What Sir Stirling Moss can teach us about fear

Picture credit Peter Brown

I have just listened to an Excellent 5 minute interview with the wonderful Stirling Moss conducted by Chris Evans from radio 2. Love him or hate him he does do a great interview, his 3 minute interviews are superb with no preparation as the guest is a complete surprise, so it flows like a conversation that you may have if you met someone for the first time in a pub!! However this post is not about interview technique (though it gives me an idea) but about fear!

At 81 Sir Stirling Moss is still racing. He is Britain’s most successful fomula 1 racing driver and if you want to know more see wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_Moss

So, I hear you say, why would a racing driver be talking about fear, surely they are among the most fearless of people in the world. I would agree and also add that his generation were the uber fearless as this was a time before health and safety, before fireproof material and modern technology. This was a time of raw steel, cotton overalls and leather helmets.

Stirling has announced his retirement from the racing world as he for the very first time felt frightened going round the race track. He realised on his last race that if he were to get up to the speed he was supposed to that he would for the very first time in his life, be scared. He apparently spoke to his ‘people’ and of course his loyal and supportive wife and made the decision there and then to retire.

From a leadership perspective this is really interesting. He has shown in the past an unfaltering fearlessness which was his driving force for more than 65 years of racing. This shows amongst others the competences of steadfastness and determination. But he also listens to himself. He must have been listening to his intuition for all that time. For every other race it urged him on, but, on this his last race, he listened and it told him to stop.

Fear is a really important emotion. In her book ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’ Susan Jeffers tells us effectively that all we have to do is get over the fear because it’s the fear that is the ‘thing’ we fear not the ‘thing’ that we are doing.

Stirling epitomized this in his career up until his last race. He was fearless of the ‘thing’ which was driving very fast with little protection. Using his positive energy and power to be the biggest and best of his generation. But he also showed his courage in the face of his fear, which I surmise he must have had; which was giving up!.

Motor racing has defined him for 66 years of his life, he is an icon and for him to hang up his steering wheel took a huge amount of courage.

Imagine how scared he must have been as he realised that this was it, the end. That he would never go round the track as a racing driver again. Fini, nada.

To make the final trip to the pits, to tell ‘team moss’ that it was all over. That took courage.

Good luck Sir Stirling. You have given us many years of vicarious danger. May you retire in peace and in the knowledge that you were brave to the very end.

Here is the link to the interview
Stirling moss interview with Chris Evans it starts at 2.06.20

Volunteers needed

Are you or your company right for the ‘imeus’ leadership competence programme for emerging talent.

Could you be what we are looking for

We have been working hard to develop an online, interactive coaching programme that delivers great content and engages with the coachee from the start. We believe this programme will revolutionise the way organisations develop their leaders.

Our Big Fat Hairy Audacious goal is that in 10 years time there will be someone sitting on the board of every FTSE 100 company in the UK who began flexing their leadership muscle within our learning community.

Before we start marketing the programme we want to make sure it’s as good as we think it is, that the technology works and we hit the right tone.

Therefore we are looking for 25 participants to help us to trail the programme.

These are the criteria:

The company:
• large organisations (minimum of 500 employees worldwide)
• serious about investing in and growing talent that will be their future leaders
• interested/curious in the impact and flexibility of a new approach to training/coaching.

Our commitment:
• to provide our programme completely free of charge to the first 25 (usual cost £1,500 per person)
• to provide a quality resource that will make an impact on the leadership journey.

Your commitment:
• to put forward individuals who meet the criteria and provide feedback from both coachee and line manager perspective.

The individual:
• the individual chosen for the programme must be willing to trial the programme for 12 weeks
• will complete a diagnostic and 5 learning modules
• their line manager will be required to complete a diagnostic on the individual
• the individual must be emerging talent, committed to a process of personal and professional development, and prepared to put in the work required to achieve this. This is not a passive training experience but active development.

The time demand: Each module takes around 1.5 hours but also requires some work offline.

Technical requirement: A sound enabled computer with internet access.

Timescale: Commencing 1st July (feedback completed by 30th September)

Please apply if you are totally serious about fulfilling your potential as a future leader of your organisation.

Please e-mail me at emma@imeuscoaching.com if you are interested in taking part.

Who’s managing your talent?

Your manager, HR department, recruitment consultant? Maybe you have coach. Is it your best friend or partner? The answer is all of these and none.

Let me explain.

Your talent is exactly that, your talent. It’s your responsibility to manage and nurture the talent that you have always had. Others have input, sure, but give away responsibility for managing your talent and you turn into at best, a puppet for others to use for their own ends or worse a mish mash of ideas and thoughts of others.

I am a firm believer that people don’t change. We can adjust, we can develop, we can go toward positive natural behaviours and walk away from the negative one’s, but full on change just doesn’t happen.

If you are shaking your head now lets look at biology. You are born with a genetic make-up with a combination of genes from your ancestors. A bit like a big lottery machine. The genetic lottery machine throws out a combination of genes when you are born and that’s your lucky number. It may have given you a terrific talent for music or art or maths or a charismatic voice or long legs. What ever it gave you it gave them to you in a unique combination. You can’ t go back into the machine and pick a few more you prefer. That’s it like it or lump it. If you want to blame any one blame your parents, their parents and so on. The best you can do is just get on with it.

Now we have that sorted out; You may feel that it is limiting; but it is part of the human experience to always want we haven’t got. Also everyone else has only got what they have. Chances are if they are successful they have been making the most of their inherent talents. Yep it may be that they went to a better school had a pony or blonde hair, but stop looking at what others have and begin to see what you have;and chances are others are just as envious of you as you are of them.

Once you know what it is you have you can do something about making what you have the best it can be and to fulfil the potential; that the genetic lottery machine gave you.

First thing first, start off with an inventory. What talents do you think you have, what talents do others think you have. You may find synergy or you may find the answers you get as surprising.

Now what’s all this got to do with leadership? Well if we agree that your talent is there all along then it will mean that you may have natural leadership qualities. I again believe that leaders are born not made and that the combination of genes you have either make you a leader or a follower. If you are a follower I doubt if you are even reading this blog, so I am going to summise you are a leader you have leadership qualities and you need a bit of help and support to bring them out and develop. In other words how do you become the best version of yourself?.

1) Take a good long honest look at who you are what you stand for.
2) Get 2 other people who you know who you can rely upon to be honest and ask them what they think the answers to the above questions are.
3) Now you have a talent inventory you can score yourself. Look at each one and ask what is the best this can be? On a scale of 1-10 how close to it are you?
4) Once you know what your talents are, how close are you to making them really brilliant you can work on getting closer to the full potential everyday.

How to get close to your potential?

You need to take control, manage your own talent. When the above has been done (the hard bit) it now gets easier, it’s just consistency and discipline.

1) Keep a diary. Make notes of the challenges and success’s in your development. It’s good to make a mistake once, it’s forgivable twice a third time is a no no, with a diary youi can manage this.
2) Keep checking in. Remember those friends, tell them what you are doing, how they can help you and get feedback regularly. You never know this may even help them.
3) Read and learn from others. Look at your list of talents, seek others out who have what you have and go and see how they do it, learn from the experts in the field, Communicate with them. You never know where this kind of connection may lead
4) Help others, as you learn from others let others learn from you. Do you recognise yourself in others, take them under your wing and mentor them it could be an excellent experience for all.

It’s your responsibility to take control of your own talent and it’s long term nurturing and management.

Coaching question. 1) What would it mean for my future if my talent was truly exposed? 2) What is my unique leadership quality which makes me stand out of the crowd. 3) What is the next opportunity I have to expose this talent to the world.

A big KISS from a Yorkshireman

A big KISS from a Yorkshireman

I have worked in Media sales in one form or another since I was 17 years old.

The media presentation was one of the first ‘training courses’ I went on when I became a sales rep. The stand up presentation is when you present the product, the readership, the differentials of the product and show yourself as the person who will be hassling the client for business, sometimes with good news sometimes with bad.

Even though it is the presentation that as media folk we do the most it is the most potentially dangerous.

Why?

The figures are boring, depending on your field you could be looking at NRS, ABC, BPA, JICNARS all sorts. You may be talking up rises, or talking down decreases of either you or your competition.

The more senior you become the more of these you have to do to a more eclectic mix of people; internal and external senior and junior execs, clients, partners, agencies and other stakeholders. All wanting a slightly different twist and all waiting for a slightly different punchline.

It is however the most effective way of getting your capsule offering across and where your employers and peers can really get the measure of you.

When I came across this presentation by Steve Auckland, who was at the time Managing Director of Metro, I really did think it had a lot of class. Having worked at Associated when Metro launched and the wobbles of the launch and elbowing of a new product at a new time. Metro has really come of age. The package is simple, the offering straightforward and the message memorable. If he has taken the KISS pneumonic as his ‘style’ of communicating, Keep it Simple and Straightforward’ then this Yorkshireman’s presentation is a perfect example.

Communication is a key competence for leaders wherever they are in their career. As well as their internal communication style their ‘set piece’ formal communication style sets them apart from managers. It obviously works for Steve as he has recently been promoted to MD of Regional Newspaper group, Northcliffe.

Coaching Question: What is your communication style and how consistent is it?

Why training doesn’t work and coaching is expensive

I reckon I have about 90 seconds to justify this statement before you grab the gun and shoot me in my other foot.

I have been on all sides of the training triangle and it can only ever be;

1) As effective as the weakest person in the room

2) Be dependant on many factors such as the group dynamic & politics, how it was ‘sold’ to the delegates in the first place, where the trainer got their resources and how they feel on the day.

Even when the training is over, what then? How is the learning embedded? If you are familiar with the conscious/unconscious model of learning you will know that the steps cannot be missed and if training takes the learner from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence and then to conscious competence, how does the learner and line manager ensure they don’t slip back into the miserable and demotivating conscious incompetence. It is likely that the client will come back to the training provider and say oi! your training, it didn’t work.

Training is not a magic bullet which when pointed at an individual will magically make them into something they are not. The only exception to the rule is when technical elements need to passed on. And this completely backs up my theory, if you are going to train a sales person, fresh from university (and don’t even get me started on why sales people need to be graduates!), you would not let them loose on your top client in week one. They would be put on a development programme and have access to mentors and ‘friendly’ clients to practice and hone their skills.

So I find it quite astonishing when clients put budding leaders onto leadership training courses. How can leadership be trained, management tactics and techniques can be ‘trained’ if that is how they are ‘sold’ as pure techniques to be used with caution as part of a wider toolbox, but leadership, leaders of people? Can they be trained? do you think Martin Luther King went on a training course to hone his charismatic muscle, did Margaret Thatcher go on a course to learn determination did Nelson Mandella read some books about how to inspire. No! these individuals had these qualities within them all the time and situations conspired to bring them to the fore when the time was right.

So if training isn’t the answer, what about coaching? Coaching brings out the best in people right?

Yes it does, but because you are working with a trained, passionate professional, who only has so many hours in the day, it is also very expensive, and only those in very senior positions can afford that sort of money spent on them. It can also take quite a long time as many facets of the coachee’s life come under the spotlight. Due to the confidential nature of coaching there seems no end to it and pressed HR departments are spending money on senior directors without any measurable evidence that it is working, except hopefully a happier boss. This may be enough but increasingly everybody’s spend has to be accountable, and with sessions going into the £1000’s there must be a concern that the hushed sessions taking place in fine hotels and dining clubs have an element of the emperor’s new clothes about them.

In my experience because the senior director didn’t have coaching early enough, due to cost and time constraints they have got to their lofty heights due to hard work, grit and determination, they have worked their way up, working really hard and now they are at the top, what’s expected of them? They are expected to take on maternal or paternal roles within the organisation. This is fluffy stuff. The people who are filling their shoes aren’t doing it right and so he/she gets involved and scrappy with people he/she should be inspiring.

At this stage they are being king manager and their inner leader is being pushed away. I have heard many times, “as soon as I get over this crisis I will be much more involved in working on my leadership style’ but at the moment it’s task, task, task”

So what’s the answer, I believe a leadership programme which helps people to become the best versions of themselves within their current roles and prepares them for greater leadership in the future. A structured coaching approach which is focused on the needs of the organisation and the role of the individual without compromising one or the other. One which is cost and time effective, delivers results from the get go and inspires delegates to join in. Where is that service? Watch this space.

Part 1 – What’s in a name?

My coaching ‘service’ has always been my name. It was an easy decision to make as I crossed the bridge from employed to freelance and from training to coaching. The service I was providing was just me, my skills, time, training and experience.

As I embark on creating products, monetising and productising, suddenly I am aware of what I have always had, a brand. The question is now do I want to keep my name as my brand?

So I have been on the search for a new name, a name which sums up what I am what the company is now and in the future.

More than ever I have to consider SEO, do I need the name to stand up in a search when 70 million other connotations also come up?

I have to consider the word itself, as a coach I understand deeply that my perception of anything is just that, my perception. And yours, my potential clients may be very different and maybe negative.

I have to make sure it is memorable, so if they hear the name at a networking event or see it on a tweet they’ll get it and recall it and become a customer. The great thing about my name is it has always stood out from the crowd and a bit like New York I have to say it twice. When I was younger this was a burden, when working for yourself it is a positive.

Can I eventually sell it, and this is the nub; at some point I want to sell my business. If my business is so connected to my name how can I sell it? When I was younger I had a friend who was related to a large removal company, her family had sold it and she regularly saw her name on the side of trucks whizzing up and down the motorway. I am used to there being no other Emma Ranson Bellamy’s anywhere.

So this blog series will be about the search for my name. I have put out a call to my subconscious to help me find it, it’s my one last hope as hundreds of searches have not yielded it to me.

Any advice tips and feedback gratefully welcomed.

Emma Ranson Bellamy Logo

Is Twitter Intuitive or am I bonkers?

This blog post has popped into my head a number of times recently. When it does come in I quickly tell it go away because ‘it’s daft’ . But now I’m not too sure. So I ask this question in the hope that you will share your thoughts and hopefully not call me bonkers to my face 😉

I have a growing belief that twitter is intuitive. What I mean is, if I am looking for an answer to something or a resource, there it is, in my timeline. As if like magic.

If you are a reader of ‘the secret’ or the secret’s grandaddy and my absolute favourite book in all the world, Napoleon Hill’s Think and grow rich you will suggest that this is so because my intention has gone out before me and lo and behold it grabs me what I have asked for. Cool!

In my book Twitter just got a whole lot more effective. How wonderful that this ‘secret’ that the richest and most powerful people in the world knew the power of and had to work at, now has a brand new channel. An ever growing, fast moving and infinite channel of mastermind voices of 140 characters.

I used to worry about missing important stuff if I clogged my timeline up with people who weren’t on my wavelength, I was concerned that my diversity was holding me back from some really good stuff. But now with my new found faith in the intuitive twitter I don’t worry so much. I put my intention out there and turn my timeline on and wait for the twitterverse to come to my aid.

Do we care about the people who don’t care

last week was an interesting one for me.

I went to 2 social media events, one in the audience and one as a speaker.

The first was Random 2 hosted by Ann Holman of the Ann Holman company. The discussion soon went to the type of interaction which was occurring within social media. Without a shadow of a doubt those in the room were of the opinion that those people who were ‘broadcasting’ rather than interacting, who were taking rather than sharing should ‘take a hike’ and go do it somewhere else and not mess around with what has become a much loved mechanism for social media purist marketers. (I’m paraphrasing and taking huge liberties, but you get my drift)

The second event was a free information share with an alliance of Nexus, myself and Ashfords. We were speaking about how business’s can grow by social media. Many in that room were open to the ideas we shared, were enthusiastic to the opportunities that Social media offered. But there were just as many who were negative and sat arm folded, waiting to be convinced.

We all tried to tell the latter that no magic bullet existed, no on could give them (especially not in 45 mins ) a bespoke strategy that would give them the big results that were required to stop the slide in market share or slump in business some, that no doubt, were experiencing.

I tried to use traditional media and it’s limitations as a ‘them & us’ broadcast platform to illustrate the differences; in the hope that the opportunities would appear and excite. However on reflection it became clear that if you have been in business for the past 4 or 5 years you would not have been able to avoid the fact that social media is alive and very much kicking. My research of the group showed that most had given it a go, some had a facebook page, many were members of linked-in and a few had even dabbled with twitter. But some had made a decision some time ago that they weren’t getting involved and this event was another opportunity to go back and tell people why they weren’t getting involved; for the same old reasons they have given time and time again!

As an Ex Newspaper exec, I am used to standing up and flogging my wares; offering the world and charging the earth. Last week I believe all the speakers were offering alternatives which cost nothing except imagination, creativity, planning and a bit of effort.

Ah ha, lightbulb moment, maybe that’s the problem with those who aren’t interested. If that’s the case I’m not sure we should bother to get them on board, because if they are there they will suck out a lot of the fun and creativity that is within in and change it for the rest of us.

So what to do, what do we do about those who don’t care. Do we try and convice them, ie push them into it or do we give those who are a little bit interested and ‘pull’ them up with us. Or do we just not give a d***n and build our own elitist cliques away from those we don’t want to communicate with?

I am now firmly on the side of pull. I want to share and be involved with anyone who wants to get involved, I love being mentored and can name a few fabulous people who have helped me in the past and I love helping others get the most of the phenomenan and all that it can offer. I have a contempt for any form of elitist behaviour and will be growing a much thicker skin for anyone I have to push. BUT, if they change their minds I wont hold it against them. Promise.

Oh No! it’s Blue Monday

How Social Media is taking us back

Pardon? Isn’t social media taking us forward. Isn’t the hand held device, the computer, twitter etc, etc making us more global, more sophisticated and taking us forward and thus ..away?

Yes, Yes, Yes, No! But we’re monkeys, we’re born to co-operate and the social media that is in our reach is taking us back to collaborating, to sharing, to giving. To speaking to strangers, to communicating to everybody and anybody who will listen.

Here is a great TED post. if you have not found out about TED then I urge you to check it out. See i’m sharing! here there are some of the worlds greatest speakers (not necessarily the one’s you’ve heard of) like Rachel Botsman an Oxford graduate who gives us this fantastic presentation about collaborative consumption. There are some great points made in this 15 minutes presentation, as she is an Oxford graduated Brit, currently living in Australia and has lived in the US and studied at Harvard. The content is new fresh and  different from a lot of UK stuff you will see . It also gives us a reall insight into the future of Social Media. And if you are only just getting started in it, then hopefully it will urge you to continue discovering more ways to share and communicate and extend the communities and networks you are involved with.

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Enjoy!