Turning Wishes into Projections

by Tom McCallum on January 9, 2011

As we enter 2011, what competitive edge does your business have ?

One you may not have thought of is how you view the economy for the next year or two. Far too many of us, influenced by mainstream media and our peers, are irrationally optimistic about the chances for an economic upturn.

Many years ago, as a young accountant preparing annual budgets, my CEO warned me not to allow department heads to “turn wishes into projections” when they gave me their figures for the next year. Too many business (and governments, for that matter) are doing just that.

Newsflash. Things won’t magically get better in 2011 just because we’ve had a rough few years up until now. To illustrate graphically (quite literally!), this chart of New Home Sales from 2000 through the end of 2o1o is an ugly sight, viewers with rose tinted economic glasses please turn away now :

For more on this, visit Pragmatic Capitalist

Still with me ? Then we’ll continue.

So, what competitive edge could there be for you from taking a dim view of the recovery ? Well, if you are right and others are being too optimistic, then your edge is potentially a big one.

Instead of “chasing ghosts” in a flat market by spending money on trying to gain new customers and revenues, you can be spending your time and resources in ensuring you are prepared for the inevitable upturn when it does inevitably arrive.

What shape, then, should your  preparation take ? It all depends on the unique situation of your business or organisation (I’m spending much of my time with clients coaching them in specific areas that match their unique needs, and each are different). However, a few thoughts to ponder that are pretty consistent for all :

- Positioning / Branding. Are you clear on who you are ? “Start with Why“.

- Cashflow and Operational Efficiency. Cashflow is king, and you can’t hold on to resources any longer hoping for a quick upturn, so now is the time to get as “lean” as possible and to focus on being efficient and scaleable for when things turn upwards, as well as to continue to survive now so you can thrive and capitalise later.

- Content follows Eyeballs. Marketing is changing forever. Simply broadcasting conventional advertising isn’t enough, and neither is selling in isolation. For many, it is increasingly critical to be a “trusted source” for your existing and future customers, and that means “Engagement is the new Advertising” should be the mantra. Now, it takes time to build quality and long lasting content that creates and maintains that engagement, so do it now, in this period where both leads and conversions will be tough to get.

There is much more to add to how best to handle a “flat” year, but if you start with these three pointers, you can see how you’ll be well positioned to capitalise on opportunities when the economy becomes more positive.

In the meantime, if you do one thing, please don’t turn wishes into projections for 2011.

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Lessons from Pro Cycling

by Tom McCallum on December 28, 2010

photo (c) Eugene Bonthuys, Cayman Free Press

Last month, during Cayman Pro Cycling Camp 2010, I learned much listening to many world class pro cyclists, but as a Business Coach what I found even more fascinating was learning from the owners, management and staff about the behind the scenes workings of a world class pro cycling team.

Pro cycling is built on two things, sponsorship funding and competitive results. Think short term and you may find a big sponsor so you can buy the highest paid riders you can and get results. This will last only until someone offers those riders more money and the sponsor turns their interest to somewhere else to spend their money.

What if, however, you finished a career as a pro cyclist with a thought gnawing away that there had to be a better way of operating a team, one with long term purpose and run as a sustainable business. You’d start with clear philosophies and goals, so making it clear to your financial backers what they were supporting. You’d start small, but focus on building, over time, a virtuous circle of better results, better funding, better riders and so on. This is today’s story.

Jonathan Vaughters, CEO of Slipstreamsports, is building something remarkable. He founded the organization only seven years ago, but from the beginning set out clearly stated philosophies and long term goals. Starting small, he now has the World Champion leading an enviable team roster and an organisation of top professionals in their field. At the time of the announcement of Slipstream and Cervelo joining forces, he noted that the two organisations : “share the key philosophies of developing the next generation of cycling champions and an unwavering commitment to ethical sport”.

All his managers and staff clearly understand the philosophies and goals. They work not just for the love of the sport, but also because they want to be a part of the mission. Working with such “passionate purpose” is a very powerful thing.

Once you have a motivated team working for common goals, this has real value in generating results and attracting top talent. However, you also have to pay the top talent (both the riders and the staff), and the “better results” part of the virtuous circle I noted earlier plays a key role in getting “better funding”, and not just results on the road. One example outside race results of “better results” is the commitment to being a leader in ethical sport. As Slipstreamsports continue to lead their sport with tighter and tighter anti-doping rules of their own, this becomes more and more attractive to sponsors, who see both an ethical and commercial value in this.

Slipstreamsports are following philosophies and goals that are building “sustainable competitive advantage” in their field. As an outsider to Pro Cycling, I have observed that they have, in a short time, become the leaders in running Pro Cycling as a business, and others are scrambling to catch up.

Closing back in a business context, what lessons can one take ? It is really quite simple. Almost everything written here has resonance for building a sustainable business, but pay particular attention to your own unique “Passionate Purpose” and what does and will continue to give you Competitive Advantage. This has to be embedded in everyone in your business, not just now, but for the long term, and be able to adapt to changing circumstances.

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Alphabet Photography – OUT OF THE BOX

by Tom McCallum on December 11, 2010

Today I was the 17,312,243rd person to discover the wonderful viral video of the “Christmas Food Court Flashmob, Hallelujah Chorus”

A wonderful video, and taking the flashmob phenomenon and making it selfless, heartwarming, and ready for the Christmas season. Released on November 13th, by today (December 11th) was racking up about one million views per day.

The company behind this was AlphabetPhotography , and since launching this video their YouTube channel had racked up over 5mm views, although only some 56,000 had seen fit to view the (great) 5 minute video on Alphabet Photography themselves (worth a watch, here, to see how one simple idea can grow an entrepreneurial business).

Other than sharing this great video, I just thought this was a terrific example of out of the box marketing.

How many businesses with conventional marketing planning would wake up one day and think :

“Hey, Christmas is coming, how do we get more people to discover our cool idea of making words from alphabet letters created from photos of everyday objects ? I know, let’s get a choir to flashmob in a food court and sing the Hallelujah chorus.”

It is all very :

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Go Where There Be Dragons

by Tom McCallum on December 3, 2010

This blog is a repost of my most recent column in the Cayman Islands Journal, and another one from the same source of inspiration as my recent blog “Put Your People First“.

A recent Leadership Conference in New York was remarkable in the consistency of a powerful and strong message from all speakers. Their message was that we live in a world far different from just a few years ago, a world where what it takes to be a successful leader has totally and completely changed.

Our brave new world is one where leaders can no longer possibly hope to know all the answers any more, so the old measures and methods of leadership are no longer fit for purpose. Instead, they must learn and apply new skills to lead their organisations to be flexible, able to measure and accept risk, and be prepared and ready to face as yet unknown challenges.

On ancient maps dragons were drawn to symbolize the unknown, and to travel beyond the familiar world was to “go where there be dragons.” This is also the title of a recent report on leadership from The Conference Board presented at the conference. Whilst taken from meetings across three continents with global corporate leaders, the findings are true for leaders from the smallest company to the largest organisations and highest offices.

One of the key findings was that our world is no longer simply compiicated, it is complex. What is the difference ? Brenda Zimmerman of Schulich School of Business explains : “Performing hip replacement surgery is complicated. It takes well-trained personnel, precision and carefully calibrated equipment. Running a health care system, on the other hand, is complex. It’s filled with thousands of parts and players, all of whom must act within a fluid, unpredictable environment. To run a system that is complex, it’s not enough to get the right people and the ideal equipment. It takes a set of simple principles that guide and shape the system.”

What then is the role of a leader where the world is too complex to manage by the book and where diversity, ambiguity, speed and expectations are ever changing ? It is, as Ms Zimmerman put it, to “guide and shape”, to keep the organisation true to its purpose and values.

As Chip Conley teaches with “Peak”, the most powerful organisations are those where people don’t work for the carrot (the money) or the stick (just keeping a job), but because they are empowered to reach for a deeper purpose, both their own and their organisations. Such motivated people are loyal, hard-working, creative, and will help their organisation thrive in a complex world.

What, then, is the key to leading an empowered organisation in a complex world. Trust. Great leaders trust their people, their values, their organisation. Trust is a two way street though, and the leaders of tomorrow cannot expect to be followed unless they also continually build trust through their actions and how they communicate.

Seth Godin observes in one of his most powerful blogs : “the organisations that matter are busy being run by people who figure out what to do next”. Truly “Command and Control” is dead. Trust and Empowerment are what is “next” if you are to thrive in a complex world. {As a side note, I’m a Business Coach, but I love the way my role is put in that particular blog from Seth…as “organisational architects” or “corporate chiropractors” !}

Some leaders will be able to adapt, but some of the leaders of today are showing greatness by recognising they won’t be the leaders of tomorrow and finding their successors. For those remaining leaders who can evolve, and for those new leaders who will emerge, everything I have said will be music to their ears. They are ready to Reinvent or Die, embrace the risk of the new, and Go Where There Be Dragons !

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Leadership and Professional Cycling – Blog Inspiration

by Tom McCallum on December 2, 2010

This week I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with Jonathan Vaughters, CEO of Slipstreamsports and the 2011 Team Garmin-Cervelo, as well as the amazing group of pro riders and highly experienced and knowledgeable staff.

Still too busy making sure everything continues to run smoothly for Cayman Pro Cycling Camp to write a business blog, but am very much inspired and gaining leadership and organisational insights from listening and learning about the inner workings of a professional cycling organisation.

In the meantime, all the news updates, with some amazing photos of Cayman are being carried on :

Cayman Cycling

Velonews

CyclingNews

Velonation

SlipstreamSports

Finally, enjoy this wonderful photo from this morning of the North Side Primary School giving the peloton a warm Caymanian welcome ! ( photo (c) Michael Stomps) :




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Time for the Ad Industry to “Reinvent or Die”

by Tom McCallum on November 17, 2010

“Reinvent or Die” is the title given by my editor to a monthly column I write. She saw a common thread in whatever subject I tackle in my focus on helping people see that they have to challenge the status quo if they are to survive and thrive.

I’m a generalist with a wide and deep background, and when asked what I “do”, my answer is “I make companies better”. I add value, and I get paid for adding value, nothing else. That’s not a plug, but to place a thought that I’ll come back to in reviewing the article linked below.

One of my “deep” areas is Marketing and Advertising, covering years of work in everything from strategy to working at the “coalface” as digital engulfed traditional methods and practices in a tsunami of change.

For years I’ve been preaching the need to dismantle traditional industry models and instead “crowdsource, not outsource”, to recognise that nobody “owns” the solution anymore. Even if they did, even if an agency was to come up with the almost mythical “one big idea” for their client, digital has made the world change so fast that the pace of change would wipe out any advantage from that idea so quickly as to make heads spin, and agencies cry.

Today, though, sees the publication of an article in Fast Company that I consider will come to be seen as a milestone in the Ad Industry. From today, recognition will go mainstream of the need to not just dismantle, but destroy the traditional models.

The Future of Advertising

Too many clients and their agencies still believe they can “bolt on” digital to their existing models. They are wrong. It isn’t even about digital media, it is the impact that digital technology has had on every element of the ad industry, but, most important, on how their consumers absorb, view and think of messages. Change has gone too far, and come too fast. The old model is dead, time for the new. What will that be ?

First, I should note that I believe the “one stop shop” will survive for the very largest of accounts, but even there they will have a hybrid to allow them to recognise the new, face the page of change, and act more like the “new normal” this industry will come to adapt to. The big names will maintain a variety of “skunkworks” that will continually push at their organisation and hierarchy from the inside.

However, outside those huge accounts and their massive one stop shops, for everyone else the game is over, time for a new model.

The new model will be one of very small, nimble agencies with a team with cross-platform skills, acting as the lynchpin to leverage a great number of networked resources.

These new agencies won’t be creatives, they won’t be strategists, they won’t be media buyers, they won’t be PR agencies (oh yes, PR will also combine with Advertising, that wall has to crumble too). Their people will be all of these, and all at the same time. How else can they see the whole picture and know which resources to call upon ?

They won’t “own” the ideas, but they’ll find them from their network. They won’t grow big, but their scalability to meet client needs will grow as they achieve results and more and more people want to network with them.

For many of their clients, they’ll even effectively act as the client CMO, as only a very few clients can hope to focus on their own business while keeping an eye on an industry that is changing many, many times more rapidly than it did even five years ago.

They’ll get paid based upon the value they help the client create, and that will vary depending on the client and the project. They won’t get a percentage of the buy, they won’t take a cut from the network specialists they bring in, they’ll only make money for the value they add. {brief pause for that last one to sink in for Ad industry veterans}

They have no idea what the future holds, but they’ll help the client see into the future with them. The most important word in the digital age is “share”, and those in the Advertising industry that recognise this as opportunity instead of threat will prosper, the rest perish.

Time to Reinvent, or Die.

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Put Your People First

by Tom McCallum on November 15, 2010

Last week I attended a Leadership conference focussed on the qualities needed for the leaders of tomorrow. Many of those qualities are clearly very different from those expected in the past, as wonderfully illustrated by the report “Go Where There Be Dragons”, prepared and presented there by Russell Morris of the Conference Board.

Still, it did get me to thinking about how the greatest of leaders have certain key qualities that will stand the test of time, no matter whether now, in the past or in the future. To me, with a large part of my career spent in the hospitality industry where this proved critical to sucess, one of those keys is :

“Put Your People First“.

To illustrate, I’ll go back over 100 years to someone who showed this quality as strongly as any leader in history, and to another leader whose example if more current, but no less timeless.

Sir Ernest Shackleton lead the 1907-09 Nimrod Expedition, which was to be the first to make a successful journey to the South Pole. Despite achieving certain first on the way, Shackleton and team made it to within 97 miles of the Pole before he made the tough decision to turn back. By declining what would have been a suicidal race to glory, and choosing instead to preserve the lives of his men, Shackleton not only survived to carry out future exploits but proved himself a leader that the same men would gladly follow through any adversity.

A few years later, Shackleton was planning the 1914-16 Endurance Expedition, and this advertisement was placed (or so legend has it!) :

“MEN WANTED: FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOUR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS.”

Shackleton eventually led 27 men on an expedition attempting to cross the Antarctic for the first time. It failed in all regards, except one. Despite being stranded in seemingly impossible circumstances for what turned into nearly two years, Shackleton did not lose a man. Not one.

In part, this was certainly due to having the right people for the job, and the astonishing recruitment ad above was bound to attract adventurers of the right calibre. However, by the time Shackleton was looking for men for that expedition, he was already known as a man that people would follow, quite literally, to the ends of the Earth.

“On many polar expeditions of that period men did not survive, precisely because they and their leaders succumbed to their baser instincts of greed, self-promotion and pessimism, and thereby insured their own destruction. We should view Shackleton’s men as they viewed themselves: ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances led by a humane and gifted leader who brought out the best in them. We are all capable of being our best selves in times of crisis. To think otherwise is to doom ourselves to failure before we begin.” - Margot Morrell (author of Shackleton’s Way, very much worth a read, but a quick recap of that expediation may also be found here ).

Shackleton was an amazing leader who one may think of in the “command and control” mould that is now widely recognised to be a broken model.

I would argue instead that his leadership qualities were in fact those of the leaders we need to look to now. From putting his people first, to being flexible in the face of new challenges, to assessing risk and knowing when to take a risk and when to pass. These are all qualities of leaders of the future.

Now, to one more modern example, but another clear case of putting people first. Herb Kelleher of SouthWest Airlines was legendary for his focus on his employees. As he told Fortune in 2001 : “You have to treat your employees like customers. When you treat them right, then they will treat your outside customers right. That has been a powerful competitive weapon for us.” As Kelleher stepped down in 2008, that approach didn’t change, as he told Des Griffin. “We’ve never had layoffs. We could have made more money if we furloughed people. But we don’t do that. And we honor them constantly. Our people know that if they are sick, we will take care of them. If there are occasions or grief or joy, we will be there with them. They know that we value them as people, not just cogs in a machine.”

Most people come to work either for the Carrot (the pay)or the Stick (because they have to). The best organisations though, have leadership that seeks to create a culture and an organisation where people come to work simply because they want to. Motivation is far more powerful than any Carrot or Stick.

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I’ve found my “WHY”..it starts with “BETTER”

by Tom McCallum on October 17, 2010

Simon Sinek has a mission :

“My WHY is to inspire people to do the things that inspire them”

He goes on in his book, “Start with Why” :

“if I am to be authentic to that cause {I must} give it away, talk about it, share it”

Thank you Simon. You have inspired me, and now I will try to talk about it, share it, and do my best to inspire others. I do recommend buying his book, but a great start is to watch this TED talk, 18 minutes of your life well spent :

Now, to my “WHY”.

With almost the last words of “Start with Why”, Sinek writes ( I edit only slightly)  :

“What if we showed up to work every day simply to be better than ourselves ? What if the goal was to do better work this week than we did the week before ?.. For no other reason than because we want to leave the organization better than we found it ?

All organizations start with WHY, but only the great ones keep their WHY clear year after year. Those who forget WHY they were founded show up to the race every day to outdo someone else instead of to outdo themselves.”

I had these thoughts in my head yesterday at a junior swim meet, circulating and chatting with swimmers and parents. One shy young lady sat quietly with her mother. I had seen her race a few minutes before. She didn’t win, but she shattered her own personal best. I knelt and told her I’d seen her swim, she’d swum very strongly, and I saw she’d achieved a big new personal best. I then simply asked her “did you have fun?”, and she smiled a huge smile and said yes, and that she had been training hard to get better. She was inspired, not by me talking to her, but by her own internal drive. She will go far, perhaps in swimming, but certainly in life. Inspired to work hard and continually get better, she will reach higher and go further than one who only looks with the narrow focus of competing against those currently in their field of view.

Taking Sinek’s writing and those thoughts of motivating and inspiring young swimmers, my “WHY” then is centered around one word… “BETTER“.

My “WHY” is first to continually strive to be better myself. To listen, to learn, to be inspired, to be better and better as person and at helping others also be better and to make their businesses and organizations better. If I keep working and learning, to be better at teaching, at leading, at coaching, at inspiring, then I can keep striving to be better at helping my clients do the same for their organizations.

My clients, now and in the future, are and will be those to whom this purpose, to be BETTER, is something that is at their core.

I can and will help clients with HOW they do things and WHAT they do, but if we share the WHY of being BETTER, then we will share something far deeper, something that will inspire and  be lasting.

My current tagline is, as expressed by the uniquely talented Dreadyworld : “the box, and everything outside it”. Now I’ve gained clarity on my “Why”  though, this has to change. This is a work in progress but give me your thoughts on this :

To teach, to coach, to lead, to innovate, to inspire.. to be better.


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Efficiency Unhinged

by Tom McCallum on October 15, 2010

A quick “joined up thinking” case study today.

Some key elements impacting our story :

  1. For several years now, the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS) has had a continuing focus on changing their operations so that Police Officers could focus on policing, so have progressively moved more and more matters that are of an administrative nature out of their main operations, both in terms of staffing and physical location.
  2. The Department of Vehicle Licencing (historically an RCIPS responsibility) was historically located right next to the Central Police Station in George Town, Grand Cayman. A brand new facility was very recently opened a few miles away to improve service and efficiency.
  3. Some time before that, another office (for Police Records and other functions) was also moved away from a location within the Central Police Station to another office, again a couple of miles away, but also a couple of miles away from the new Vehicle Licencing Centre.
  4. Both of these measures were planned and executed to bring efficiencies.

Now, to our story.

Recently we had some very heavy rains and flooded roads in Cayman, during which the front licence plate on my car was ripped off. Having tried and failed to find where it came off to retrieve it (for overseas readers, in Cayman it is not as simple as having a garage make a new one, you have to get new plates issued), today I went to the Vehicle Licencing Centre to get a new set of licence plates. Simple job, yes ?

Before using the automated queuing system (which is, it should be said, a major improvement on the old system), I went to their customer service desk to check the procedure. It was at this point that the very helpful and pleasant lady explained to me the procedure, which was as follows :

  1. First, I had come to the wrong place to start my quest, so this first stop was in vain.
  2. Next, I do not own the licence plate, but instead only “lease” it as Government property, so must go to the Central Police Station to report the loss.
  3. As there is a payment required to make and receive the formal report, and as the Central Police Station now has no facility to receive payments, I then have to go the Police Records office (per above, at a different location) to make a payment for that report and get a receipt for same.
  4. Only once I have made those two stops may I come back to the Vehicle Licencing Centre, with the report and payment receipt in hand, to then apply and pay for replacement licence plates.

In summary, this has become a four step process for the customer, with every step being to an office under the auspices of the RCIPS, but at different physical locations. I am certain nobody designed the process that way, but if we go back to the top of the story, if we rewind a short period all of these offices were all located within 100 feet of each other at the Central Police Station, hence the process was not quite as onerous. However, as things evolved and changed and new offices were opened, unanticipated negative results such as this have occurred, or, as one could otherwise put it, the “Law of Unintended Consequences” has taken hold, as well explained in Economics terms in this blog.

Clearly the intentions of the moves to these separate offices and locations had positive intentions and, in many areas, positive impacts. However, unintended consequences can always take hold, so what is the best way to anticipate / identify / address these ?

In this particular case, the staff within these offices know this particular area is a problem. I am certain that, given the opportunity, they could easily recommend specific changes to make this a “one-stop shop” process within the Vehicle Licencing Centre to both greatly improve customer service and cut the cost of completing this process for the RCIPS and related offices.

It all sounds simple to do, but the shift in thinking within any service organisation. One answer is Systems Thinking, a method enthusiastically endorsed by various government agencies internationally.

Regular readers of this Blog and my newspaper columns will know I am increasingly focussed on assisting with Public Service improvement, and also that my primary focus is on fixing it from the inside, ie from those who work within the System. Just this week I returned from an overseas visit that included a visit to one such government department, and the stories they gave me about the power of such thinking were remarkable, but all the more so due to the simplicity and effectiveness of the solutions they created once their staff directed their thinking towards improving the system from within.

My personal drive is to play whatever role I can in this area, and I hope that this blog post, if it helps influence joined up thinking in any area of our Public Service, can play a small part.

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The “Why” of Leadership

by Tom McCallum on October 6, 2010

Today saw the October issue of the Cayman Islands Journal published. Unfortunately, their online version includes “quotes” in the page address, so I can’t link to it. Instead, here is the full text of the article.

Last month’s column focused on the simple thought that public service organisations can only be effectively changed by public servants themselves. To do this in any organisation, public or private, requires powerful leadership.

This month, then, the focus is on leadership, but not just at the top, but with individuals at all levels in the hierarchy. How, though, can changes be lead from all levels? The answer is in the “why”.

Simon Sinek’s book ‘Start with Why’, talks about the ‘Golden Circle’, in fact three concentric circles. The outer circle is the ‘what’, the middle circle the ‘how’, and the inner circle the ‘why’. Almost anyone in any company or organisation can articulate ‘what’ they do, and also ‘how’ they do it. However, ask them to clearly articulate their ‘why’ and things get interesting.

The vast majority of all organisations think from outside to in, from ‘what’ to ‘how’ to ‘why’. Inspired leaders go from inside to out. Start with the ‘why’ and you create a set of beliefs and values that underpin every ‘how’ and ‘what’. Start with the ‘why’ and you will hire people who believe, not people just there for the pay cheque generated by their part in the ‘what’.

As Sinek illustrates, Martin Luther King didn’t stand in front of 250,000 people in Washington and say “I have a plan”, he said “I have a dream”. Not one of those people came there for him; they came there for themselves, for a shared belief.

Consultants often focus on the ‘how’. Though the ‘why’ means nothing if the ‘how’ isn’t well designed and executed, the different approach of business coaches often creates higher value by helping clients first establish and articulate their ‘why’ before moving on to the ‘what’ and ‘how’.

Such “coaching” is a rapidly growing field, but though the likes of Apple and Google show what can be achieved by focusing on the ‘why’, equally powerful results can and should be achieved with public service organisations. As they exist solely to serve the public good, they have the potential to generate even more power from articulating their ‘why’ and spreading and embedding belief and purpose in something not aimed at commercial profit, but at a more noble cause.

Spreading that belief in a cause and purpose creates power and that leads back to how everyone can be a leader. Where your work is driven by cause, purpose, belief, you become a leader, no matter where you are in the hierarchy.

For those at the top of the public service hierarchy it may be daunting to try to make everyone a leader, but diffusion of innovation theory shows the way. You don’t need everyone to believe at once. Every population has about 2.5 per cent who are ‘innovators’, so will help you develop, articulate and begin to communicate your ‘why’. The next 13.5 per cent are the early adopters. From a consumer standpoint, these are the people who stand in line for the latest gadget. From a ‘why’ standpoint, these are the ones who “get it”. Once you get to that one in six public servants who believe in your ‘why’, it will take hold in the rest. Marketers call getting to that one in six “crossing the chasm”, so it isn’t easy, but with a powerful ‘why’ to believe in, it can be done.

What, then, is Cayman’s ‘why’ for the public service and how can it best be communicated? This is for public service leaders to say, but let me know what you think, let’s keep the conversation going.


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