time. Too much is overload. She now has a simple plan, that combines easy activities with a bit of personal stretch.

    If you’re in business and have an elephant in the room, car on the drive, or member of staff under-performing what are you going do to about it?

    The sheep are in business, whereas the lambs think they are, but in reality are just playing at it.

    ….If you’re worried then talk to someone and share your concens. Or give me a call and we can combine business problem solving with cake.

    After all, tough talk can be tasty talk..!

  • How To Say No

    It's colourful, but it's still a donkey...
    It's colourful, but it's still a donkey…

    Sometimes the smallest words can be the hardest to say and ‘No’ is certainly one of them.

    This is because we often don’t wish to risk upsetting someone who’s asked us for something in good faith. So, instead of saying ‘No’ we say ‘Yes’. And then regret it.

    Often we like to ‘please people’ and feel that a rejection would mean upsetting them, or letting then down, so we put our own needs to one side and help them out, even though we have our own work to do.

    In some organisations people take advantage of the ‘nice people’ and get them to do work they shouldn’t be doing, or make sure they are the ones to make the tea and fetch the biscuits…knowing they’ll never say ‘No.’

    The good news is that it’s easy to avoid saying ‘Yes’, once you know how to say ‘No’ in a more assertive way.

    Instead of saying a bald ‘No’ – smile warmly and say:

    1) Not yet
    2) Not right now
    3) Not at this time
    4) Not in this way

    …You can follow it up by saying, for example, ‘I’m free at 5pm if you’d like to go through it then?’

    Often people don’t want to wait and so will find someone else to help them. Or even do it themselves, knowing their laziness has been rumbled.

    Saying ‘Not yet’ isn’t going to cost you friends, and people will not stop liking you simply because you’re being assertive. These two little trip-wires are simply fantasies that we create in order to keep the world in a shape that we like.

    The reality is that people will like us for being us…and not for being the tea donkey!