TURNING POINT SCOTLAND

I spent Wednesay and Thursday last week working with a group from Turning Point Scotland. This is an organisation with branches the length and breadth of Scotland, "from Fraserburgh to Galashiels" as their own leaflet says. They offer support to people whose lives have been affected by learning disabilities, addictions, mental health problems, Dementia and homelessness. In other words, not the easiest groups to deal with. I have experience of working with disadvantaged groups and individuals and I know how challenging (and rewarding) the work can be.

I was recruited by Aileen Reid who manages TPS's Employability programme. Aileen and I had worked together previously and she thought I could add something to the training she was doing with this group who had volunteered to work on the Employability programme. Essentially, TPS is trying to change the mindset which says these service users have so many problems they just need support to live into saying that many of these service users can look towards working. That may not mean a job as many others would understand it. It may mean voluntary work, which, of course, may then lead on to more traditional employment.

To launch the programme, Aileen held an event in Glasgow with presentations from a number of partners, including JobCentre Plus and others. My highlight of that event was a presentation by one of TPS's own staff who is also a service user. This young woman was born with cerebral palsy and her mother was told that she would never talk or walk and would need to be cared for for the rest of her life. Instead she stood in front of an audience of about fifty and told us her story, accompanied by the PowerPoint presentation which she herself had created. What an inspiration!

Also inspirational were the thirty five or so TPS "volunteers I had the privilege of working with last week and back in October. These are a mixed group of individuals who seem totally committed to supporting their service users and who were such a joy to work with. The future of Turning Point Scotland and the future for the organisation's clients must be good in such positive hands.

PETER DRUCKER

I wasn't aware when I wrote my last newsletter that Peter Drucker had died. Some words are so overused that they have become meaningless. Every reasonable journeyman footballer nowadays seems to be described as a "genius" and fairly average business consultants write books with half-baked theories and are described as "giants" and "gurus." Peter Drucker hated the word "guru, so I shall avoid it, but he truly was a giant amongst business writers and organisational theorists. Here was a genius in his field.

I first came across Peter Drucker in 1979 while a student at Napier College (now University) in Edinburgh, Scotland. I was not studying management but I had an interest in the subject and I was (and remain) a voracious reader. I picked up a Peter Drucker book to read over lunchtime and couldn't put it down. He wrote so succinctly and so directly that I felt as if he was writing about my experiences. When I was in management and had teams working for me, I did my best to put his theories into practice. When things did not work that was not down to faults with his theories, just my ineffectiveness. But I continued to learn.

Many modern-day theorists, some of whom earn eye-watering sums for lecturing, have simply taken Peter Drucker's work and re-cycled it for a modern audience. But Peter Drucker said it all, and in such a wonderful way, that he remains for me the master. Philip Kotler who is often described as "the father of marketing" wrote that if that were true, the Peter Drucker is the "grandfather." He published his first book, The End of Economic Man, in 1939 and his most recent, Managing in the Next Society, in 2002, although I believe he had just completed another (his 36th!) when he died, just short of his 96th birthday. A giant of a man has left us and the world is poorer as result but let us be grateful for the 95 years he gave us.

MORE CHOICE

I've just been reading the latest newsletter from Emyr Williams of Business 121 which is linked to Business Bricks (see Paradox of Choice). He describes going into a shop to look for a digital camera. Not only was there too much choice but the choice was all about features and there were no sales staff around to help him make sense of them. It has been so well known and taught on even the most basic sales courses that customers do not buy features, they buy benefits.

Why do so many major retailers and manufacturers insist on trying to sell goods by listing the benefits? This is not complex. If you feel that a feature will be of importance to your customers, tell them why. Here is a simple example. A new car offers 0-60 in 8 seconds. That in itself will not turn people on. The fact that it will pull away quickly at traffic lights or overtake safely are the benefits which will sell it. A simple way of deciding on the benefit of a feature is to use the link words which means that. So if you run a shop which offers late opening on Sunday think "Late opening Sunday which means that customers can get things which they may have forgotten earlier.

Small businesses would do well to note that so many large businesses seem to have forgotten the lesson that people buy benefits and not features. By concentrating on benefits in their promotion and sales activities they can gain the edge on their competitors.

THE PARADOX OF CHOICE

The latest lecure as part of the Vanguard programme came from Professor Barry Schwartz and was on the paradox of choice. Essentially he said that, although governments and others tell us that choice is good for us and is a sign of freedom and democracy, when we are given a wide choice we either end up paralysed and unable to choose or we choose and are dissatisfied with our choices. We also discussed this in our telephone discussion group this evening.

Some of the examples are of those being offered an almost unlimited choice of retirement pension schemes then choosing the least advantageous option because it was the easiest understood. I remember Matt Weston referring to this in an early Business Bricks (www.businessbricks.co.uk). He mentioned buying a tennis racquet where the shop asked for details of the person who would use it - height, style, etc. He was then offered three racquets to choose from and made his choice quickly. Had he been offered the full range (more than 100, if I remember correctly) he would have been confused. Had he been offered one only, he would have wondered if the salesman was on special commission for selling that brand and was he getting the right racquet for the person's needs. Three seemed to be the magic number.

The lecture (and our discussion) also referred to maximising vs satsficing. I remember studing SE Finer and others on this topic in the late 70's. Essentially Professor Schwartz said that often "good enough is good enough." I think I go with that. The obsession with perfection seems to me to be chasing the impossible and not worth the effort. This is not an argument for shoddy or half-hearted service. But if it's good enough, it's good enough.

BUSY BUSY

It has been a few weeks since the last posting because I mislaid my password so a lot to write about. Last weekend Robert Sullivan and I were involved in a Development Weekend for CIPFA. Some people seem to have the view that all accountants are dull. They should have been with us.

We were working with almost 100 public authority accountants and the energy in the room would have powered a small town.. The programme was called Developing the Modern Manager so we were covering topics like management styles, managing teams, motivating and goal setting. We also did a session on our favourite area of expertise - ICE: Innovation, Creativity and Enterprise. We have just received the feedback from the event with 99% of the delegates rating it as good or very good. One of the delegates has also asked us to run a motivation session for students at the CIPFA conference next March.

I am also involved in doing some staff training with Turning Point Scotland. Last week I worked with almost twenty TPS staff, teaching them tools which they could use for themselves but, more importantly, use with their clients to try to move them into employment. We looked at personal motivation, goal setting, reframing, handling fear and much, much more. The two half-day sessions flew by for me. TPS clients are in very capable hands. I can hardly wait for the next sessions in two weeks time.

In between Margaret and I have also managed a short break in Cork in the Irish Republic. In every bar and restaurant we visited we were met with wonderful hospitality (and the most enormous helpings of food I've ever seen). There are lessons there for all hospitality providers in the UK.

Now that I have recovered my password the newsletter should appear more regularly.