In the second half of the 19^th century British politics was dominated by two titanic figures, William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli. Both were politicians of extraordinary ability and both served as Prime Minister on more than one occasion. They loathed each other however and had different leadership and personal styles.  There is a famous anecdote about Gladstone that after meeting him your left feeling that you had just met the smartest person in the world. Conversely, after meeting Disraeli you left feeling that YOU were the smartest person in the world. It was an important and enduring difference between the two men.

It reminds me of a new CEO I came across one time in a business meeting. Early on he announced to everyone within earshot that “one of the things I assume whenever I attend a meeting or gathering of any type is that I am the smartest guy in the room. Consequently I mostly make all the decisions myself.” Yikes! It was a dumb move. What he did in 3 seconds was downgrade the COLLECTIVE intelligence of his entire team to below his one. Even worse he did it publicly.  It showed no respect and it immediately deflated his team. They retreated into their shells, became disgruntled and eventually lost their care factor. A great culture, carefully crafted over many years, began to unravel  because of the stupidity of an egotistical fool claiming to be the smartest guy in the room.

Thinking you are the smartest guy in the room is a dangerous position to take. You can’t be smart/good at everything, you can’t know everything nor can you do everything yourself. You’ll need other people and you’ll need them to support you.

The best leaders understand that. But they also know that leadership is much more than just being a “feel good manager.” They are demanding of their people. They expect a lot but they give a lot back too. They want to discover, access and develop the very best parts of their people’s talents. They provide a safe environment in which they can challenge and stretch them to their limits but are careful not to break them. Working with leaders like this is not always comfortable and it can be confronting. Inevitably some people won’t cope and will move on. The payoff for those that stay can be an exhilarating ride and a richly satisfying experience of self-discovery and achievement.

In the end the best leaders know one immutable (and hard) truth – that their effectiveness as leaders will be determined by their ability to influence others to believe in them and their mission. They know it is not important to be the smartest guy in the room – they know it’s not even about the leader – it’s about the quality and productivity of their team and the leader’s ability to unlock and capitalise on its full potential – that is the essential goal of leadership and in the end the only thing that really matters…

A colleague of mine was recently contemplating returning to university to complete his second post graduate degree to “try and re-charge his flagging career” (his words). He already has a Bachelors Degree and a MBA but was convinced that this isn’t enough. He believes that only a third qualification will propel him into the C-Suite. Unfortunately, he’s mistaken. What will get him into the C-Suite is raising his prominence and importance in the organisation and the only way to do that is to continually create value.

In the future smart businesses will ask more about what you can do for them and much less about what you have done or achieved in the past. They will focus on questions like -

• Do you really know how to recognise and uncover good opportunities?
• Can you influence others to follow you?
• Can you manage implementation to ensure it works and that the downside risks are minimised?
• Can you get it done with limited resources?

Businesses too need to answer these questions if they are to prosper. To do that they need people (and a team) that can answer them.

But how do you create value? And how do you avoid doing things that don’t?

The first thing to do is to establish a “customer promise.” That is, a rock-solid, non-negotiable promise that you will live up to in EVERY interaction with EVERY customer EVERY day. It isn’t easy to do because the promise must be recognised as (highly) valuable by both existing customers and prospective customers alike. It must guide every activity of a business and unite the organisation behind achieving it. Essentially it must stretch the business to be better every day and be a fundamental reason why customers do/will do business with you.

Secondly, in whatever you do ask yourself this simple question – will our customers be prepared to pay for it? This refers to ANY decision at ANY level in an organisation. If you don’t believe your customers will pay for it then it is unlikely that it will create value. It is a very tough question and much easier to avoid than to confront. You must confront it, however, if you are serious about creating value.

The last question to ask is – will it make any difference if we don’t do it? This one is self-explanatory but is important because it forces you to focus only on things that matter. This removes confusion from decision making thereby allowing you to spend time on the two things that do actually matter – delivering your customer promise and only doing things that your customers will be prepared to pay for. In the end these two factors are the crucial inputs into the ultimate currency of business – the continual creation of value…

Every year I have a medical check-up. I get the works done. Blood tests, weight checked, blood pressure
and one or two other things that I’ll keep between myself and my doctor. It’s my way of keeping score and
managing any physical deterioration. I don’t mind growing old – I just want to delay it as long as possible.

Inevitably I’ll ask my doctor how I’m tracking. Inevitably he’ll respond with “you’ll live until you’re 90 at least.”
It’s a game we play. I enjoy it. I think he does too. This time, however, he was in a thoughtful mood and he
followed up with “you realise, of course, that you have less than half of your life left to live. Knowing that,
what would you do today if you knew you could not fail?” It is a very powerful question that got me thinking.

Have I done everything in my life that I wanted to? Have I held back on some things because I was scared of
failure? Or worried about what other people might think? Or was it just easier to continue on a safer, more
predictable, less risky path?

It’s difficult to predict success. And there is no magic potion to improve your chances. What is important is
to get started, be nimble, be prepared to fail, get over it quickly without becoming disheartened, stay dogged
and stick it out. This might seem simplistic but it’s how life is constructed. Do this and you will exponentially
improve your chances of achieving something worthwhile. But you have to be prepared to fail and this is what
holds most people back – both personally and in the decisions they take in business.

Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest basketball player of all time, was prepared to fail – publicly and ingloriously. At the end of the 1992/93 season, after winning three consecutive NBA Final Series and following the tragic murder of his father, Jordan retired from basketball and surprised the sporting world by signing a minor league baseball contract with the Chicago White Sox. Why? Because it was a dream of his to play professional baseball. In the end it didn’t work out but he devoted a year of his life (and a lot of hard work) to finding out. He returned to basketball the next season and led the Chicago Bulls to three more back to back championships. These victories were especially sweet for him.

Time is running out for me (as it is for everyone else). And I don’t want to live my life regretting what I didn’t do. Nor do I want to delay the progress of my business interests for reasons that are most likely within my control. Which gets me back to the original question – what would I do today if I knew I could not fail? The answer is a lot of things. Hopefully by the time I get to 90 I’ll have a different answer because I’d spent the previous 40 odd years clearing the list…

Like it or not we’re all in the business of selling. Whether we’re overtly selling a product or service to customers
or providing support to people that do we’re nevertheless all in the same boat. We’re all selling something, directly or indirectly.

A colleague of mine recently complained to me that it was taking him too long to convert “prospects” into customers.He sold a good service, had a recognisable (and valuable) point of difference in the market and a generally happy group of existing customers. His problem was that his sales growth and rate of new customer acquisition was poor. He couldn’t understand why. He asked me for my view.

After digging around for a while it became clear that his pipeline of prospects was too thin and too much time was being spent on trying to convert too few prospects. A small list of prospects was being “bothered” too regularly and certainly in advance of their own timeframe to purchase. This created frustration both within the company and the prospects list. Instead of broadening the sales funnel the business was too focused on trying to convert existing prospects that were not yet ready to buy.

In the end the business had forgotten one of the most important words in sales - next…

The philosophy of “next” is that you only spend the minimum amount of time on every prospect to determine whether they are likely to buy or not and the timeframe in which they are prepared to buy. This will vary on case by case basis but the key is not to get bogged down. If they want to buy now then spend time to sell to them. If they need more time then follow up later on a mutually agreed date. And finally if they don’t want to buy at all then move on quickly to the “next” prospect.

It’s important not to get too emotional about it, especially rejection.  It’s not personal. Sales is a numbers game and you can’t force anyone to buy from you. What is important is the size of the sales funnel and the work being put into expanding it.

A good business will have a full calendar of new prospect meetings for at least one month out into the future, irrespective of the time of year. This is tough to do and requires discipline and advanced organisational skills to do it year in year out. It will however provide greater performance certainty and, when well done, should guarantee that you are rarely scrambling around to meet your sales targets.

The next time someone doesn’t want to buy from you or defers their decision listen and learn from them and then move on quickly. Call the “next” prospect  and repeat the process. At the same time spend time increasing the depth of your sales pipeline and refining your offer. This will ensure you never run out of prospects. Eventually too you will create momentum in your business. The dual process of “calling” and “deepening” are the fundamentals tenets of “next” – an approach that works no matter what business you are in.

Since its launch in July 2011, Bank of Melbourne has:

More than doubled the number of new customers joining the bank each month increased sales across all products, as well as the number of products per customer achieved strong deposit and mortgage growth seen brand awareness and consideration sky rocket. Customer satisfaction is also strong and steadily improving.

“We are committed to our growth and expansion plans,” said Mr Tanner, “In the past six months, we’ve re- branded 34 existing St. George branches and opened another 15 new branches. We’re on track to meet our five-year goal of 100 branches across Victoria. We’ve hired 238 new employees, almost doubling our workforce.

“We are making prudent investment decisions with a firm eye on productivity. The current challenging environment presents us with some unique opportunities. We can take advantage of prime retail space becoming available. We’ve also received around 9,000 job applications – many from high calibre employees of our competitors. Our focus on growth and expansion means that we can provide greater certainty and stability for our personal and business customers.
The bank is also highly competitive – currently running a “price match campaign” where it pledges to match the advertised price of any comparable Big 4 product across variable home loans and term deposits – and beat them on service.

Bank of Melbourne’s current Vertigo credit card offer provides one of the best balance transfer and ongoing interest rates in the market. It was independently endorsed by a popular current affairs program and it has had an extraordinarily positive response from consumers. The bank is also making it easy for customers to make the move to Bank of Melbourne with its EasySwitch offerings – for both personal and business customers.
“Perhaps most pleasingly, new customers are purchasing multiple products with us, including their main transaction accounts and superannuation, demonstrating their confidence in building long-term relationships with us,” said Mr Tanner.

“Our customers are also telling us that they value a local bank which is an active member in their communities. Bank of Melbourne was the major sponsor of the Melbourne Marathon and is presenting partner for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. We’ve just announced a new initiative called The Local Project which will provide over $100,000 in funding for worthwhile projects in our communities right across the state”.

Bank of Melbourne’s success to date demonstrates that there’s a large number of Victorians who want to do business with a local bank, who have a strong sense of community and value personal service from people who really understand their financial needs.

“I’d like to thank the people of Victoria for embracing the Bank of Melbourne, as well as our staff, who are doing such a great job. We’re here for the long haul. Six months in, I’m very excited about the future,” said Mr Tanner.

View our project photos

Thank you TEAM A&A you have done an amazing design on the next HHWH generation

Tony and Joseph Lattouf
Managing Directors, Hairhouse Warehouse

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In Victoria, Bank of Melbourne, the reincarnation of St.George Bank’s Victorian retail outlets, has also taken a new approach to its look. Retail designers Angley Arrowsmith were briefed to design a bank that would welcome customers, break down the physical and emotional barriers between customers and staff, and reassure customers that its services are specific to the needs of Victoria.

Read Full Articleview project

Secrets Shhh engaged A&A to design and implement a new retail design concept to increase their brand awareness. The new concept introduces a more spacious layout, warmer tones and clear category signage to enhance the self-selection process and buying experience.

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8 rules to make huge progress in 2012…

How was 2011 for you? Did you finish it in better shape than you started? Or worse? Or did you tread water and make no real progress?
Whatever the answer is, don’t beat yourself up about it. Or congratulate yourself too much either. The past is the past and it can’t be changed. The only thing that matters is what you do next.

Choose to make 2012 a great year. Set some big goals and live and breathe them for the next 12 months. Force yourself to do the hard stuff and tackle the things you’ve been putting off. Make changes, if you need to, but get it done.

Here is a set of rules I set myself each year to ensure I keep moving forward:

1. Aim high at all times

2. Never give less than 100% effort. EVER.

3. Say what you mean and then do what you say. EVERY TIME.

4. Make no excuses

5. Stay open-minded, positive but realistic

6. Treat everyone fairly and compassionately

7. Lead from the front

8. Just get on with it

They’re tough rules and I do my best to live by them. Sometimes I stumble and fall but these rules keep me grounded and focused and allow me to get back to business quickly. Importantly they force me out of the shadows and into the blazing sunlight. Take it from me it’s a lot more interesting out there…

I hope you enjoyed my articles this year. Thank you for your support and I’ll see y’all in the New Year! Best wishes to you and your families for the holiday season. I’ll be back writing in late January.

Call me old-fashioned but I like jazz music. Good jazz, that is. I get it from my Dad. He’s 81 now and has loved jazz his whole life. He’s a Louis Armstrong and Dave Brubeck fan; I’m more Miles Davis. Despite this we are united in our love of jazz. The power and beauty of jazz music affects me deeply.

It always has. Grab five minutes, sit down in a comfortable chair and listen to Louis Armstrong singing Moon River and you’ll understand what I mean.

When I was younger I would regularly attend jazz jam sessions and sit entranced in the crowd watching some great musicians making music together. They appeared unrehearsed but more likely were relying on their vast reservoirs of experience to improvise and create great intuitive music that was a joy to listen to.

One musician explains in his own words why he jams – “You get to work on the groove. Playing alone doesn’t get you that. Playing with others and getting right in time, right tight in the pocket with them on a tune is glorious. I don’t care about getting breaks or solos, I’m an old-time player and look for the groove.”

Another says – “Jamming becomes a shared manifestation of a single impulse at least an attempt at it – and when you all lock in together, there’s nothing like that feeling. If I had to choose between jamming and gigging, I’d choose jamming – just for the excitement of finding that groove with a different bunch of people.”

At its core jamming is all about collaboration, instinct and innovation. One musician may start things off but it is the obligation of every other musician to build on that, take it further, push the envelope and ultimately take it to a new place. To get jamming to work each player must pick up on other players thoughts, translate them, add to them and then pass it back to them for the process to perpetuate itself. Done well it creates a powerful chain reaction of energised collaboration and creativity that
produces something new and wonderful.

Do you jam in your organisation? Not by pulling out guitars and drums but by engaging in truly collaborative discussions on very specific topics. It is not a free for all
(aka brainstorming) but a very focused discussion looking for very practical outcomes. To do it you have to ask the same questions that every musician in a jamming session
(instinctively) asks:

What are we jamming about? (i.e. what is the essence of the conversation?)
How can we get to the core idea as rapidly as possible?

The best way to jam is to choose your “musicians” across your organisation (all departments, all levels) as well as outside your industry. This cross-pollination creates a more
fertile ground for creativity and innovation and moves you beyond your comfort zone(s). It also allows you to tap into a deeper, more diverse brains trust that can lead to ground-breaking new ideas for your organisation.

Attend a great jazz jam session and you will be amazed at the level of co-operation, ingenuity, timing and creativity that shows through. The Holy Grail is “getting right in time, right tight in the pocket” and ultimately finding the groove. It’s no different in business. So do like the great jazz guys do and jam it…

The brief was to design a bank that would be welcoming, break down the physical and emotional barriers between customers and staff, and assure customers that the services and solutions were shaped to suit the needs of Victorian businesses, households and the local community. The design delivers a sophisticated and engaging aesthetic, with a modern and open

Project details: Concept ‚ Fixtures, store and kiosk concept, Fixture Design, Prototype, Documentation,
Project Management (Roll-out), Centre Approvals, Statutory Approvals

Bank of Melbourne Airport west

Collins St

Plenty Valley

Point Cook

Richmond