28/03/2011 by admin.

 Peter Ridsdale on Company Culture.

 Peter Ridsdale has operated at the highest
levels both in British business and sport.

 Over his years with Del Monte, ICL, Burton Group,
QVC Home Shopping, Leeds United and Cardiff City
he has developed a unique view of company culture.

Peter makes observations on leaders, their style
and their impact, both positive and negative, on
financial results, staff morale and customer engagement.

Learn how other leaders have built cultures around themselves.

Allan Leighton

 
Ken Bates

 
Peter Bonfield

 
Sir Alex Ferguson

Peter now talks to corporate audiences about culture.

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23/03/2011 by admin.

Flare Care Share is a simple mantra to help people communicate better in tough to have conversations. It’s easy to remember and simple to apply. No jargon. No textbooks.

Quality of Life is Quality of Communication and Flare Care Share applies to any communication. For example, talking with an under-performing employee, a truculent adolescent or an uncomprehending spouse.

Three simple words help you to handle any situation:

FLARE - this is the first warning sign that a situation is brewing that needs special  attention.  The human body sends signals which make you “flare up”. We all get them and call them different things but they are your early warning system.

These signals start life in a part of the primitive brain called the Amygdala. They are processed at such speed that they appear on the surface of the body way before rational  controlling thoughts can intervene. We must learn to manage them after the event. The trick is to spot them early.

Typically brain signals coming from the Amygdala  prompt “fight or flight” which shows up as violence ranging from sarcasm up to ranting tirades or silence in the form of suppressing feedback or  physical avoidance. We all know when a situation is “getting on our nerves.”

Silence  and violence are usually poor responses. Spotting that you have flared up is the first  step in self awareness and the avoidance of harm to yourself or others.

CARE - is the linking step. The trick  is to pause and do nothing other than reflect. At this point you can say to yourself internally:

“I care enough for my own mental and physical health and for that of the people close to me that I will pause before reacting to the feelings of being flared up that are fuelling my thoughts right now.”

Easier said than done. This is just like”counting to ten” but there is a next step.

SHARE -  is the practical step and is largely another internal dialogue.

“What have I seen or heard and how have I interpreted it to get me so emotionally charged.”

“What might the other folks have seen or heard and interpreted to get them all flared up?”

This is a simple de-fusing process to stop the bomb going off. Every story has two sides so before diving in pause to gauge the other person’s viewpoint.

From this point in there is a simple way to structure a conversation so that any tough situation can be rapidly opened up without festering and be resolved without tears.

The written word is not the medium to convey this process effectively. Role play is the only practical way to teach  “Flare Care Share” because it relies on participants hearing themselves open up and resolve a conflict through authentic sharing.

The central principles are understanding objectives, testing for consensus and a creative attitude towards alternative options. At a deeper level self awareness, ego control and the willingness to consider other views are important.

“Flare Care Share” works equally well in the classroom, the bedroom or the Boardroom.

It can be learned in an afternoon. No note taking is required. No jargon is used.

The answer will lie in how you make other people feel about you and not in the words you use. This means that you have to understand what drives the feelings you have about yourself. That’s the really tough bit!

email introduction@fearlessconsulting.co.uk to learn more and arrange a meeting to start putting Flare Care Share to work.

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22/03/2011 by admin.

Peter Ridsdale has been typecast by the media as a pantomime villain dubbed “the man who destroyed Leeds United.”

The facts do not bear this claim up but nonetheless Peter has endured a campaign of systematic vilification compounded by unpoliced blogs and forums.

Peter shares his experience with business leaders taking tough decisions which can be easily distorted by the press. He delivers lessons on remaining motivated, issues of trust in press briefings and protecting reputation.

Prior to Leeds he was MD of Top Man and CEO of QVC Home Shopping Channel.

Peter was a Director of Leeds United from 1987 until 1997 and was Chairman from 1997 to 2003. Leeds United’s well publicised financial troubles came to their peak when Leeds were relegated from the Premier League in 2004 which was 15 months after he stepped down as Chairman.

During his Chairmanship Leeds United were never outside the top 5 of the Premier League and they reached the Semi-Finals of the UEFA Cup in 1999 and the Semi-Finals of the Champions League in 2000. He went on to lead Cardiff City to an FA Cup Final and a Championship Play Off Final.

Peter was one of the first high profile figures to face an orchestrated online assault on his reputation and has learned more than most about how to handle a hostile media both in the Press, TV, Radio and on the internet.

If your decisions attract media attention then Peter has valuable lessons for you.

email introduction@fearlessconsulting.co.uk to book Peter as a platform speaker.

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11/03/2011 by admin.

We prepare CEOs to manage the media under high pressure.

Watch Peter Ridsdale handle a very aggressive Press conference at Cardiff City.

Peter elected to address the media in reaction to commercial developments at the club.  He controlled the agenda, had mastery of all the facts and contained a situation in which a partially informed media, up to that point, wrongly believed gave them the right to go onto the offensive.

This clip demonstrates the use of the techniques  which give fair media access  whilst carefully containing strong emotions on both sides of the media briefing.

email introduction@fearlessconsulting.co.uk to learn more about our media skills programme.

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04/03/2011 by admin.

The Vox Populi bank survey run by TripleIC calculates a Customer Engagement
IndexTM for each bank. The responses of 1000 bank customers selected to be a statistically significant representative national sample are represented above.

The Vox Populi survey was conducted using the celebrated ADVOCATE system
pioneered by TripleIC.

The leader on the rating of “Would recommend to a friend” were:

1. Nationwide 77 %
2. Barclays 72 %
3. HSBC 70 %

These figures will make positive reading for the top three banks. However, overall the Banks appear not to be making much of an impression with their mass media marketing campaigns in convincing customers that they really care about their relationship with them. Levels of distrust and misunderstanding are very high.

 As an example, the marketing slogan ‘Helpful banking’ belongs to NatWest but it’s not recognised as theirs: more customers either mistakenly thought it belonged to Barclays, Halifax, HSBC or Lloyds TSB or said ‘Don’t know’ compared to those who got it right.
Slightly more women than men (about 10%) got this right. The only bank slogan widely recognised was HSBC’s: ‘The world’s local bank.’ The vivid visual imagery of
HSBC’s TV adverts and a resonant voice over may explain why. Here more men than women got it right. But when it comes to the other banks of note only Nationwide exceeded a 10% recognition value, but that pales compared to the almost 60% ‘Don’tknow’ response level they also receive.

Could they be wasting their marketing budgets at the expense of restoring the trust of the high street customer.

Overall, Banks scored very badly on the questions about customer care, reputation and likelihood of improvement.

Market opportunity exists for the Banking sector CEO who is able to address this core trust issue. Banks can create a better and more mutually rewarding relationships with customers by showing sensitivity to a customer’s current circumstances at an individual level rather than at the “customer segment” level.

The top players in the far more competitive Car Rental business, for example, have started to master the art of mass personalisation. As a simple example, try calling Budget Car Rental for a quote and count the number of seconds it takes for their call centre representative to begin using your first name. Gauge what that does to your feelings about using the company.

The current level of ill feeling towards Banks as a whole is recoverable - customers are waiting for the sector to make the first move.

For a copy of  the full report contact introduction@fearlessconsulting.co.uk or call 0208 878 7491

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