Why Don't ...: Why Does Power Go To People's Heads?

Why Don't ...: Why Does Power Go To People's Heads?: It is strange that people who normally act with empathy and emotional intelligence then often start to misuse the role power they have been...

Lessons for your next interview from Dragon’s Den, can you do the interview numbers?

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Watching Dragons Den, there are a number of points when you can see that the Dragons lose interest. One of the critical ones is when they start exploring the numbers. Sometimes the reason they don’t invest is that the numbers just don’t stack up. There is no profit to be had. Another reason they don’t invest is that people don’t know their numbers. Or are confused about the numbers and what they mean. Over and over, under the pressure of the interview, people lose the plot about their costs, revenues and profits.

When you think about it, that makes perfect sense, the Dragons are putting their personal money into someone elses’s business. If that person does not know the difference between, turnover, profit, and margin then why would anyone have confidence in the individual’s ability to increase margin, build turnover and deliver profit? Knowing the numbers is critical to success in the Den, and critical in giving the Dragons confidence in the entrepreneur.

Can you see where I am going with this? All senior roles have budgets, some of them very big budgets; interviewers need to be sure that the candidates can handle those  budgets and that they will be good with the money. The challenge for the interviewer is how to assess that.  It is one of the most difficult areas of skill to really test. Numerical reasoning tests can test arithmetic, but that is not the whole answer. Commercial reasoning tests can test the ability of a candidate to think commercially (understand turnover, margin and profit but not deliver it). Questions in interview tend to be bland and relate to ‘how do you ensure you don’t  overspend?’, ‘how do you deliver increased productivity?’, ‘ tell us what you have done to deliver savings/reduce costs?’. Ok those questions will get you some information about whether the person understands processes.

How can you, as a candidate, give the interviewers confidence that you are good with money?

It starts in the Cv and application: if you don’t talk the language of numbers then you are missing a trick. You need to shown in your Cv that you know the cost and value of everything. You need to demonstrate that you know and understand the metrics of performance.

In your interview you should not wait for the interviewer to ask about money, budgets or revenues, you should be talking naturally about your income, your expenditure and your costs. By knowing and talking confidently about those things you are demonstrating that you think about the financial implications of all your activity. Once you do that, you give the interviewers confidence that you will pay attention to those things.

What is it that makes the difference between someone who is a good financial manager and someone who is not? Being able to see the patterns in the numbers, being able to project. to identify and spot trends all make someone good at managing the money. But, I think one of the absolute key things is that good financial managers pay close attention to the numbers.

 If you talk about the money and know your numbers you can convince the interviews that you are one of those people who pay attention to money, and that you can do all those things you need to do to balance the books or turn the profit. If you think money, talk money and build confidence that you are good with money.

For more career advice and interview support go to www.maryhopecareersuccess.com

Mary Hope is an experienced senior recruiter and career coach.

budget (Photo credit: The Survival Woman)

What will work be like in the future?

ILM's futurologist's predictions – could the following be coming to an office near you?

• Artificial intelligence – towards the end of the decade, computer-based intelligence will provide much of the effort in many jobs. Employees will concentrate more on the human aspects of their work, which are harder to automate.Love one another....
• Visors & 3D immersion – semi-transparent visors are coming soon and some of these will enable a fully immersive 3d experience, with a separate display in front of each eye. Together with fingertip tracking and gesture recognition, this will give a whole new interface to our computing, even with virtual keyboards.
• Augmented reality – the convergence of the virtual and physical worlds. Enabling superposition of graphics everywhere we go will give marketers, games manufacturers, retailers, fashion designers, architects and social network designers a whole new platform to play with.
• Restructuring – company structures are changing rapidly and this trend will accelerate as the web matures, automation increases, skill shortages increase, and global labour costs change, all in parallel with changing regulation.So we will all be waiting til 67 for a pension but with no work to do?
• Miniaturisation – today's IT will reduce in size potentially to digital jewellery and smart dust. This is good for sustainability, requiring far less physical resource for the same functionality and quality of life value.That sounds good, but a phone implanted in my skull? maybe not
• Cordless Energy – as well as wireless comms, tomorrow's electronic devices will almost all be cordless for power too. thank god i say, no more trailing wires or running out of power!
  
  How will you cope?

Thanks to the Institute of Leadership and Management.

How much would you pay to look the part of 'highly successful executive'?

Ladies – STOP WASTING MONEY ON CLOTHES

Wardrobe Re-Vamp End of Year Offer – Not To Be Missed

A couple of days ago I was advised that someone had paid £1000 for a Wardrobe Re-Vamp days!

How does that sound to you? A lot? Worth it?

Yes, I had pretty much that reaction too!

But let me tell you the story behind this.

I was talking to a businessman that I trust and admire and he mentioned that he had paid £1000 for a similar service for his wife earlier this year. Not sure how well it worked.

But there is someone who can re-vamp your wardrobe.. make you look the part and save you money in the long run but without that price tag!

Make the most of the opportunity to save money – forever – on clothes that don’t flatter your shape or enhance the professional, stylish image you portray.

After all – first impressions count – for a lot!

She's called Sue Courteney and comes to your house and assess your body shape – then you try on every item of clothing you have.The sessions typically take 4 to 6 hours.

 

Some items will be great – keepers.

Some items will be great if worn differently, altered, mended or otherwise made to look different.

Some items will just have to go – with me to the charity shop or charity bank. Yes Sue takes them away, that day! so you can't offend again...

You will be left with a wardrobe of clothes that you will look great in – they will flatter your shape, colouring and work for your life.

She then goes home and puts all your notes – body shape, style tips, what to buy list etc – into a book so you have your own, personal, handy guide in a form that you can keep referring to.

So if you, or anyone you know, has ever opened the door of their full-to-bursting wardrobe and sighed “I’ve got nothing to wear!” Then this service is exactly what is needed.

And all this not for that huge sum but a very very reasonable, time limited offer of  £350

£350 is a bargain when you think of how much you will save over time (or maybe one shopping trip) in clothes that don’t work for you.

Don’t delay – email  and BOOK TODAY!

sue@successandimagecoach.co.uk

N.B. This offer is valid for women in UK only

£19b down the drain becasue of bad management

Bad management could be costing UK businesses more than £19 billion in lost working hours every year, according to a survey published today by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).
The CMI's report suggests that three-quarters of employees waste almost two hours of their working time every week because of their managers' inefficiency.
The CMI claims that, by taking the average hours wasted in a week across the average working time of 48 weeks per year, this equates to a loss of £900 per employee and a total loss of £19.3 billion, calculated at a median value rate.
The report found that the worst management practices include unclear communication, lack of support, micro-management and lack of direction.
Christopher Kinsella, CMI acting chief executive, said: "This survey highlights some disappointing - but not necessarily surprising - numbers. With only one in five UK managers holding a professional management qualification and many organisations not properly investing in management training, it's not surprising that some managers are making mistakes in how they work.
"Yet we are in one of the hardest economic climates we've faced in some time, and business bosses need to understand the financial impacts of not having properly trained and qualified managers. Improving the skills of the management workforce is absolutely key in terms of individual business success, in terms of delivering effective public services and in terms of helping the UK deliver on a world stage."
The research also found that 13% of respondents have witnessed managers exhibiting discriminatory behaviour towards employees based on gender, race, age or sexual orientation and almost one-third have witnessed managers bullying or harassing their employees.
Responding to the findings, Ashley Ward, director at talent management organisation European Leaders, said: "Reality tells us the cost of bad management in terms of time lost is a great deal more than that indicated in today's CMI report. A great deal of time is lost as employees discuss the lack of communication from, and the behaviours of, management.
"An efficient working culture stems directly from the very top of an organisation. If a business leader actively promotes a happy work culture based on openness, transparency, good communications and gender diversity, the organisation will be far closer to the top of its game and employees will view it as a good company to work for. The successful high-growth organisations we see today all train their managers to have increased awareness of subjects like bullying and gender discrimination.
"In our experience, the 'macho' management style of the 80s and 90s no longer has a place in modern high-performing businesses. The aggressive approach we see on programmes like The Apprentice and Dragons' Den is incongruous with modern entrepreneurship."

Thanks to Personnel Today for this one.

Job satisfaction, step aerobics and Educating Essex: what's the connection? Variety..........

‘I love my job and everyday is different’ says Steven Drew, Deputy Head of Passmore’s Academy on the new fly on the wall reality show ‘Educating Essex’.  But is that equation that variety equals job satisfaction true for all of us? The phrase variety is the spice of life is oft quoted or rather misquoted as the correct version is “Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavour” (William Cowper –poet) I guess what he was actually saying was that variety is like salt.. without it everything is bland and ordinary. So is spice, or salt or variety actually the key to job satisfaction?

 

Academic research into job satisfaction looks at a number of variables including: pay, training, friendliness of co-workers, promotion and variety. According to findings from the University of Leicester, people who are given greater variety and independence in their jobs feel both less stressed and more satisfied.

 

But in reality different people look to their jobs to provide them with differing pay offs. For some the ‘friendliness of co workers’ is absolutely the crucial thing. They work to get out, to be with others, to socialise. For another person the co-workers are tiresome interruptions in the real task of work; inventing, calculating, processing or analysing. For others their need to do good in the world means that neither the co-workers or the pay are particularly important. What you want from work may include variety or it may not. Routine and a predictable world are all important to some individuals and gives them security.  For others variety is highly important and the adrenaline created by the novel and unknown are critical to job satisfaction.

 

I was enjoying my step aerobics class yesterday whilst pondering this issue. I’d had a very varied week of being with different people everyday and engaging in diverse activities as part of my business and portfolio career (a finger in lots of pies as my mother in law says!)But the step class provided me with a great parallel. We do the same routine several weeks running. We start slowly and learn a few moves. It is actually an advanced step class so the moves are quire complex and you have to concentrate quite hard and if you don’t you go wrong.  Each week new steps are added into the routine and the music gets a little faster. By week four we are masters of this complex combination of steps, jumps, flicks, skips and hops. And then we start again with a different routine.

If we did a new routine every week we would never master it, we would be stressed out, defeated, feel incompetent and out of control. If we did the same routine every week for a term we would become blaze, stop concentrating and inevitably start making mistakes.

 

What we are doing is achieving mastery, stretching and challenging our brains and mind foot co-ordination to develop new skills but rather than repeat that skills to the point of tedium we are moved on to a new routine.

 

At work if we continue with exactly the same tasks, carried out in the same way we can get to the point of not needing to think about them at all. Where there is some variation we need to think but may be lacking the stimulation of the ‘new routine’. The slight changes, the varied tasks stretches our competence and keeps us engaged (unlike the completely repetitive task). It gives us satisfaction to keep on continually mastering new skills or succeeding in new situations.

 

So whilst different people want different things from their job the variety may well be the ‘salt’ that ensures that each of us gets a good rich flavour of satisfaction from our work.  If you are contemplating a new career or a new job it is critical to understand the level of variety or routine that you will encounter. Keep asking; ‘ what will I be doing every day?’ It is a question as important as how much will I get paid. Analyse your own work drivers and assess your own need for routine then decide whether to accept any new role. It is also a great parable for those who mange the work of others; make sure that you give them enough variety to keep them stimulated but not so much that they become overloaded and stressed. Give them a slower pace when the tasks are new and speed up as they become familiar.