Discussing the social "Downfall" of Tom Harris MP

So this week MP Tom Harris was the master of his own downfall, using the YouTube video clip of the Hitler film Downfall to take a pop at Joan MacAlpine and the SNP.  It backfired spectacularly when the fallout forced the Labour Party’s social media advisor to resign from the role.

Harris fell foul of one of the most fundamental rules of social; don’t use it to deliberately damage someone else. It always backfires and the perpetrator ends up in the mire.

What frustrates me about this, and I say so on Scotland Tonight which discussed the issue, is that Harris is an experienced social media user but his political ambitions clouded his judgement. He could have used his knowledge and expertise to create something positive for the Labour Party, something that would set them apart from the SNP which has, to date, been significantly more effective in the social space. But instead he chose to be vindictive and so masterminded his own downfall.  Serves him right.

Truly depressing. But what – in my opinion – is even more depressing is the lack of focus on the people who have been made redundant. Redundancy is a traumatic and stressful time both for those who have to go and for those who are left behind, and there appears to be more concern about the impact on our economy than on the impact on the individuals and families affected by these awful events.

TV news reporters duly accost them outside their place of work, minutes after the announcement has been made, and capture on camera their anger, disappointment, bitterness and fear. Trade unions reps shout till they’re blue in the face, but can’t affect the ultimate outcome. And what happens then? Despite years of hard work, decades in some cases, these ex-employees are forgotten about, other than as a number in the unemployment statistics.

Some companies work hard to manage the redundancy process, protecting those chosen, and then allowing them to leave with dignity. Some can be really quite creative, just look at US Securities broker Charles Schwab, which persuaded workers to take an unpaid day of leave every month to defer job losses. In the UK Accenture is offering consultants up to one year’s flexi-leave on 20% of salary. And closer to home, Motorola has set up a careers centre and internet café with a range of public sector agencies, employment service, Inland Revenue advice, benefits agency and further and higher education bodies to assist those leaving to re-enter the workplace quickly and without loss of finance and confidence.

Making people redundant is probably one of the worst jobs in the world. I speak from painful and tearful experience. Just a week after my daughter was born I was back at work, baby in one hand and a bundle of P45s in the other. I had to tell a third of our workforce they had to go. It was an absolute nightmare.

That was before employment law got so complicated and before the processes that are in place now. We tried to pick those that would find it easier to get another job. A bit naïve, I know, but hey we were young and foolish. We did such a good job of helping them look for another job that everybody had one by the end of their notice period. I hated what happened, but I was proud of the ultimate result.

Employment law is an ass. I understand that legislation is essential to protect both employees and employers, but I’m not convinced that all this bureaucracy is flexible enough to allow the employer to make the right decision. Sure it sets out guidelines and processes and formats and systems to make the victim selection “easier”, but I doubt it allows for the human touch. How does it take into account the single mum, who has worked her socks off to bring up her two sons? And what about the guy whose wife has just had a baby, and they’ve moved to a bigger house with the resulting bigger mortgage? And what happens if you’ve got members of your family working in your team? Does the system take this into account too?

Following the letter of the law is important, I wouldn’t encourage anyone to break the rules, but you mustn’t lose sight of the bigger picture; the businesses goals, your own aspirational goals, your people and the way you treat them, both those that go, and those that stay. Your integrity as an employer – and respect from your employees – depends on it.

From 10 Years Ago Today – additional recent legislation, mostly surrounding maternity and paternity rights, proves my point! I still haven’t changed my mind.

Personally, I speak lots of languages: a smattering of school girl French (Marie-Claire et Jean Paul blah blah); a little German (“das is doch nicht moglich,” drummed into us by our teacher prior to a school trip to Berlin in anticipation of meeting German school boys); I speak “mother” (don’t you dare or you’re grounded); also “wife” (don’t you dare or you’re grounded); I’m fluent in “daughter” (don’t do that, you’re embarrassing me); and “sister” (I’m sorry for embarrassing you). Finally, I learned “journalese” at the feet of masters (my editor will sack me if I don’t go back with an exclusive interview and a pic of your dead/maimed/lost child).

But seriously, we really don’t pay enough attention to languages, and learning them, in this country.

What brought it home to me has been the coverage of the war on terror in Afghanistan, particularly the early focus in the hours and days immediately after the twin tragedies in New York and Washington. Our news reporters flocked to the Middle East to interview the local people, speaking in their Queen’s English and expecting these people, most of whom haven’t had the benefit of a school education, to understand and be able to share their views in English. Most of them could.

How many of us could have chatted away in Afghan, or Hindu, or Urdu? Very few, I would imagine, yet these people could communicate effectively in our language. I found it quite humbling.

We have such a lack of focus on languages in our education system. My daughter has been learning French at nursery since the age of three. I think that’s wonderful, it’s just unfortunate that it isn’t wider spread and an integral part of our children’s education.

Languages shouldn’t be optional, they should be compulsory.  We shouldn’t be surprised that the French and other Europeans hate speaking English to us, we make no effort at all to learn their language and expect, indeed demand, our European counterparts to speak to us in our mother tongue.

You see, what annoys me is that we revere Europeans with the ability to speak several different languages and we try our damndest to attract them to our businesses and then we pay them significantly over the odds to keep them motivated.

What I believe we should be doing is spending money on training our own kids – compulsorily – to speak at least two other languages at school. But that will take time to work, for linguists to leave our schools and enter the work place with more meaningful qualifications than just a handful of Highers.

In the meantime, we should be focusing on training our employees to speak additional languages. Not only do they learn a communication skill that is important to our businesses, but we are giving them something of value to take away. It stands out on a CV and it’s something they can share with their families: my daughter loves “teaching me” the new French words she has learned that day.

So with all the talk about lack of skills in this country and global organisations upping sticks to cheaper and better skilled linguist-ridden countries, our focus should be on up-skilling and new-skilling our own workforce: and where better to start than with languages?

From 10 Years Ago Today – where are we now? Further on? Or stuck in the same place?

THE hunt is on for a successor to the late First Minister Donald Dewar and I suspect it will become quite ugly.

Who will step forward to try on the shoes of a legend? They were barely cold when fellow politicians started their internal lobbying for the coveted post. I understand Enterprise Minister Henry McLeish is currently viewed as favourite for the post. That Finance Minister Jack McConnell is also a likely candidate and that Health Minister Susan Deacon may just throw her hat in the ring too. I don’t think any of them have really got what it takes, but that’s just a personal opinion.

The point is, it’s all rather hurried and undignified, isn’t it? It’s all about greedy ambition, and doing the dirty deed in the 28 days allowed by the Scotland Act to choose a replacement, rather than quickly and professionally promoting someone who has already been carefully groomed for the role.

There is too much talk about the process, rather than the people. The fact that the Labour Party’s mechanism means that an electoral college must decide their Scottish leader, who will then be put forward as First Minister.  That achieving this in 28 days will be challenging, to say the least. That Labour may have to short-circuit the process and nominate a successor who would be elected unopposed at a special conference.

It’s all process, and mechanisms, and rules when it should be about working together to find the right person for the role, someone who commands respect, has solid leadership skills, and has a true passion for Scotland and the future of her people.

But political parties have always had a seemingly reckless attitude towards succession planning and they don’t seem able to learn from their mistakes.

It was the same when John Smith died in 1994 and the hunt for a successor began. And how on earth did John Major succeed Margaret Thatcher? The subsequent leadership succession further beggars belief.

Politics should take a leaf from the business book, where succession planning is a long-term strategic process handled at the very highest level in an organisation.

Take GE’s Jack Welch (personally, I’d love to. I have to confess a fascination with Welch. Of the world’s best businessmen, he’s the one on whose shoulder I would most like to watch and learn).

Anyway, back in 1980 when he emerged as the surprise winner in the contest to run General Electric, it was after a seven-year elimination process.

The new CEO was selected from dozens of managers, their work records were scrutinised and their colleagues quizzed to find out what they thought about them. Six candidates were chosen for the next part in the process where they were put through a new round of gruelling tests. The last three men were made vice-chairmen and given two years to prove themselves.

Finally, at the end of that assessment period, they were each asked to judge how they had performed and submit a paper to the Board.  Welch, then 45, was supremely self-confident and his list of qualities was seriously impressive. He got the gig.

Now, 20 years after he made it to the top, Welch is reaching the end of another rigorous years-long elimination process to find his own successor. Welch, who will be 65 in November, retires next April and American analysts expect an announcement about the new CEO in the next few weeks.

Choosing the right successor may be the most important decision of Welch’s business life. He knows that the future success of GE depends almost entirely on finding the right man for the job.

He has seen the mistakes made by other corporations: Coca-Cola’s Doug Ivester spent just 25 months in the role before being ousted; Durk Jager was kicked out of Procter & Gamble after 17 months; and our own British Airways moved Bob Ayling out after he failed to fill the shoes of Lord Marshall.

Welch’s successor will have to show outstanding leadership qualities and impressive, wide-ranging business management skills (GE possibly has the world’s most complex business portfolio).

But equally importantly, the new CEO will be expected to start developing his own successor from the minute he sits at the head of the Boardroom table.

Now there’s a challenge for the new First Minister.

Don’t you think there are too many awards ceremonies? There are events by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs to stroke massive egos; by publishers for publicity and to secure advertising from nominees and winners; by professional services companies for clients and to show the business world that they understand entrepreneurs, oh and if they happen to want to transfer their business after picking up an award, then cool; and there are events held by the various entities within the enterprise network to showcase their most successful businesses, their blue-eyed boys, and to demonstrate they do actually do something for their money (believe me, I should know, we’ve won two of them).

Don’t get me wrong, I like getting dressed up in a posh frock the same as anyone, well, any female. And I love the whole networking thing, the buzz, the swapping of business cards, the eating and drinking. I enjoy learning about the innovative, successful companies and their leaders who have done well enough to be nominated.

The best bit is watching the winners and how they react. Do they leap up and rush off to the stage to pick up their gong, or do they congratulate their team at the table before they go? Have they a prepared speech, just in case, or are they so genuinely surprised at the result that they have absolutely no idea what to say?

I’ve seen them all. I’ve been at more business award ceremonies than I care to remember. Some are quality, “A” list events, packed to the gunnels with the UK’s leading entrepreneurs, media personalities, and up-and-coming young businesspeople. Some are more “B” list events, usually those sponsored by accountants or consultants who fill the room with clients, aspiring wannabees, friends and family. And then there are the “C” list events, a few famous names, even fewer famous businesses, and those that don’t get invited to the rest.

I was at one this week. I won’t say whether “A”, “B”, or “C”.

But it did get me thinking about the whole recognition thing, the awards ceremonies, the judging, the winners and losers. And it struck me that it’s awfully disparate. The A B and C list events obviously have A B and C list judges, analysing A B and C list businesses. There doesn’t seem to be an even playing field on which to assess the crème de la crème and more often than not we seem to be recognising the same names over and over again.

Surely it would be better for all parties concerned to get together, establish the awards and agree strict criteria, and then organise the mother of all awards ceremonies. Just one. Every year. One stonking great night to remember, to honour the very best of our businesses and inspire the rest to bigger and better things. And only one night to worry about that tie. Just a thought!

THE thought of war absolutely terrifies me. I’m sure it does you too. And I was truly horrified to read that 71% of Scots actually felt a war against Osama bin Laden and those who harbour him was justified. Are we such a bloodthirsty nation that we are prepared to sacrifice further innocent victims to capture one evil man?

I can understand, in the aftermath of last week’s scenes of horror, that people across the world want revenge. But perhaps we should ask the families of Osama bin Laden’s victims whether they want revenge. Revenge against the mass murderers, yes. But would they want other innocent families to suffer the loss, the trauma and grieving that they are enduring? I would doubt it.

Maybe I’m wrong, but while the intelligence services are intent on tracking down bin Laden and his henchmen, surely the world’s focus right now should be on emotional and financial support for the families of the victims. And on emotional and physical support for the rescuers who are the true heroes of the piece and will undoubtedly suffer the rest of their lives, tormented by the things they saw on Tuesday, September 11 2001 and in the hours and days following.

Our focus should be on rebuilding the world’s most influential business centre, to be bigger and better than ever before in tribute to those who lost their lives in the tragedy. Our leaders should be spending time offering words of comfort and encouragement to these people, rather than bellowing threats of war and revenge.

I was sad yesterday to hear the change in tone on the American news, talk of the rescue operation soon became talk of the recovery operation, the media have already decided that there can be no survivors in the wreckage. But volunteers still believe that there is hope: they need to. It can be the only thing that keeps them going throughout the horrors of their day-to-day task.

We need to capture some of the spirit of the volunteers who have worked tirelessly and meticulously to clear the wreckage, the human kindness of the volunteers who spend their days preparing meals for the rescue and recovery workers, and the hope of the onlookers who lined the streets leading to New York’s financial district, waving the American flag and cheering their encouragement to the rescue services.

And we need to sprinkle some of this spirit, human kindness and hope over the doom and gloom merchants who now predict that world recession is inevitable.

I don’t pretend to understand the intricate machinations of the Stock Market, but I do understand that a huge amount of money is won and lost on the basis of confidence. Lack of confidence leads to recession. But is this a self-fulfilling prophecy? I’ve heard about talking up the shares, so surely the opposite is talking down the sharesThe more we talk about it, warn of the dangers and consequences of it and predict the trends, the more likely it is to happen.

I understand how a terrible terrorist attack, like that waged on America last week, affects humanity, and how it affects the businesses directly impacted by the devastation at the World Trade Centre and the surrounding buildings. And I understand the direct impact on the travel industry.

But if the world’s business leaders, dealers and analysts had a fraction of the spirit and hope demonstrated by the workers at Ground Zero that self-fulfilling prophecy could have an entirely different result.

I remember it as if it were yesterday: Sitting right at the top of the World Trade Center, in the Windows on the World restaurant, sipping champagne. It was November last year, a crisp, cold day but the sun was shining and I was looking down on the business centre of the world. It was a strange feeling, drinking champers while everyone below in the 100-odd stories and the high-rise buildings around were making the world’s economies go round.

On Tuesday, all that changed. Since Tuesday afternoon, I have been glued to CNN. It feels obsessive but I can’t help it. I wonder if continuous watching and absorbing will help reality sink in. So far, it hasn’t worked.

On Tuesday evening, I made a makeshift bed in my den and sat up all night watching TV. My daughter, who’s four, can’t understand why this happened. It’s not surprising. Experts ten times her age can’t understand either. I tried explaining to her that the twin towers of the WTC had collapsed, that bad men had taken control of two airplanes and had deliberately crashed into the buildings. “How can someone be that bad?” she asked. Swallowing the huge lump in my throat, I had to admit I didn’t know.

Watching the events unfold movie-like on my wide screen TV, I confess to missing my days in newspapers. I feel guilty, but being out of the information loop and relying on the television news to share with me the future of our world, was an uncomfortable feeling.

The most shocking scenes, in my opinion, were not the explosions or the plumes of smoke and debris chasing innocent bystanders along the streets of New York. Nor were they of the rescue workers, encrusted with dust and the ashes of the world’s most powerful district. While that dust and those ashes will wash away, the horrific memories of Tuesday will be under their skin forever.  And it wasn’t the poignant picture of the abandoned and torn rag doll, shown time and again on the news.

For me, the most awful scenes were those of jubilation and celebration on the streets of the Middle East: children, as young as seven or eight, cheering and clapping; women young and old, mothers and grandmothers, screeching their joy that the most powerful of nations had been brought to its knees by the most atrocious event in recent history.

What kind of leader can evoke this passion, this hysteria, and this delight at the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women and children?

I don’t believe this is now about blame, nor about making scapegoats of the intelligence services or the security forces at the airports. It’s not even about blaming the kamikaze pilots whose beliefs drove them to murder and suicide.

It’s about leadership, true leadership that will guide the angry and vengeful people of America; guide the experts to find the key culprit; lead by example with courage in the face of true evil and respect for the dead and their families; and demonstrate that demanding an eye for an eye won’t resolve this situation.

The strength will be in not retaliating, in having the courage to stand in the face of demands for blood, for revenge for their deaths in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. What good would that do?

This week I prayed for the first time in many moons. I prayed for the dead, whose last minutes on this earth must have been agonising. I prayed for their families. I prayed for the heroes, the rescue workers whose spirit and passion to sacrifice themselves to save life is so contradictory to the suicide pilots who were prepared to sacrifice their own lives and those of others. I prayed that my little girl wouldn’t experience war. And I prayed that the world’s leaders will lead in the truest sense of the word.

The biggest increase over the last 10 years went to the CEO of Citigroup, previously Citicorp. The top line soared from $1.2m to $150.6m, a truly awesome pay rise.

We’re hardly on the same level back home, but Scottish directors of listed companies earned an average of £180,000 more in 2000 than in 1999. Ramco Energy’s Steve Remp saw his package increase by a whopping 583% to £3.6m from £529,000.

And it got me thinking: how do you judge what someone is worth?  There are no set rules. Is it performance-based? Is it based on previous effort and future potential? Does like or dislike come into it?

On a smaller scale than the likes of GE and Ramco, obviously, what price do you put on an employee, a fellow member of the management team, or yourself? How do you justify it? At what point do you say he or she is not worth any more than that? And then how do you tell them?

It tends to be more of a problem in an entrepreneurial company where attracting quality staff in the early start-up phase is an uphill struggle. Entrepreneurs, usually consummate salesmen, will offer an attractive package to recruit in the first place – there will be talk of an exciting environment, challenging and innovative work, lucrative share options, (or not as the current case may be).

More often, cash-strapped entrepreneurs will employ people with little or no experience, offer them an opportunity they might not otherwise have had, and then tie them in with promises of training, a higher salary, an exciting environment, and the ubiquitous share options.

But as the company grows in value, not just financial worth but reputation and credibility in terms of the teams within and the types of client without, and the salaries of your employees grow too, it’s difficult to ensure that you are paying the going market rate.

It’s easy, in good times, to be too generous, and offer more and more money. But what happens to those inexperienced individuals who joined with no qualifications? At what point do they cost more in value than they deliver? And if the proverbial hits the fan, how on earth will these guys and gals find a job with a similar package? Undoubtedly, they will have altered their standard of living in line with the nice new salary; they will probably have new cars, a bigger mortgage, and kids in private school.

So consider this: have you been fair in paying ordinary, average workers over the odds, when in reality, they couldn’t earn that much in the open market?

The CEO of Citigroup will find it hard to scoop a similar package when he moves on. With a salary like that, he might not need to find another job. But in all probability, your employees will, and your generosity may turn out to be more of a burden than was ever intended.

So think really carefully when establishing what your people are worth? Ensure you can justify their salary to your executive board (if you have one) and to your other employees.

This article was written 10 years ago today, but I think the question is still valid; what are your people worth? I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts about value and the justification.

I was really looking forward to my Happy Days with the Naked Chef (that’s the title of his latest book, not my illicit fantasies about aphrodisiacal menus and my very own personal chef) when I realised I wasn’t really special at all. Because on closer inspection, it appears that my love letter from the pukka tukka man himself has actually just been cut and pasted into another letter, also “especially” for me (do I hear Kylie and Jason wailing in the background?) but this time from the food and drink editor at Amazon.co.uk.

A tad disappointing, I have to say. Not so disappointing that I didn’t order my advance copy of the book, (at 30% discount, how could I refuse?) but disappointing enough to have me reaching for the leanest, lowest-in-fat, frozen-beyond-resuscitation, TV dinner I could find. A pathetic protest that saw me dialing the local Indian takeaway a mere 90 minutes later. Don’t laugh; you’ve all been there.

I think I must be quite naïve really. You see, I got all excited a few weeks ago too when I got an email from Guy Kawasaki, the former Apple marketing evangelist. He wanted to introduce me to Garage Technology Ventures, formerly Garage.com.

Kawasaki revealed all the hot gossip about his new venture capital investment bank, told me about his new pad (3300 Hillview Avenue, Suite 150, Palo Alto, California) and even thanked me for my continued support. Not being aware I had previously proffered anything other than a recommendation for his marketing book – based on his supremely successful efforts at Apple – I realised this was another clever marketing ploy. A new one, obviously, having learned all his other ones from his book, this one took me unawares.

I must have inadvertently lobbed my email address onto a weird and wonderful database somewhere, one which has been sold over and over and over again and fallen into the sticky fingers of the “viral marketer”.

I’ve done some research recently into viral marketing and it’s truly clever stuff; technology harnessed to some genuine innovation and creativity on the part of a very few smart marketers. However, I haven’t experienced viral marketing at its best. I think I experienced it at its very worst.

Both attempts – by well-known businesses who should know better – were nothing more that blatant misuse of someone else’s database to send a truly bland message, the most useful bit of which in each is the “remove me from your mailing list” par. In brief, rather than clever and effective viral marketing, both Amazon.co.uk and Garage.com have masterminded little more than a rather sad and pathetic direct mailer.

So before you add my email address to your mailing list, just think for a moment: if you are smart enough to recognise that viral marketing will work for your business – and it won’t work for everyone – then please be smart enough to recognise also that you need to use a bit of imagination before you get the attention you think you deserve.

Oh, and Jamie, if you’re reading, this doesn’t mean I’ll junk your next email – if you really mean it, I’ve got a great idea for a recipe that we should talk about offline!

NB From 10 Years Ago Today – I suspect the same viral marketing disasters have simply got worse with the advent of social media. What’s your experience?

Aristotle once said: “Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way – that is not easy.” How true.

We tend to raise our voices, swear at the wrong person, stamp our feet a little, demand to see someone higher up the authority tree, threaten to tell the press and all our friends, and ultimately sulk when we don’t get our own way. What we don’t do is offer a suggestion – polite or otherwise – on how to remedy the problem. We are not constructive when we complain, so how can we expect a fair outcome?

But we’re even worse at receiving complaints graciously. Someone complaining is really giving you an opportunity to redeem yourself in his or her eyes. They haven’t just pissed off to the competition telling them how bad you guys are, which is the most common result from bad service or a crap product. And it’s a fact that 95% of customers who complain will remain loyal to you and recommend you to their friends and business associates if you remedy their complaint effectively. So it makes financial and business sense to be good at solving complaints.

Seen through the eyes of someone who is focused on continually improving their business, a complaint is the perfect chance to learn from your mistakes. I once read the story of a billion dollar corporation in the States, where a young marketing executive made a mistake costing the company somewhere in the region of a million dollars. Carpeted by the CEO, the young guy expected to be sacked, only to be told that the company had spent a million dollars training him and wasn’t likely to send him off to the competition having learned such an expensive mistake. Apocryphal? Maybe. It certainly highlights the correct approach to learning from mistakes, doesn’t it?

But surprise surprise. That’s yet another area in which we in Scotland appear to be less than adequate. Not so our counterparts south of the border. You see Yorkshire Forward, (YF) a regional development agency, has launched its very own business birthrate strategy – and claims to have learned from the mistakes made by Scottish Enterprise.

Now how come they managed to learn from our mistakes before we did? Apparently, SE is sharing the gory details of all its mistakes with their Yorkshire counterparts at regular meetings. Can you believe this? Alex McWhirter, YF’s development manager, actually said: “All the RDAs (regional development agencies) are looking carefully at what Scotland has achieved.”

Hmm. Yes. Right. That shouldn’t take too long. They are probably ploughing carefully through the long list of errors and having a little snigger to themselves. I mean, their strategy is going to cost a mere £32million over three years, compared with the inordinately expensive SE strategy which cost the tax payer £140million over seven years. That’ll be lesson one learned quickly: YF go straight to the top of the class.

I’m probably being a bit unfair. 20:20 hindsight is a wonderful thing. But listening carefully to complaints and learning quickly from your mistakes is almost as good. Recognise where you have gone wrong, fix it, and make sure you don’t do it again. It’s simple really.

NB: This post is from my 10 Years Ago Today series.