The New Zealand Herald ran a story this morning about Kevin Roberts joining the board of New Zealand's Telecom. Some stories honestly just make me go, OMG, what? Here is one of my business heroes joining the board of a company (Telecom) that "I hate to love". I continue to support them despite myself, and despite the way they present themselves to their clients. But I would love to love them. In the interests of full disclosure, our company are pretty big telecommunication users. We are heavily dependent on Telecom for our international telephone presence, and we're big users of high speed internet. Where we can, we support Telecom, but despite that I often joke that I'm sure there's a dart board in a Telecom lunch room with my face on it. I know I am extremely frustrating for them. Telecom is a company full of great people trying to do good things, and I believe the front line staff really care about customer service. But they are, in my opinion, drowning in organizational misalignment, terrible interdepartmental communication and a pervasive marketing strategy of screwing people over for the last dollar until the competition shows up. There is very little innovation into online activity. As a business we are unable on a bandwidth basis to afford either the data or the speed of pipe needed to keep up internationally. One of my staff members has an ADSL connection 10 times the speed of our business connection, at one 10th the cost. Telecom's strategy to date has caused New Zealand to become internet consumers, rather than content providers. So why do I support them? Simply, there are two reasons. - On the whole, although the process is frustrating at times, I like the people. The people I deal with on a day to day basis are pretty skilled, reliable and they care about me. That's a big start. - Although they're not doing enough, Telecom is the only company investing in any real sense in infrastructure in New Zealand. The rest are largely freeloading. Freeloading doesn't drive competition, it just lowers profits where Telecom invests. (I would love to have seen true and full operational separation of Telecom, but it didn't happen.) An internet infrastructure based on Fiber should be treated like every other utility created in New Zealand. That is, the government puts it in place then gives it to private industry to manage. The cost can't be justified economically on a per user basis, but it can be on a social one. My vote therefore still goes to the company that invests in broadband to my children's schools etc. The Herald article says ...

Boyd said yesterday that Roberts had been appointed to boost the board's expertise around "marketing, branding and customer satisfaction" and "Kevin Roberts is one of the world's most innovative and influential thinkers about corporate branding, marketing and customer satisfaction."

Does Telecom have a customer service problem? Of course it does, but not because its staff don't care about customers when they answer the phone. The issue is much deeper. Telecom must accept a lower profit today in the interests of a much greater one tomorrow. Telecom needs to look deeply at investment in its core engineers, its innovators and infrastructure. It needs to give its business customers a way to compete. Does it have a marketing problem? Hmm, not sure ... everyone in this country knows them. I hope Wayne Boyd doesn't think all he needs is a clever way to get customers to "love" Telecom. Much more is required, and Kevin, although inspirational and talented, is one voice on a board of people who doubtless believe they are too. As far I can see he has no direct telecommunications experience, so will lack credibility in that area. He does however come with a framework. In fact he blogged about FREDA yesterday. It deals with the issues I have outlined above, so hopefully that's a start for him. I hope it doesn't end up being a big distraction from his brand ... or a way for Telecom to continue paying lip service to its own. Kevin, I'm all up for a challenge, but this one might be a little bigger than a man of even your mana can chew. Good luck. What do you think? Kevin or Wayne ... Do you care to reply? :-) UPDATE : Have a look at this post by Miki Szikszai, very well written and another perspective. His from within Telecom and working with Kevin. I hadn't realised the Saatchi / Telecom relationship, so apologies ... it still however is not the help Telecom needs UPDATE2 : Kevin has written about his appointment at Telecom, your can find it here

Well I am sitting at the airport in Melbourne, waiting for a plane home to New Zealand after an amazing week at an event more like a rock concert than your usual financial course. This morning I feel a weird mix of tired but buzzy from attending another Tony Robbins event, this one called Wealth Mastery. What an incredible week. It's always nice to escape for a while with your wife, but to attend a life changing event like this with her was pure magic. We signed up a few years ago to Tony's Mastery University, and this week graduated having completed the three events "Life Mastery", "Date with Destiny" and "Wealth Mastery". It's funny that, despite these events being life changing for me, I don't really talk about them as most people who have not been through one don't understand the attraction. In fact I've given up trying to explain, as for many he's just the Infomercial Guy on TV late at night, and to others it's just "American Hype". Hyped it is, but it's also inspiring, life changing and thought provoking. It is so much fun and a brilliant experience to be so immersed in learning with like minded people. There was lots of financial strategies discussed and shared, but equally, lots of time was spent discussing contribution and other aspects of one's life. I've know this for a long time, but one of the most fundamental and powerful teaching's was ...

"You are not wealthy because of what you have, you are wealthy when you feel that way about what you already have".

Being grateful and feeling abundant about your family, your friends, your experiences, and the love people have for you, makes you much more wealthy than the lonely person with lots of money in the bank. And for that reason I don't just feel wealthy ... I feel blessed.

I was walking the dog this morning and it occurred to me how much of the last week has been full of

. In no particular order ... 1, Do you find as often as I do that food that's good for you isn't usually as good for your wallet as food that's not? 2, Business is like a snow ball rolling down a hill: it grows faster the bigger it gets. So why don't we focus on getting the small snow ball right and rolling first? 3, I was shocked to realise a while back, and was reminded often last week, that the information (learning) we most need to hear is often the stuff that irritates us the most. 4,

  Watching the sun rise last week I wondered, if that's true, why is something so beautiful sent to let us know about impending doom? 5, I responded to

about wedding photography. I was concerned about what was being implied. The paradox is, statistics can seem to say everything, when so often they say nothing. We need to deeply understand what surrounds them before we draw conclusions. No disrespect intended, BTW, Jeff's a great guy. 6, Why is it that when I

our dog, he has me walk slower than my wife does when she and I take a

. 7, I read an article that basically said .... "If I want to be a better me, I should be more like someone else". If confidence is so important in business, why do so many consultants focus on showing you case studies of people you could emulate, rather than helping you see what's good already, so you can build on that. 8, In my part time job as a volunteer fireman you cope by distancing yourself from the emotion of a situation. In my

, however, our business is about celebrating it. 9, For some "low price = quality", for others like me, it has nothing to do with it. 10, We live in a wonderful world where we share our lives openly on blogs and in places like

. We feel connected, we feel involved, but somehow this living in the moment ... being on display ... makes moments of privacy more precious ... and makes the need to preserve our memories more, not less, important. Stay well, enjoy your paradoxes ... maybe even share your own by leaving a comment. Cheers Stephen PS Shakespare was even more dramatic about #4 in his work, Venus and Adonis.

If you are in or running a disfunctional team, maybe it is a simple as people do not know who is the boss? Not an unusual situation but one that needs to be quickly and consciously resolved. Here I share my experience with this in the fire service and what can be learnt from it. One of the things the Fire Service does exceptionally well is make it clear not only that there must be a boss but also who that person is. In an emergency situation, control needs to be quickly put in place and priority given to the tasks needing to be completed. Your OIC (officer in charge) might be your best friend at the weekend but on the Fire Ground he is boss, and you do as instructed immediately and without question. Every Fire Service uses similar methods to make it clear who is in control on a Fire Ground, from the color and markings on helmets, clearly marked vests, right down to where people sit on the truck. If you ride in the front passenger seat you had better be prepared to take responsibility when you get off the truck ... simple. What happens when simple rules are ignored? One day a couple of years ago we responded to a head-on motor vehicle accident. Unfortunately no officer was available and we were a crew of four firefighters of the same rank. On arrival the place was a mess with serious injuries in both cars, traffic backed up and members of the public trying to be helpful but in the way. We all jumped into action doing what we thought the best use of our skills, but without a clear boss. The guy in the front hadn't demanded control and we hadn't expected it. Fortunately things didn't go too badly, but it certainly became clear, as other services arrived, such as Ambulance, Police and additional Fire Trucks that we were not in control. Everyone was looking for status updates, starting with "Who's the Boss?", and we didn't know. In business things are no different, there needs to be a boss, and there should be no question who that person is. An organization needs someone steering the ship, allocating the resources and establishing priority. Something to think about: How is that going in your organization? What's going well and what needs to change? Please share your thoughts below. What is leadership to you, and do you agree there needs to be a boss?

There is a saying "Get in Line, Stay in Line", basically it means if your start something keep at it until the end. Some people however give up just before the finish line. Below I share what we can learn from Kids when it comes to persistence in negotiation, once you start don't stop. Does No really mean no? Some children left to their own free will, can out last an adult in a verbal argument or negotiation. Kids are built with the extraordinary ability to stay focused on the goal and be so much more persistent than we can be bothered being. This hyper negotiation can happen angrily during a tantrum or seductively as the child pursues the idea of a new bike. Parents tend to have three strategies to deal with this #1 - Ignore it, hoping it will go way. But you get what you tolerate ... NOT GOOD #2 - Diversion: This is good in that, if you can distract a child, it often allows the child to let go long enough to forget the goal ... Effective. #3 - Dominate them: Basically where you try to assert yourself against the child and make it do what you want. Often aggressive, and in some situations violent. This isn't a game and it's not a negotiation ... Basically it's my way or the highway. Why is it that we treat our children like wild horses and over the years do all that we can to break them? In the interests of our sanity, peace and quiet, but most importantly the approval of our peers, we effectively crush a child's spirit. You must do all you can to keep that energy and persistence alive, to nurture it – it should be our goal to mould and direct it, not break it. The same thing applies with employees. When you employ people they should bring something new to the table. It can be frustrating at times but you need to keep their energy alive and celebrate the challenges. In Seth's book The Dip he talks about the need for persistence through tough times. Why, if this skill is so important as an adult, would we not celebrate and encourage it in our children. Anything else only has short term gains. How do you handle the "persistent" employee in your business? Which of the three techniques above do you use? How is that serving you? Could you try something else?  To read the stories in this series so far click here