Dr Graham Wilson MBACP FRSA - 'The Confidant'

Nine out of ten people don’t follow-up

Graham — Mon, 13 May 2013 22:02:34 +0000

Speaking at a networking event the other day, I did a quick straw poll to test out one of my theories about why so many people find such events a pointless exercise despite feeling compelled to go along. Not surprisingly, out of a group of nearly 40 people, only 2 claimed to have a systematic approach to following up after the meeting.

Confessional

So, slapped wrist number 1: Nearly a fortnight ago, I was not only late for a business lunch, but also failed to write and thank the generous person who bought me it. This was outrageous – completely out of character for me, but evidence that I am not pretending that I get it right all the time.

And, slapped wrist number 2: Three weeks ago, I was invited to attend another breakfast meeting and to speak about my work. All went well, though there was perhaps a slight mismatch for one individual who seemed to think I was going to be pitching for work rather than talking about the underlying nature of the work I do. However, I have the list of delegates on my desk and I haven’t followed up.

Learning – I seem to have a little pattern emerging here… When something hasn’t worked perfectly, I seem to have a problem doing what I know I should do – write and thank people regardless.

We all do it. We return from a meeting of some kind, with no specific thing to follow up but bundle of business cards in our pocket. We take them out and pop them on our desk and do nothing with them. We kid ourselves. We dream of having some super-gizmo that will scan them, add the details into a wonderful database, and then… nothing happens.

It’s time to do something about it. You need to be systematic. If you ‘blog’, have a newsletter, or write regularly, then you need these people on the distribution list for that. If you don’t, then you simply need them on your LinkedIn contact list.

With this in mind, the follow-up is really straightforward.

You only REALLY need three pieces of information from their card – their name, their email address and their contact phone number or SkypeID. Of course, you can keep other bits but you don’t really need them these days as so much information is available online.

Keep a simple, ongoing, handwritten list of those three pieces of information – just to keep things simple. You’ll tick it once to say you’ve sent an email. Second, to say that you’ve added them to any mailing list that you maintain. Strike out the details when you’ve sent a connection request on LinkedIn.
Have a standard block of text in Evernote (or a text file if you haven’t yet discovered the joy of using Evernote). Think of this as your postcard…

Dear NAME

I’m glad we had the opportunity to meet at the networking event TODAY.

Every week or so, I write a business-related article. Rather than send a message about each one, I have a weekly digest. I’d like to add you to my list for this, if you don’t mind. (You can always unsubscribe at any time.)

I find the best way to get to know people is to have a one-to-one chat either in person or by phone and wondered if we could possibly schedule something over the next couple of weeks? Other than Tuesdays, I can fit in something most days, so I wondered if there would be a good time for you?

In recent years, LinkedIn seems to have become one of the best ways of keeping up to date with people’s business moves and interests, so I also wondered if we could connect there? I’ll send you a connection request in the next few hours.

With best wishes…

Send this email within 48hrs, adjusting the TODAY for YESTERDAY if necessary.
Log on to LinkedIn and send them a straightforward connection request. I usually prefer to customise these as the LI script is pretty awful, but as you’ve already warned them it’s on its way…

And that’s all there is to it, really. Of course, you can get more fancy, but there’s really no need – a significant improvement on where you were.

Oh, and one last thing – NEVER TRY TO SELL SOMEONE SOMETHING OR TO ASK FOR A JOB DIRECTLY. That isn’t the point!

Best wishes
Graham

Monday 13th May – The 62nd Informal Drink in Oxford

Graham — Sun, 05 May 2013 01:07:43 +0000

OH DEAR – TWO MONTHS IN A ROW, MY GOOGLE CALENDAR DIDN’T MAKE IT OBVIOUS THAT THE FIRST MONDAY OF THE MONTH WAS A BANK HOLIDAY – AND I FORGOT TOO! SO, FOR THE AVOIDANCE OF DOUBT, THIS MONTH’S DRINK IS ON MONDAY 13TH MAY! I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU ALL THERE.

All welcome. Further information: http://www.the-confidant.info/oxforddrink/

An informal networking group, held every month (usually on the first Monday) at the Victoria Arms in Old Marston. The focus is on informality and building friendships with peers for the longer term support of each other’s activities. There are no fancy structures, no sales pitches, no forced referrals – just decent company, interesting conversation and the bar. Please click the link and read the background to the event to get an idea of our ethos.

There’s no need to book in advance, though you may, if you wish, send me an email and I will look out for you.

Best wishes

Learning something new or going through hoops – and for whose benefit?

Graham — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:18:46 +0000

I’m not a great believer in paperwork exercises – simply documenting something that you’d do anyway in order to gain a piece of paper seems intrinsically wrong to me. It’s a question of how much effort is necessary. When the form filling becomes too onerous, but is still only documenting what’s already been achieved, then I figure the system needs changing. Sadly though, this isn’t the way the rest of the world looks on it.

The other week, I was running a course for a health organisation. The participants had been told that they should attend. They accepted that it was necessary to refresh their skills from time-to-time and so arrived but not really expecting to learn anything. At the end of the day, two of them came up to me – when they’d introduced themselves at the outset they’d made it clear that they were both highly qualified and experienced. They both wanted to say how much they’d enjoyed the day, how they’d felt embraced by me and by involving them in the delivery of the training, they’d felt more respected than they often did at work. We had a hug, shed a little tear, agreed that the system was a little silly, and went about our ways.

Too often though, it seems to me that respect for the individual is lost by bureaucratic systems that we pretend are there to promote professionalism and protect clients and customers. It’s something I have often encountered in corporate OD (organisation development) but it seems to be particularly true in professional development arenas.

When I was 17, I’d qualified as both a swimming and lifesaving teacher, which meant that I could ‘sign off’ Duke of Edinburgh Award forms for others but because I hadn’t registered for the Award before I sat my exams (which you had to do as a swimming teacher in those days), I couldn’t get one myself. A friend and I regularly used to go on long-distance walks – including bivouacking overnight – yet, again, because we’d not registered for the Award we couldn’t include these retrospectively. Our school encouraged us to engage in ‘social action’, and yet, my many teenage hours voluntarily teaching swimming and doing Red Cross first-aid duties were not eligible because I hadn’t registered first.

The DoE system has, at last, been changed but not, I’d argue, for the better. Now, you start out by saying what you’ll do for the next few weeks (and I mean weeks), do it, and get someone to sign it off. There’s no minimum standard – you just have to say what you’ll do. So, the other day I was confronted by a mother whose child had done a fraction of the amount of work that others would do, but because the child had not said it would do anything in particular in the first place, I was expected to sign it off regardless.

The other month, I attended a “professional development day” for one of my ‘professions’. The content was interesting, though not really that developmental, and a lot of time was devoted to networking with our competitors (sorry, I mean ‘peers’) but it was all OK because we were issued with a fancy A4 certificate for our CPD records.

This kind of situation, where the bureaucracy overtakes the learning, seems to permeate quasi-professions. The real professions (medicine, law, accountancy, and architecture) have their fill of paperwork, I’m sure, but they don’t depend on the ‘apprentice’ registering first, THEN gaining experience, THEN documenting their learning, and only THEN being formally accepted. Instead they work in parallel.

A little while ago, I sat in on a course sponsored by the local government, for entrepreneurs starting up their first business. It was the main component of a package intended to boost enterprise in the local area. It involved ten sessions spread over three months with a quite detailed, though extremely inflexible and prescriptive, structured approach. (Interestingly, every page was splattered with copyright marks.) I’m far from convinced that if anyone worked religiously through the manual and course their business would be any more successful than any other. If nothing else, luck and networking – two essentials of successful enterprise – weren’t mentioned. It was run in the evening. An interesting choice – to run a course on business in the evening – which must say something about how core it was seen to running a successful enterprise and about the organisers attitude to life-work balance. Anyway, at the end of the third or fourth session, when questions were invited, someone raised their arm and asked; “Do we get a certificate at the end of the course?” I felt my heart sink, and judging from the groan around the room I wasn’t alone. But perhaps this individual had cause to enquire….?

I find myself in a strange position today, being asked to present a portfolio of my experience to an organisation simply so that they can decide whether to confer on me their ‘professional membership’, when the reality is that I’ve been an accepted and practicing member of one of their competitors for some years.

So, that’s the gripe. But the system isn’t going to change. What have I learnt along the way?

Well, if you are considering doing something developmental – such as taking even a very straightforward training course – think VERY hard beforehand and ask yourself how you intend using it well into the future. If you might conceivably want to do so for quasi-professional purposes, then do your research – find out beforehand how that discipline manages itself, whether certain activities are accepted, and whether certain providers are somehow favoured above others. Of course, it’s hard to look into the future that far, but where possible, if you’re going to spend money and invest effort you might as well make sure that you get a double- or even triple- whammy benefit.

I often counsel executives considering doing an MBA. The same argument applies. How are you expecting it to help? Does your particular profession (eg business sector) respect people with this qualification? If you see it as a building block in your career – decide on the career first, then choose the course. You might be surprised how many people see an MBA as an opportunity to create a career transition without thinking where they want to go – instead, they see it as an opportunity to stop doing what they have been doing. If it is relevant, then fine, but if there’s some doubt – do more research before signing up. If you are wanting to satisfy your own intellectual needs, then many people don’t realise just how many other options there are that they could pursue.

When choosing one provider over another, look carefully at the content and the process by which it’s delivered. If it appears to be a hoop leaping exercise rather than a genuine learning experience, ask yourself whether that’s really what you want. If the methods resonate with you, great – but if they seem more concerned with validating the provider than embedding new material in you, ask twice.

Best wishes
Graham

Dr Graham Wilson is an organisational psychotherapist and leadership confidant, who works with people in positions of power, helping them understand psycho-dynamics, politics, and behaviour, as they affect them in their day-to-day work, and navigate through them to achieve far greater things. He also provides very practical support to senior executives as they hunt for more fulfilling roles.

The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances

Graham — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:44:44 +0000

There’s a quote attributed to the teachings of Atiśa Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna, known generally as Atisa, one of the reformers of Buddhism from around 1000AD. It goes; “The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.”

I’ve not heard it said much recently, but one of the qualities that used to be revered in leadership was being a ‘good judge of people’. As it was often inaccurately applied to older males it was probably perceived as politically incorrect.

It sometimes seems that leadership has become focused too much on relatively short-term outcomes. Consequently, a longer sighted recognition that someone might not be as mature, or as experienced, now but already shows great promise for the future, is lost. Being a ‘good judge of people’ means being able to see beyond someone’s current behaviour if it is not ideal. It also means being able to distinguish between genuine potential and the behaviours that ingratiate someone with someone else. Few leaders will really allow the fawning sycophant to have much power – that’s because they have this ability to judge people. A good leader knows that the advantages of surrounding themselves with constructive critics far outweigh the disadvantages of having to deal with their occasional excesses.

It’s a two-way process of learning. The leader has to learn to judge appropriately. The other person needs to learn to manage their behaviour.

Sadly, there are some people who behave as if there’s no difference between constructive and destructive criticism. They may even believe that their behaviour is constructive and find it surprising that others do not. It is their judgement that would benefit from refining. As leaders, we have to be careful not to over-react to them.

There is a concept, that is said to appear in all contemporary Faiths, known as the Golden Rule. It is quite simply that you should; “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.” Less commonly referred to, but I believe also appearing in all Faiths, is the idea that one should have respect for one’s elders (and, by extension, one’s ancestors).

When someone does something, or says something, that we find disrespectful, inconsiderate or insensitive, it is not surprising that we often react negatively towards them. Usually, they are somehow contravening our interpretation of this second ‘rule’ – showing a lack of respect for those that have gone before them (in many cases, ourselves).

I find our response to disrespectful behaviour interesting. Some people will react to what they perceive as a threat to themselves and their own psychological balance. Others have more personal emotional resilience and will contain their own feelings until the insults are levelled against other people that they feel protective of. This is a profound tipping point. A few will continue to distance themselves from the perpetrators of the poor behaviour in the hope that their passivity will somehow deflate the attack, even though they can see that others are suffering. The key is knowing, in yourself, where you feel the boundary exists. This is about understanding our values. I’d like to think that I would step in when I felt that the insults had gone beyond me and onto someone else. However, I also have to painfully acknowledge that my practical response to the many violent humanitarian outrages in my own lifetime alone, has been far too slow. Conversely, I am sometimes too quick, and too voluminous, in my response to email critics.

We all benefit from learning the lesson of respect for our elders and ancestors at some stage in our lives. I remember my very first performance appraisal. I was a junior scientist working for Exxon and my section manager, Ron Vickers, gave me a generally positive review, but he noted my frustration at what I felt was a lack of involvement in various projects that I thought I had something to contribute to. It was causing me to be a bit too critical of the leaders of these efforts. He cautioned me; “Always remember that the people you pass on the way up, are the same ones who you’ll pass on the way down.” It’s a simple maxim that perhaps needs reinterpretation in these days of flatter and less authoritarian organisations. Sadly, it took me a long while to appreciate his wisdom.

Learning to deal with authority and authority figures is a vital aspect of all personal development. Sociologists point to this as the root cause of many of the problems of modern society, especially among young males, though a surprising number of the ‘offenders’ now have grey hairs. It seems to me that the issue is less one of enforcing the acceptance of authority – which I fear is a draconian response to the immediate problems caused by inappropriate behaviour – and more one of engendering a greater respect for the lessons learnt by previous generations.

This is not a simple process. There are complexities on all sides and the pathway involves a lot of reflection and self-awareness. It is rarely a one-sided learning – all parties have lessons to learn. However, this is all part of the journey of acquiring gravitas. As you can tell, it isn’t one that I have ‘cracked’, however, it is one that I accompany many of my clients on.

Human Capital Management – automating the abuse of your most valuable asset

Graham — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:31:49 +0000

A while back I started collecting examples of business-speak that I found alarming. Some simply seemed to set out to confuse. Others were intended to make the speaker seem clever – usually for their own benefit. But the worst examples were ones where the term indicated an absence of care and concern for the people in an organisation. Worse still would be ones that not only threatened an absence of care but potentially the abuse of people.

A month ago, I was invited to apply for an amazing job in Oxford. It was a real honour and the job was fascinating with considerable potential. It was all about helping an organisation, unused to doing so, to provide visionary leadership to its staff. Sadly, they chose someone else after all, but in preparing for the interview I began to do some research using Google. I don’t pretend to understand how these things work, but, within a few hours, I was receiving Facebook adverts relevant to Human Resources.

Now, Human Resources is not my favourite term. In a commercial environment, physical resources are things that you keep in a warehouse and pick off shelves with a fork lift truck. Financial resources are fought for in the annual budget and then defended throughout the year. But we have other resources too. We have mineral resources, which provide currency, aesthetic decoration, essential tools, and the building blocks of our built-environment. We have oil (aka hydrocarbon) resources – providing more currency, fuel and the raw materials for all kinds of manufacturing processes. We have forest resources that we’re always being accused of not sustaining properly. We have vegetable resources which, if we stopped there, would apparently be sufficient to feed the population of the world. We have ‘farmed resources’, the sanitized term for the poultry, cows, pigs, and sheep that we barbarically slaughter to provide the protein that maintains the divide between North and South. And then,… we have Human Resources – previously known as Personnel and before that as ‘slaves’.

From the way some executives speak, it sometimes seems as if Human Resources are just one of this range of commodities essential to sustaining our lifestyle. Maybe next time you’re offered a job as Director of Human Resources, you might suggest that the alternative from the Defence sector would be better – Chief of Staff?

So what was it about these Facebook adverts that shook me?

Well, they were from Oracle, who have decided to re-label their employee record systems software as “Human Capital Management”. Here’s their explanation of the term:

“Oracle’s Human Capital Management applications are a complete and integrated suite – from core HR transactions to workforce service automation and delivery, to complete enterprise talent management, including many solutions unique in the industry. Oracle’s global, web-based, single system architecture is designed for organisations of every size, industry and region. And only Oracle Human Capital Management comes with complete integrated business intelligence, compliance and security with your choice of deployment options.”

The lay-person might be forgiven for thinking that integrated ‘intelligence, compliance and security with your choice of deployment options’ came from briefing documents for drone strikes in Afghanistan.

Of course, any intelligent HR practitioner will understand precisely what this means. The language is intelligible. But put yourself in the position of an employee or a contractor working for a company that sees itself as engaged in ‘human capital management’. Does it make you feel good to be a piece of ‘human capital’? As such, do you look forward to being ‘managed’? Do you feel you’ll be treated with respect and dignity when dealings with you are merely ‘transactions’? And if you want to talk about how you feel, will ‘workforce service automation and delivery’ really be satisfactory?

Yes, ‘Human Capital Management’ offers you the means to ‘optimize your workforce’ – simply and cheaply.

Don’t worry, they left the cattle prods in the abbatoir, and the shackles… well, actually, I don’t know where they’ve gone, which IS a bit worrying.

‘Human Capital Management’ doesn’t exactly tug any positive emotional heart strings, does it? It doesn’t sound like the kind of language that one of those ‘Great Places to Work’ or ‘Investors in People’ would invest in does it? It’s more the kind of language that you’d expect of Gordon Gekko.

“It’s not a question of enough, pal. It’s a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another.” Gordon Gekko, Film ‘Wall Street’, 1987

Of course, you might think that all workers (and we mean all, including the CEO) are merely cogs in a giant machine, but treating them as such, is hardly going to inspire them to greater productivity.

In these enlightened 2010s, many people already feel cheated, manipulated, and let-down by their employers. They know that it wasn’t your fault – at least, not directly. They have become far wiser – no longer angry, but they are certainly a lot more cautious. They’re not going to fall for 1980s management attitudes – respect for the gung-ho, killer takes all mindset has gone. Red braces sell on eBay for fancy dress at just £2.50 plus postage. Your staff have done you a favour, they’ve not rebelled. But, in return, it’s time to treat them as real live individuals – each one with a heart and a soul.

Of course, you know all this. After all you didn’t fall for all that hype. You saw through Gordon’s character and discovered the flaws within it. Instead, you found Robert Greenleaf and Servant Leadership. You read his seminal paper and went through a personal transformation yourself before you began the transformation of your organisation. If you’ve read a single management or leadership book in the last two decades, you can’t help but have been extolled to follow his philosophy – it is intimately bound up within the work of just about every modern leadership author – Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Peter Senge, M. Scott Peck, Margaret Wheatley, David Welbourn, Judi Neal, Warren Bennis, Ed Schein, James Kouzes, Daniel Pink…

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions… The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.

The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?” Robert K Greenleaf, The Servant as Leader, 1970

You are a thoroughly modern manager, you embrace this passion to help others achieve their best. Right?

So you’d not really expect any of the world’s leading institutions to buy into the Oracle product range – if nothing else, sense and sensitivity suggest that the term “human capital management” could be a tad provocative. Besides ‘your people are your most valuable asset’ you don’t merely want low cost, optimized ways to transact with them. Right?

Well, I’m sad to say that I’m wrong:

“Oracle is the Human Capital Management solution of choice for more than 14,000 Oracle customers in over 140 countries, including 8 of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies and 30 of the top 40 innovative companies.”

The first statistic frightens me – it implies that the leaders of those organisations don’t care a jot for the people who work for them just as long as their financial performance outstrips the competition.

But it’s the second statistic that I think we need to worry about even more. If we are to believe the political rhetoric, it is the innovative companies that are our life-blood in these economically stressed times. I don’t know how they define a ‘top innovative’ company, but that 3 out of 4 prefer cheap and simple ways of optimally automating their workforce service rather than nurturing the talented souls on whom they depend sends shivers down my spine.

With the id and super-ego fighting it out, should Prince Albert have played down his recent acquisition?

Graham — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 01:07:18 +0000

In an article in the Riviera Times, New jet for Prince Albert II, written by Nancy Jane Carragher, it is explained that Prince Albert II has just ‘secured’ his latest private jet, a Dassault Aviation Falcon, worth up to 50 million euros depending on his choice of interior.

The Prince says the aircraft is necessary to help him fulfil his princely duties.

The Prince and his wife unveiled the new jet at Nice Côte d’Azur Airport on 5th March 2013 in a ceremony also attended by Princesses Charlène and Caroline.

Apparently, the aircraft was chosen by the Prince as a private jet to be used on state business by the Grimaldi family. He told the press, “This aircraft constitutes for me a precious tool for the accomplishment of my role as head of state.”

As Monaco has no space to store it, it will be kept in a purpose built hangar at Nice airport.

To offset damage done by greenhouse gases emitted from the plane, the Prince has established a programme to fund humanitarian projects.

It isn’t uncommon for the ‘heads of’ organisations of all kinds, to benefit from larger ‘perks’ than their colleagues, and apart from the element of luck that is involved in most forms of success, most people would be pleased for them, knowing that they have skills and experience that have got them there. Discretionary activities, such as expensive holidays on Nekker Island supposedly hob-knobbing with the rich and famous, and discretionary acquisitions, such as the second or third Morgan in the necessarily extended garage, are fine when they are appreciated as discretionary.

However, the mistake that some leaders make is to confuse the boundary between a legitimate work-related extravagance and personal indulgence. When they compound this confusion by seeking to share their good fortune with the outside world – especially once the PR handlers get involved – then they are treading a very delicate tightrope.

Balancing personal emotional satisfaction, the id-driven desire to share it, and ‘corporate’ Public Relations is not an easy one to achieve.

Freudian psychotherapists recognise three components of the psyche: the id – seeking instant gratification and pleasure, the super-ego – the sense of right and wrong instilled in us through our upbringing, and the ego – acting as mediator between the other two. In this case, it seems that the Prince and his advisors were rather pleased with their purchase and wanted others to see this (the id at work). However, they must have known (the super-ego telling them) that many people could find it an excess.

Even when there IS a direct relationship between the experience/acquisition and our work, we lay ourselves open to accusations of ostentation, lack of empathy for those whose circumstances prevent them from indulging in far less substantial discretionary expenditure, and even ignorance. Such shows can damage our credibility far more than we realise. We compound this even further when we appear to be trying to justify the expense.

While the jet might well pay for itself many times over in savings on air-fares, flying the family around the world – supporting him in his ‘princely duties’ – it seems that the environmental cost of this is somehow being treated separately in the Monegasque mindset. These days, large corporations have woken up to the importance of incorporating their environmental costs in any decision, let alone those of ‘discretionary’ travel. When they still feel that such travel is necessary, they seek to minimize the impact and generally as directly as possible. Thus, a multinational organisation might be expected to calculate their ‘carbon footprint’, take steps to significantly reduce it directly, to invest in projects that would lead to their own and others’ footprint being reduced in the medium term, and then to offset what remains through well monitored schemes. This isn’t new territory – it’s called sustainability.

It would not be unrealistic, for example, for the Principality to become the exclusive contributor to an environmental project elsewhere in the world. Typical examples include the creation of hydroelectric power plants, reforestation, and the restoration of peat bog. While such projects generally also have a positive impact on local communities, they are not humanitarian projects.

I’m afraid that the Prince’s team might have better counselled him to explore more commercial forms of transport and perhaps the acquisition of a environmentally-refurbished multi-purpose aircraft, to plan for its remaining impacts to be minimised in operation, to establish and invest in an environmental project in a low-income country, and finally to offset the remaining footprint. Above all else, though, if the private jet approach really is justified, then I’d have been very cautious about the ceremonial stunt associated with its commissioning and suggested a more discrete delivery and introduction into service.

Is Paul Gascoigne well advised to go public?

Graham — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 13:27:21 +0000

Alcoholics in crisis provoke strong responses among the people around them. Some feel great sadness and sympathy for the individual; others are angered that they could have allowed themselves to get into this condition; and still more are fearful, as the behaviour of someone they know has become unpredictable and often seemingly uncontrollable.

When that person is a high profile celebrity their every move is being monitored by the media and judged by the public. While many celebrities are happy to pander to the media interest in them, it takes an emotional toll. They have sometimes sought, and become dependent on, that attention to bolster a fragile self-esteem. In their ascendant, all is reasonably well, unless other things undermine their confidence. However, under the glare of media attention, which by its nature focuses on any chinks in their image that can be found, it is easy for that self-esteem to take a bashing.

Of course, many high profile people will deal with this, but others find it hard to cope with the emotional stress that it provokes.

At the core will be all kinds of issues, but only two are really necessary to see how the descent into alcoholism can happen.

If seeking celebrity status is a way of coping with fragile self-esteem, then when that fails, the celebrity is left needing to find a way of coping with the failure of the mechanism – not just as a prop to their newly exposed self-esteem but as a way of coping with the failure of the means that they thought had been protecting them.

The layers of defence that people build up to this are a bit like an onion. I find it more helpful to look at it this way than as a downward spiral, which some therapists describe, as that often suggests to people that there’s only one cause to their behaviour and that they can climb back up the slope restoring the effectiveness of each mechanism.

In our society, it isn’t surprising that they may often turn to artificial means – primarily drugs and alcohol – as a way of defending themselves against the emotional onslaught of the failure of a previously effective coping mechanism.

The layers continue to be built up even if the limited repertoire of possible tools at their disposal mean that th alcoholic tries to use alcohol to address the failure of alcohol to help them already. Paul Gascoigne is a case in point – after 17 months ‘dry’, he was in Dubai in the summer of 2012, when he realised that his commitment to stopping drinking was failing – significantly, it wasn’t actually that he had started drinking but that he had failed to go to the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings that he’d been attending. To cope with this failure, he took to the only tool he felt he had access to – alcohol.

Gascoigne’s juggling act has been scrutinised somewhere in the media almost every day for the last 20 years. The latest twist was his appearance as a celebrity ambassador for a charity event in February this year. He collapsed in an emotional state in front of the crowd (and the media) and couldn’t continue.

He was flown to the US to a specialist rehab centre in Arizona where, in what is a common effect of detoxification, his health deteriorated seriously and he had to be transferred to a mainstream medical facility until he was strong enough to return to the rehab centre.

Paul Spanjar, Treatment Director of the Providence Project in Bournemouth, where Gascoigne has been treated previously, explained; “It’s very early days. I think it’s important to say that rehab is not actually the cure or the answer but the first step to recovery.

“Paul’s journey is only just beginning and it certainly won’t be finished when he completes treatment.

“His rehab journey will consist of various therapies essentially addressing both his alcoholism and the underlying attached issues that cause him to do some of the things he does, dealing with some of the resulting consequences and putting a really clear relapse prevention plan in place to help him cope upon his exit from treatment.”

Spanjar also explained why he felt it was necessary for Gascoigne to fly to the United States; “The decision to go abroad was very much based upon some of the media frenzy in the UK. It would have been very difficult for Paul to continue with his treatment over here because of the lack of privacy.”

A little over a month later, he has returned to the UK and within days he has been interviewed by the Sun Newspaper. The rhetoric is fine – he speaks of a catalytic moment when he thought he was dying that has reaffirmed his conviction that he needs to stop drinking. He says that he needs to resume his attendance at the AA meetings. But this is very early days and he needs a lot of support and encouragement – not merely to stop drinking or to commit to rehabilitation, but to address the issues that drove him to seek solace in celebrity and a public profile in the first place.

It seems to me that his advisors have a further role to play in this. I’m a little surprised if the interview with the Sun Newspaper was sanctioned by anyone. His medical advisors clearly see that it is pandering to one of his earlier defence mechanisms. Did his management team not realise this too?

Surely it is time for Gascoigne to be protected from the gaze of the media and the public? This is likely to provoke withdrawal symptoms too, and he needs professional help adjusting to the absence of one of his props from the past, but now is not the time for anyone to be encouraging him to step into the glare – whatever the reason, cause, or third party benefit of him doing so. It is not going to be easy, but just as he needs help adjusting to the absence of alcohol in his life, so he needs help adjusting to the absence of public attention. It’s hard for the public to do anything much to help in this but, if we can, let’s give him peace for a few years for that is probably how long this is going to take.

Global access to your emails

Graham — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:12:24 +0000

Back in the 90s, gadget makers had a phrase for consultants and trainers who drove around the country, or flew around the world, doing their work – “road warriors”. [Tom Peters had another phrase - "seagull consultants".] Back then, intrnational standards and global solutions were only just emerging and, if you asked anyone about ‘cloud computing’ they’d probably think you’d got your (only just invented) laptop out on an aeroplane. All kinds of gizmos were invented to allow you to hook up to foreign telephone systems to access fledgling email systems.

In the late 90s and early 00s, the bits of plastic gave way to software based solutions, but many of these too were a little Heath Robinson-esque and quite expensive to boot. The legacy of this persists today with the extortionate rates that mobile phone operators charge for roaming – especially when you are simply accessing your own network through one owned by the same operator in a different country.

Back then the warrior on the road, often had to resort to an internet cafe, and to use an unbelievably slow and clunky web-mail site to get at their messages.

Most of you reading this are probably saying; “So what?” Well in the last two weeks, I’ve been in conversation with three travelling consultants who were struggling to keep going with their old style systems and hadn’t realised that there’s a much easier approach almost instantly available to them.

THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE – so, if you’re still a little bemused as to why I’m writing this, I’d just close the message and go on to another one! I do appreciate that this is a little… basic. I have also tried to keep it simple and may have blurred a couple of definitions – thanks for noticing, but don’t feel you need to discuss them here!

So… for the rest of us:

You already have an email service provider – some will be the standard service provided by most internet service providers, ISPs (eg BT Connect), others are generic (eg Demon), but most are specific to a domain name that you (or your institution) have registered (eg grahamwilson.org). (These personal domains are so inexpensive (c£6 per year) that anyone can have one. ) Some people don’t realise that all of these can be made to work with any system – you don’t have to stick with the one that was installed on your laptop, or was described in the set-up of your wifi. Similarly, just because your ISP gave you an email address you don’t need to use it!

The tool that an increasing number of people prefer, regardless of where or how they are accessing their email, IS a webmail provider, but it’s one that’s so well developed that it has become the ‘email client’ of choice for many, many people. An ‘email client’ is the generic term used to describe software programs that allow you to access, read, store, compose and send, emails. Previously popular examples were Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird. These were entirely based on your computer.

The tool that people tend to prefer these days is provided by Google. With the exception of a few trouble-spots around the world, Google (www.google.com) is accessible almost everywhere. Gmail does everything that Outlook or Thunderbird do – it just does them all a little better.

You don’t HAVE to use their browser (Google Chrome) though there may be a few techie benefits from doing so. Thus, if you prefer Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE), Mozilla’s Firefox or whatever, that’s fine too.

To get started, you just go to the Google site – yes, the one that you visit every day to do searches. Look at the black strip at the top and you’ll see one of the options is Gmail. Go there and sign up for a personal email account. PLEASE bear in mind my comments in previous posts about selecting a professional sounding email address – it isn’t critical here, as no-one will necessarily see the gmail email address, but it still makes sense.

Unlike other webmail services, Gmail is available both online and offline. Your messages are held centrally, but they synchronise with copies on any other machine that you wish to use. Once you are up and running, email can be synchronised between the two so you need never be without anything. I have all of mine sychnronised with my laptop, 12 month’s worth on my Android tablet, and the last 300 on my smartphone.

Messages with attachments can be stored within the Gmail system, so you don’t need to download them all to a folder structure on your machine. What’s more, the Gmail storage system is like all others in allowing you to store messages in folders, but it also allows you to attach simple ‘tags’ to them – this makes it easy to find messages on the same topic that have been filed across many different folders. Yes, there’s a learning curve, but the flexibility of this online, cloud-based, email system is profoundly better than anything else that you’ll have encountered.

Because Gmail has become so endemic, it is available on most ‘platforms’ – thus you can access it through Windows (whatever version), the iOS used by IPads etc, Android – the standard for smartphones and tablet computers, and Linux – the operating system that’s very popular with institutions. You simply access your Gmail from ANY device and it will synchronise as much information as you wish among them – so you can work on ‘that’ report using any device.

Nowadays, most people already have a couple of email addresses – in some cases, many – usually one personal and one for work. The beauty of the Gmail interface, is that you can attach several different email accounts (reflected in different email addresses) to the one system. When Google retrieves the messages from each account, by default it puts them all in the same ‘inbox’ but it tags (labels) them so that they are easy to find and distinguish. You can tell it if you’d like to have them go in different folders.

You simply set each account up in exactly the same way that you would have with Outlook in the past, using POP3 settings to do so. The POP3 settings are usually easy to find somewhere on the site of any email provider and they consist of the username, password, outgoing email server and incoming email server. (Gmail comes with a tool to find these automatically for many service providers.)

Gmail uses the POP3 settings to contact your original email service provider(s) to see if there are any new messages waiting for you, and then copies these to the Gmail system. It does this very frequently so there’s rarely any delay in getting new ones. Thunderbird and Outlook check in the same way, though they tend to do so every 15 minutes by default.

One of the options for most email clients, such as Gmail, is whether to keep your emails in their original inbox once you have transferred them. In the past, working with something like Outlook on your own laptop, you might have not deleted them for safety in case there was a glitch in the transfer. The risks are probably less with Gmail, but I’ve got mine set to delete everything after 30 days – that way there’s a safety margin without building up a huge store that you’ll never access.

Once they are linked you can ‘compose’ messages in Gmail and then send them from any of your accounts. You can set up different default fonts, signatures, etc for each.

So, in a nutshell:

Register for a Gmail account
Set up your existing accounts through the Gmail interface using POP3

Once it’s up and running, you can import your existing address book(s) to Google Contacts, and you can import your existing emails from Outlook or Thunderbird to Gmail. Or you can breath lightly at having a new greenfield structire and can redesign your filing system!

I realise that this isn’t the usual kind of blog entry, but I hope it’ll help one or two of you.

Best wishes

Graham Wilson
the-confidant.info | executive-post.info

Monday 8th April – The 61st Informal Drink in Oxford

Graham — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 11:48:16 +0000

OK – THANKS TO THOSE OF YOU WHO POINTED OUT THAT THE 1ST APRIL IS EASTER MONDAY…. THE DATE SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE 8TH – I HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!

All welcome. Further information: http://www.the-confidant.info/oxforddrink/

There’s no need to book in advance, though you may, if you wish, send me an email and I will look out for you.

Best wishes

Banking Reform vs Banking Revolution

Graham — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 00:38:27 +0000

Many of you will know Alex Goodall, one of the regular participants at the informal drink in Oxford. Alex is speaking at the Hub in Turl Street, Oxford, this Monday evening (the 21st January) at 7:30pm.

His subject is something he’s been passionate about for some time – alternatives to the current model of banking and, crucially, how to achieve a transformation in the sector. Do take a minute to read more about his talk here: https://www.facebook.com/events/104573943053953/ It should be a lively affair with a really inspiring audience and Alex’s game changing ideas.

If you are going and spot me, do say hello, or better still let me know beforehand so I can spot you.