Why I hate experts and gurus

If I were a business guru this blog would probably contain lashings of easily forgettable jargon, a slick exposition of incredibly weak arguments and a mind-numbingly facile set of conclusions laced with impenetrable or deliberately obscure terminology!

Luckily for you, dear reader, I’m not and never will be a self-styled business guru or even an expert. I’ve got some good reasons for this and I’d like to share them with you now. They are conclusions that I’ve arrived at over years of hard-fought experience with a good percentage of mistakes and cock-ups made along the way. Learning by mistakes has reinforced my intuitive feeling that modesty and humility in business is, even today or perhaps even especially today, a good idea.

There are three main reasons for my thinking and I’ve numbered them below in what I believe is the correct order of importance. I’ve also included a few simple notes for each point to try and show that for me these things really matter. I believe they should be fundamental to all of us if we’re serious about the contribution our own business success can make to the national economic recovery. Attitude of mind is rightly often seen as a major contributor to a successful businessperson’s make-up – if you’ve got your attitude right wouldn’t it be a good idea to make a genuine attempt to help others fix theirs?

• Experts and gurus can be intimidating and how on earth can you build up rapport – the single most important part of a sound business relationship – if you frighten your potential audience? The person you are addressing probably has problems, a lack of confidence and needs to learn but if you are trying hard to preserve your “expert” status can you really understand what it’s like to be in your customer’s shoes? Can you show you really understand their problems and show the empathy needed to win hearts and minds?

• Experts and gurus can be confusing because they deliberately use language that’s difficult to understand. They make themselves inaccessible at the very time when their “customer” needs light shining on a problem not a further hurdle to overcome before that damned problem is solved! Long and complicated words or expressions are used, often with a bit of foreign language chucked in for good measure, to make the banal sound impressive, scientific and more powerful as an argument. Sadly the reverse is the case – vanity is being served and the argument remains unwon and everyone loses!

• Experts and gurus can be wrong-headed, simply seeking to raise their own value and possibly further their own careers by using you as a test case or case study to demonstrate their own genius.

In summary, I would say there is a world of difference between being an expert and calling yourself an expert. Of course it’s essential that you know what you’re talking about (or as an “expert” might say – demonstrate full engagement with SME) but why not let others judge if you’re an expert or not and you simply get on with striving to be and do the best.

By the way, I gather SME in the context I’ve used it above means Subject Matter Expertise not Small and Medium Enterprise – glad I could clear that one up for you!

Ideas are everywhere!

To my way of thinking, “ideas are everywhere” is a brilliant little catchphrase. Like all good ideas, it’s extremely simple, easy to remember and yet very powerful in the potential it contains. At first glance it might seem obvious that ideas are everywhere – at least until you need some… I heard the phrase recently at a Winning Pitch High Growth Foundation master-class from keynote speaker Alexis Giles, New Business Development Principal at Google Inc. California. It was one of her ten top tips which you can see here in full at Winning Pitch MD John Leach’s blog: http://johnleachwp.wordpress.com/page/2/ I’m very grateful to Alexis for bringing this key little phrase into sharp focus for me and whenever I need new ideas now I always think of this expression.  By doing this I ensure that I consult far and wide, ask for as many opinions as I can find and make a conscious effort to include even the “silliest” ideas before arriving at the stage of narrowing down my options to enable me to take a key business decision.

It seems to me that heeding the phrase “ideas are everywhere” can make your decision-making process inclusive, far-reaching and even, dare I say it, more fun as it throws up all sorts of wacky ideas for your consideration! By consulting people you would not normally consider “ideas potential” for your business you are thereby naturally making the whole process more random. You are increasing your chances of coming up with something which is left field, innovative and bold enough to make an impression on the market – all things which a good many of us either find difficult to do, can’t do or pay someone else exorbitant sums of money to do for us!

So, why does the simple phrase “ideas are everywhere” work so well both as a memory-jogger and as a kind of mini-mantra? Well, there’s a lot of precedent if you think about it, the most famous probably being “veni, vidi, vinci.” When it comes to oratory, Cicero apparently knew a thing or two and he reckoned doing things in threes was definitely the way to create impact. I would agree with him based on my findings over the years in all things business related. That goes for whether it’s a phrase like “yes you can” (whispered to your self before an important meeting to summon confidence and alter the mind-set appropriately to induce the correct brain programming to take over) or whether it’s a concept based around three elements as for example in design, a sales pitch or a pleasingly balanced approach to displaying your business capability over the internet. Here’s a link to the website of a High Growth client that I worked with last summer: http://sea-chem.co.uk/ Look how strikingly they use graphics and text in groups of three – check this out and I think you’ll agree it’s very appealing visually and makes a very compelling case for the internet visitor to enjoy and absorb.

By the way, I’m sure you will all have noticed how I’m practicing what I preach in this blog post – I tried to make it interesting, entertaining and informative in three paragraphs – let’s hope I succeeded!

Another Place

A few years ago Antony Gormley persuaded Sefton Council to let him place 100 cast-iron figures along the foreshore at Crosby. I’m sure he wasn’t thinking about providing inspiration for business people when he did that. But that’s certainly what he did for me when I took my family to visit Another Place this Christmas. What’s more, I think his statues give us a brilliant example of what value visiting “another place” can give. Indeed if you are someone battling to succeed in business then simply being in “another place” can be the key that unlocks your creativity, reveals a new angle or allows you to put an old problem into perspective…

As I see it there are at least 5 major benefits you can enjoy if you take the trouble to visit any major sculpture in such a natural and often dramatic setting. You’ll probably have different ones and maybe even more but see what you think of mine. I hope my experience can help you to find your “other place”.

Here are my top 5 points:

·         Inspiration comes from just seeing things done very differently and in a remarkably bold way

·         Sculptures like these often provide more questions than answers and thus encourage you to keep faith in a business process which often does the same and where answers are similarly hard to find

·         Personal interpretation is challenging and fosters original thought, steering you well away from the familiar patterns and ruts of everyday business thinking

·         Community and family values are enjoyed and reinforced in a shared experience which is novel, memorable and therefore of lasting value

·         A vigorous walk along a wind and rain swept coastline provides an excellent chance to live by the motto “a healthy mind in a healthy body”

I just hope when you visit Another Place that the wind is blowing a little less vigorously since we managed to visit on the windiest day of the year and consequently enjoyed a sand-blasting experience too which will also not be forgotten easily!