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This morning, I took the dogs out into a field I have walked them in many times before – it was a beautiful sunny morning and the grass was dew moist. This particular field has patches of grass and reeds and the dogs love to play hide and seek in it.  As I walked down and idly gazed across the field, I noticed web after web waving in the slight breeze – it reminded me of a busy bazaar with each of the stall holders proudly displaying their wares.  Intricately placed between anchor points and each one a mini-masterpiece of individual toil, they were a real sight to behold, a veritable field of dreams!  As I turned and looked behind me, I realised that they had become invisible – the sun and where I stood made the difference between seeing them and missing them entirely.  I must have walked past hundreds of webs previously and not noticed them, a particular set of circumstances had highlighted their beauty and the work they entailed.

As I walked back to the house, I was musing on how many times we as leaders must miss the efforts of the individual, only noticing the times when the hard work comes into stark focus – yet at other times toil and trouble go unnoticed.  How powerful it would be to notice this effort at times when it is not waved in our faces – to recognise that each and every day, many people weave an intricate part of our organisation into being.

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I have to confess to being a serial house market watcher – we moved down to Somerset 14 years ago now and as I have a would-be landsman for a husband, we started small-holding in a small way a few years ago – inspired by the BBC2 series “It’s not Easy Being Green” .  The yearning has long been there for somewhere with a bit more land – hence the house market watching.  We had been pipped at the post on a few properties and early last year made the decision to sit tight and stay where we are for a few years.  Then serendipity intervened and as usually happens when you stop looking, we came across the place of our dreams!  We viewed it in late June, it went to sealed bids in July and much to my (screaming!!) amazement, we got it.  I then spent the whole of the Summer working on finance and property related things – I’m sure many of you have been through the “heart in mouth” house-buying process.  We finally completed in late October, and then the work really started – lots of cleaning and re-decorating ensued…

So, all that activity consumed an inordinate amount of time, I am so in awe of the people who manage to blog through everything – I think my head would have gone bang!!  But now, the mists are starting to clear a bit, and as a family we sat down and agreed the things we were going to try and do better this year – our list of “Betters”, some of which are based around health and eating, and some around functioning better as a family.  For me, I wanted to try and capture things as they change and develop – and to share our experiences with others and learn from them as well, so time to get back to my (much enjoyed) blog writing.

I’m going to try and improve my blog writing at the same time – so bear with me while I work out the improvements and please feel free to offer advice and tips, I’d love to hear them.  I’ve been reading around various resources and have really enjoyed the advice from http://michaelhyatt.com/category/social-media and http://www.copyblogger.com – both are great resources.

I look forward to sharing more with you over the next few months

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First off – the one that our two boys aged 8 and 6 had been begging to do for years – Legoland in Windsor.  It was only a day out and we kept the costs down by taking our using Tesco Clubcard vouchers to buy the tickets and taking our own sandwiches.  The boys were beside themselves with excitement – and our youngest gravely pronounced in the back of the car that he’s been waiting to do this “all his life!!”  We went on a Saturday, lots of people about, but not too packed although we were told it was a “quiet” day!  The boys managed to get us on the wettest ride first, but luckily it was a sunny day.  We went on a lot of rides that day, and on the way home I asked what their favourite was – only to be astounded when the answer was “panning for gold” which was a completely non-techno attraction which involved water baths, sand and finding nuggets of gold!  Just goes to show that sometimes simple is best!

Panning for Gold

The next pre-booked time-out was a trip to Wales for my husband’s birthday – we wanted a weekend away, somewhere different, but definitely based outdoors.  We normally go camping, but we decided to have a treat and go to the Yurt Farm, near Lampeter in Wales – and what a great choice that proved to be!!

We followed the directions and arrived at an idyllic spot in the countryside.  We parked our car, transported our belongings across to our Yurt by wheelbarrow and settled into our home for the weekend.  The Yurts provide simple luxury based on sound eco-principles with candles and paraffin lamps for lighting and a log burner for heating.  If you’ve always wanted to camp, but can’t do the whole sleeping on the ground thing then this will be ideal for you.  There are only five yurts on the whole site and you literally have acres of field surrounding you – kick back, relax and enjoy!

Laurie and Thea, who run the Yurt Farm, are absolutely lovely and couldn’t do enough for us – printing out maps of places to go and just generally making sure that we had a great time.  They offered to take us on a tour of their organic farm, which is next-door, and on the way back we purchased fresh vegetables and meat from their farm stall.  Each yurt has it’s own private campfire area – so lamb burgers cooked over the embers were much enjoyed by everyone that night.

The facilities on site consist of solar showers (so much better than I expected), compost toilets (ditto) and a lovely area for communal cooking and eating if required – with another log burner for my pyromaniac husband to play with!  The kids were straight in from the word go, disappearing off to make friends with the other children on-site and generally having a fab, outdoor time.  Our youngest had pestered Daddy to bring pocket knives, so we went walking to find hazel sticks that could be whittled and transformed into thumb sticks for walking – cue hours of whittling outside the yurt and lots of wood shavings.

The inside of one of the Yurts

Come Monday, we were extremely chillaxed and very reluctant to leave – but it was time to go and so we set off back to Somerset – stopping off for a detour at a local pottery – Daniel Boyle Ceramics - on the way, as recommended by Laurie & Thea. We rounded off the treats with Fish & Chips in Lampeter and arrived back in Somerset in time for tea!

So, booking at the beginning of the year is really working for us, as it doesn’t offer the opportunity to duck out pleading that we’re too busy.  We haven’t spent a lot of money, but we have gained so much in terms of family-time and reaping the benefits of down-time to return to work with a renewed vigour!

But when it comes to business – it seems to be a lot harder to let go.  As entrepreneurs, we’ve done some really hard work to get it started, we were the ones who made everything happen and just when it finally seems that we’re actually getting a bit of success and some recognition, things start getting harder again.  Quite often this is the point at which some entrepreneurs realise, (usually a little bit too late really), that they need to employ someone. The problem is, the business is you and everything you do, and along comes someone else and the temptation is, because it’s all about you, to insist that they do things your way – because obviously it’s the best way   Often, we don’t listen to ideas and we don’t take advantage of those fresh eyes in the business to examine what we’re doing for better ways of working.  But, the sad thing is that what we’re actually doing is failing our business, we’re like a parent who isn’t letting our child taste independence, or to spend time with anyone else to broaden their thoughts.  We’re not doing this maliciously, it’s usually an outcome of the fact that to get the business started we had to be single-minded and driven, and we forget that we need to moderate that as the business grows.  Just like our roles as parents change as our children grow and become more capable, so should our role as leader of the business.

As new input comes into the business, we need to clearly communicate our vision and what’s expected and in the early days we may still be working alongside people,therefore need to remember that how we are is likely to set the long-term culture for the business.  If we’re domineering and blame people, it’s very likely that we will stamp out any sparks of initiative within the business, if we create a culture of trust and respect, then people are more likely to follow suit.

We also need to recognise that in order for the business to grow, other people have to be empowered as we can’t possibly do everything ourselves.  It’s still all about you but in a different way – and here’s where the parenting bit comes in again - we should be looking ahead for the times when the areas we focus on change - and making sure that we, as leaders, are equipping ourselves and the business to cope with those changes.  It is still all about you -but to succeed you need to become a much more selfless you, who is motivating and leading people, who you trust to get on and do the job – or, at the very  least, to recognise that style of operating is what’s needed and find someone to do that bit for you.

So, back to the parenting analogy – did your children learn to walk, or did you teach them????   How does that apply that to your business, as an ancient proverb says “the best leader is the one who the people do not notice.  When the best leader’s work is done, the people say “We did it ourselves”….”

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So, despite the fact that I was convinced I had NO time left in the diary to play with, I have put in some things into the diary that are really starting to pay dividends.  The whole office has signed up to do a 20km walk for charity at Just Walk in May (http://www.acrossthedivide.com/index.php/products/events/-/pt-0010/psc-0027/-/0/9/index.html).  This meant that walking our dogs turned into a training exercise and it’s been really invigorating, as well as beneficial to the waistline!

Continuing with the pony theme I mentioned earlier, I’ve had a yen to go horse riding again for quite a while – I rode until I was a teenager – Thelwell’s pony had nothing on me!  A few weeks ago, I finally got around to booking up a Saturday pony lesson and have managed a few more since then.  I asked for a small dobbin-like horse, but ended up with a giant that has a slight tendency to spook at nothing occasionally – which in the beginning was quite daunting and made me think that this wasn’t such a good idea.  However, through my leadership network, I recently made the acquaintance of a lady called Pam Billinge at Equest Partnership (http://www.equestpartnership.com/who-we-are/pam-billinge.html) who runs a fabulous course which helps people develop their leadership skills through the medium of exploring non-verbal communication skills by working with horses.  I remembered her saying that horses are very tuned to our “inner story” and that you have to be very “in the moment” and presenced in order to get the best from them.  So, instead of going along to the lesson and spinning a multitude of things around in my head (multi-tasking as usual!), I decided to concentrate on the horse and my riding – and what a difference it made!  I felt more in control and less nervous, and the horse obviously sensed this as she started responding to me much more positively – and hence I enjoyed the lesson more.

The final piece in the story is that as usual, this sparked a thought across to my work life – we often spend our time supposedly listening to people, but quite often, because we’re busy, our ears are listening but our minds are elsewhere -  and we’re not truly connecting with the person that we’re engaged with.  So I’ve spent the last couple of weeks making sure that I am connecting, rather than superficially listening and believe me it’s made a real difference – try it and see how the quality of the conversations that you are having improve.

However, there are various stages in company development that can sometimes prove difficult to get past, such as;

• Delegating your precious business to employees when you first start out.
• Making yourself concentrate on your vision (instead of all the ideas that keep popping up).
• Getting funding from the bank for growth.
• Realising that your company needs some processes and procedures rather than relying on verbal communication.
• Creating a Senior Management or Board structure.

Many entrepreneurs also struggle to recognise when their business moves into the phase where they are no longer the right people to run things any more - growing a business is like a relay race, different runners will perform better on different stages.  All of the above are ideal areas where a good non-exec can add value.  There’s a common misconception that non-executive Directors are only really good for bigger businesses, when actually they can provide the objective outside viewpoint and support that’s needed to move smaller businesses forward.  Oh, and while I’m on misconceptions, I’m rubbish at golf and I don’t turn up at Board meetings just to eat the sandwices (biscuits are a different matter!!)  Appointing a non-exec is a way of getting affordable chunks of time with someone who has experience that can be added to your own – and hopefully together you come up with a solution to get past the sticky patches in your growth curve.

So why the Masterclass??  Well, I think that the best way to understand what a non-executive does and can do, is to let people talk to some real live specimens, and more importantly to peer companies who have already taken the plunge and appointed someone.  A good non-exec can bring contacts, valuable experience and more importantly – a sounding board when you need to talk things through with someone who has been there and got the video.  However, make sure that you select the right person for the right reasons – check out their background, the fit with your existing Board and their ability to impart information and advice – an impressive career does not automatically mean that someone will make a good non-exec.

I’m running a Masterclass in conjunction with the Somerset IOD on 16th March at Dillington House and the idea is that you can get the opportunity to talk to companies who already have non-execs in place – details attached in case you’re interested.  Also please comment on this article - I’d really love to hear your experiences of non-execs  – good or bad!

Non-Exec Masterclass - download the details HERE (.pdf)

A few days ago we were doing a long journey in the car and we put story CDs on in the car for our young sons to listen to - and so, for the first time in ages, I heard Aesop’s Fables.  Initially I wasn’t really tuned in and then I heard this one and BANG my mind was back in work mode again:-

The Belly and the Members Fable
An Aesop’s Fable

One fine day it occurred to the Members of the Body that they were doing all the work and the Belly was having all the food. So they held a meeting, and after a long discussion, decided to strike work till the Belly consented to take its proper share of the work. So for a day or two, the Hands refused to take the food, the Mouth refused to receive it, and the Teeth had no work to do. But after a day or two the Members began to find that they themselves were not in a very active condition: the Hands could hardly move, and the Mouth was all parched and dry, while the Legs were unable to support the rest. So thus they found that even the Belly in its dull quiet way was doing necessary work for the Body, and that all must work together or the Body will go to pieces.

As I listened, it occurred to me that we so often feel that we are the ones who are doing all the work, whether it be at work or at home – and we forget that there are other people in the team who are doing their bit too, but in a quiet, often overlooked way.  I regularly facilitate in situations where someone is convinced that the other departments or individuals aren’t pulling their weight – and I get them to understand and/or work in each other’s departments and also encourage them to make sure their own house is in order before they start casting around to give criticism.  These approaches get good results, but I think I’m going to add this fable into my toolkit as it underlines the point very succinctly and is a great model for good organisational design.  I probably need to pin it on the fridge at home too!!

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My wake up picture!

Rush, rush, busy, busy – the never-ending cycle of being working parents running businesses and children – with barely time to breathe.  We get so caught up in this mad hurry of life that sometimes we forget to enjoy the simple things like family, friends and the scenery around us.

The view that made me stop and stare...

The recent snows forced us to slow up a bit while we were driving home one late afternoon, and we were all alone on this nearby country lane – so we stopped and looked and it was so breathtakingly beautiful that I felt moved to try and capture it – with my amateurish phone photography!  I haven’t done it justice by any means – but it reminded me that we are lucky enough to live in Somerset – a beautiful area of the country and we haven’t looked at it lately, I’ve also captured the picture I wake up to every morning, with it’s ever-changing seasonal vista – how lucky am I??

Amazing Tree

We moved to Somerset over ten years ago and as newbies we walked and drove around marvelling at the views and promised ourselves that we would never forget how much they took our breath away – and most of the time we don’t.  But just recently, it’s been so busy that we hadn’t taken a few minutes here and a few minutes there to stop and enjoy the scenery – it takes so little time but it adds so much colour and depth to your life.  As I was thinking about that, I realised it wasn’t just the view I was rushing past, I haven’t taken the time lately to waste time with my most precious assets - family and friends!  So I’ll share my motto for 2010  – be busy, be successful, be loving but also take a few selfish minutes every now and again to just look around you – you’ll be amazed at what you see!!

While I’m on the subject of appraisals – here’s a few of my top tips:-

Firstly – make sure that you’ve both prepared for the meeting. A written form that is filled in beforehand is a good idea – but do make sure that you ask the questions that you as a business are really interested in – don’t just blindly use a template form.

2 Try and ensure that your communication is good all year round and as a result that the topics that you raise in an appraisal don’t come as a shock. If your employee didn’t have a clue that they weren’t meeting expectations then your ongoing communication has not been good enough.

3 Put people at their ease and listen to them – appraisals are meant to be a conversation not a monologue by you!

4 Make sure that you give good feedback and are clear about successes and issues that need addressing. Encourage the appraisee to say how they thought they got on and how they would address issues.

5 Agree and document actions and objectives – and make sure that you ask them for feedback on how you can improve your management of them – appraisals are a great opportunity to get feedback on your performance as well!

It’s a big topic and I’ve just covered off a few relevant points above – properly conducted appraisals can be extremely useful and motivating – but badly conducted ones can do more harm than good!

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