"Your interactive and motivational style of speaking provoked lots of innovative and new thoughts in our audience and made our event a real great success,and unleashed the potential of our delegates, you were one of the most impressive speakers we have ever had in the past 5 years of our conferences" - Sepehr Tarvedian CEO, http://www.hamayeshfarazan.org, Iran

My new book “Basics before Buzz - managing in an attention deficit society” is now complete and in the hands of an Agent.

Feedback to the manuscript i.e. the final edit, has been excellent. Most people agree that we have run away from the Basics in many businesses ie maximising customer relationships, leveraging the potential of our employees or internal customers, and finally developing ourselves. My panel also agreed that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get a message across in the current environment. Thus we need to be imaginative, different and together, to break through this communication wall.

It is no longer possible to excel unless we have leveraged the potential of our team, and that each member understands and accepts their responsibility in the context of achieving the company vision.

You can understand how I despaired when the following anecdote from a top class restaurant in England was brought to my attention.

The restaurant manager was moaning that she has had to look out a dirty window in the restaurant for the past ten years.

It didnt appear to process in her mind that she was a member of a team ; that she had the ability to take action that would move the organisation closer to their goals. No instead she chose to moan, her immune system and the organisation suffered as a result.

Basics in Business in this context - if it’s to be, it’s up to me!

Why are satisfied customers leaving?

Why are employees moving elsewhere?

Have you procedures in place to survey existing customers - both internal and external?
Probably more importantly, have you the will to learn from survey findings or do you take the insane route where you keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result?

Are you doing what you want to do in your life? Or are you just blowing through? I’m challenging your life right now. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? Would you take a trip around the world? Run a company? If you are not doing what you want, that’s where I want you to go. The week is about you doing what you want to do for every week of the rest of your life.”

Does it surprise you that these are the words of a very forward thinking CEO - Bill Watkins of Seagate at the start of their annual teambuilding event.