The 2SOX1GOAL website

Very pleased to be involved with the team behind 2SOX1GOAL – a grass roots campaign to make racism – “the ugly side of the beautiful game” – a thing of the past.

We’ve just finished a microsite which went live yesterday (www.2sox1goal.org) and will be working over the coming months to develop a stronger web presence, including team sponsorship and making socks the new currency.

If you do nothing else visit the Facebook page now…and “Like” it.

Here’s the video, which is being played on the big screens at Crystal Palace v Watford tomorrow…

1. What does your business do?
2. What do consumers think about what you do?
3. Where’s growth coming from?
4. What’s going to change to make that happen?
5. What do you expect from us?

What would your Fearless Questions be?

We did it as part of a Kellogg’s “staff conference” in 1984. It was the first employee engagement job I ever did. I was 25.

It was the take home piece and it featured two bastardised versions of the “Leader Of The Pack” by Gary Glitter and The Shangri La’s. Way before Gary’s fall from grace.

Call me an old fuddy duddy, but there is something physical and excellent about music on vinyl. Something valuable. I bet most people went home and played the record.

The equivalent now would be giving everyone a memory stick. And most people wouldn’t listen to it…

But this is what it is not:

With thanks to David Macleod, who spoke at the Agenda Consulting Employee Engagement Conference. David is the author of the report to Government on employee engagement: Engaging for Success.

What's the word on the street, Johnny?

When Frank Debbin, the top cop in Police Squad, needed to know what was really going on he’d ask Johnny, the shoeshine boy. For a small price this character would proceed to give inexplicably exact, fully detailed accounts of everything Frank needed to know. From how to do brain surgery to exact locations of the baddies, their complete family trees and philosophies.

Always makes me laugh. But partly because it contains a truth.

If you want to know what is really going on, it is sometimes better to ask someone who is apparently at the bottom of the ladder. They have a clear view ‘up’, and often with less attachment to outcome or desire for self-enhancement than those above them. So they can tell it the way it is. And because management seldom listens to what they have to say, let alone act on it, they are usually very forthcoming.

As MD of an electronics company in the 90s, if I needed to know what was going on in the company I used to have chat with Ben in ‘goods out’. He had his finger on the pulse of the company. Some of my best decisions were taken after talking with him.

So the morale of the story is: “Make friends with the shoeshine boy. And listen and act on what he says.”

Julian Sharples, S-Group MD, commented: “Agenda has deep experience of designing and managing surveys, reporting on the data and using the results to plan, implement and embed change. This has proved very valuable to many organisations, but we also see employee surveys as a means of understanding the reality of a brand from the inside, using this as the basis for competitive advantage and authentic customer communication.”

Roger Parry, MD of Agenda, added: “Successful organisations are increasingly recognising the importance of having an engaged and motivated workforce. We have excellent coverage in the not-for-profit sector and S-Group is very commercially minded. By working with S-Group we’re taking our experience into the corporate world, which we’re very excited about.”

Sharples continued: “We have used employee surveys in the past to help get a close connection to the heart and soul of the organisation as viewed by employees. The Agenda employee survey engine ‘Reflections’  is very powerful and takes us to the next level. Roger and his team provide excellent data analysis and wrap-around HR consulting services to support the delivery of benefits from their surveys.

“Agenda are based close by us in Oxford, which makes collaboration easy. We’re really looking forward to working together.”

For more information, email Julian Sharples.

There’s a revolution going on in your organisation.

Join it!

Be part of the change that is trying to happen, rather than trying to control, resist or suppress it. It may still be silent, but it’s already happening, and it has the power to transform your organisation.

What emerges will be more real, more authentic and more sustainable.

Your employees will feel energised. Your organisation re-vitalised.

Begin now.

How?

Email me!

They say…

“We put corporations on the psychiatrist’s couch. We delve deep and we listen to them. We investigate thoroughly what their business is about from the inside. What are their day-to-day motivations? We go deep. We believe that the brand comes from within the organisation. It is not something you bolt on externally. Our methodology starts from within an organisation.”

…and go on to say…

“We turn things upside down compared with the traditional model of communications. ’Media’ is traditionally taken to mean TV, direct mail, events etc. We see the primary media as the people within the organisation. They are the most powerful, the most persuasive, the most convincing media you could possibly have. The message lives within these people and relates back to the truth about the enterprise – ‘Knowing yourself’.”

I couldn’t agree more and it’s good to know we are not alone in our thinking.

If you’re interested, the first half of the video at least is four and a half minutes well spent.

Let me know what you think of it.

See the McCann Enterprise video >>

Darwin - a revolutionary in his time

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.”

Charles Darwin

If you want to survive, be responsive to change. But what if you want to do more than that?

Nowadays, change isn’t only something that happens outside your organisation.

Change comes from within. And it’s happening now, even if you’re not aware of it.

So get proactive. Listen for the change that is emerging. Harness it. And use it to propel your marketing – and your growth.

How?

Email me!