Sept 7, 2011 -  Said Agil Baaghil will be signing his book, "The Power of Belonging" today from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00pm @ Machias campus Power Hall of the University of Maine. So if you live in Maine you should go, it is worth while to meet the man.

We are here ending another year and going into the second decade of the 21st century. The world still faces uncertainty in terms of economic stability, political leadership and social wellbeing. We are in a position where terrorist threats are ever present, our leaders in the leading industrial nations are reluctant to make tough decisions and people are increasingly looking for security in their jobs and providing for their families. We've also had an unprecedented year of climate change effects and natural disasters. Right now Europe is in the grip of a winter like no other and is losing billions due to transport chaos. It took me personally two days to get from London to Munich and then a further - almost- twenty fours to get from London to South Carolina.

So what are we to do? No matter where you or what tough times you are having, there is always someone who is in a needier or desperate position. Someone somewhere is struggling and during this time of the year you may be faced with situations where someone could do with a helping hand, a lift by car getting them closer to their destination, money to help someone buy some food, contributing to keep a family housed. It is during our toughest times that we can extend our hands and help our fellow man. Helping in our community or half-way across the world, is help, and if we band together it is one step closer to creating a better and prosperous world.

On this note I would like to wish all my colleagues, friends, family, clients and strangers who I have briefly touched or been touched by a very Merry Christmas, seasons greetings and a prosperous New Year.

Shah Alam

It's amazing how many companies lack leadership, it is prevalent all over the world. Leadership could simply mean making a decision to empower people. Leadership could be a simple matter of communicating strategy. However, when decisions are not made nor a vision provided then people become disillusioned. One of the symptoms is the start of the infamous rumour mills, gossips fly like arrows, mid-level managers take initiatives themselves to do something, communicate anything. This creates confusion , empire building, job protectionism and eventually the good apples leave.

When you see this happening first hand it makes you cringe. Does lack of leadership mean someone is unable to make a decision or are they fearful of their decision?

Fear is an unfounded emotion, and a common acronym for it is False Expectations Appearing Real.

A true leader would make a decision, announce a way forward and live with the consequences. A true leader would allay the fears of his people, guiding them through the bad time and bring them out the other end. A true leader would believe in management by walking the floors, talking to the people, encouraging debate, creativity and action. A true leader would encourage further development of his people through training and continuous learning.

These are some actions a leader would consider and apply, however it is sad when people cry out for leadership but do not get it. What does this cost in wasted resources and potential lost revenues.

Leadership can make or break a business, so if you are a leader what are you going to do different today to make a difference in your organisation?

Shah Alam

Good afternoon everyone, today I want to talk a bit about change and what it entails.

The implementation of any change program within a business is a serious matter. Many experts will spout soundbites to impress their audiences with "change or you will go the way of the dinosaurs" or "change is the only constant" amongst others, without clarifying what they mean.

One of the aspects of change many do not realize is that it is difficult in the best of circumstances let alone when the parties concerned are happy and willing. The level of difficulty increases exponentially when people are involved and where people have been in the same situation doing the same thing for decades.

Change and the following improvement do not come easy. The basic premise of change is that to improve, we must continuously change.

In physics however, for every action (change) there is an equal and opposite reaction. People by nature resist change, i.e. they will look for excuses, wait and see etc. The reason they do this is that change takes them out of their comfort zones.

Therefore, the more change there is the greater the resistance, the greater the resistance the more difficult it is to improve (change).

This is a vicious circle and can have serious consequences for any business or individual or even a country.

People tend to hide behind excuses such as past practices, politics, procedures etc. rather than change. Within any organization there are also a host of barriers that prevent improvement, such as inconsistent direction, poor management, skepticism, lack of trust and not invented here excuse.

I am going to do my own spouting now;

"there is nothing permanent except change and if you do what you always did, you will get what you always got"

So what can make people change?

• Pain - emotional, financial, tragedy
• Despair - over a long period of time
• Discovery - constructive change is possible

Breakthrough comes when theories, concepts and philosophies are passed on as knowledge, then understanding and finally skills lead to breaking down of barriers.

Paradigms are "rules" we apply to certain situations to let us predict how things will be, that is rules of success. The key message is don't let YOUR paradigm become THE paradigm, because paradigms can CHANGE.

When a paradigm changes everyone goes back to zero. Past success is no guarantee. What is impossible today may be the norm tomorrow.

Change must be driven throughout the whole organization, that is: people, process, product

Managing complex change requires

Vision > Skills > Incentives > Resources > Action Plan > Change

However, many corporate leaders today want change to have happened yesterday. Well, it's a little bit late but not too late. I like the story of the ant and grasshopper, the grasshopper fiddled away the summer months and when winter came starved. Whereas the industrious ant worked throughout the summer and was able to store enough supplies to survive the winter.

We are still in a global recession and many more companies will continue to fall by the wayside, and those that are surviving are implementing cost cutting initiatives, change programs, six sigma etc to counter the effects of the recession. However, just like the grasshopper when good times were had they did nothing to prepare or protect themselves when the economy were to head south.

Now that companies are taking the lead to make a change, they want it to take effect instantaneously. Well, effective long-term sustainable change does not happen overnight. It requires thought, it requires planning, it requires expertise, it requires the inclusion of all within the company and last of all it takes time. Most large scale financial benefits of any improvement may not be realized for six to nine months after the action has been taken.

So my question to businesses is, do you have the patient to ensure long term successful change to take place within you organizations?

A Band-Aid ain't gonna work in todays business environment

Till the next time, I say adieu.

Shah Alam

Newspapers, news channels and other news media are reporting that crime, especially theft has been increasing since the econimic downturn.

We hear in London for example, every other week a bold and daring raid on jewellery shops in broad daylight in fashionable areas of the city. One particular street that has been hit is Bond Street, where the premier designer labels have their flaghsip London stores.

Fraud and petty theft in the workplace is up in the UK and I am sure this is being replicated throughout the globe.

No one is immune to this current malaise of stealing property from retailers, employers and those who own such worldly goods as camcorders, iPods, expensive cars etc.

The economic downturn has created a forced repatriation of migrant workers from cities in the sand such as Dubai, Kuwait City and others in Southeast Asia who rely on workers from less developed countries. These workers go back to their countries without any hope of work in their native lands or a swift return to the so-called gold paved streets of developed nations. Eventually some of these people may resort to crime to feed themselves and their families.

The reality of the crime of theft hit home to me last night.

My parents having retired spend their time mostly in the north-eastern hills of Sylhet in Bangladesh. My father purchased a place in 1979 and built his dream home. In the last 30 years he has never had any problems of thieves breaking into his place even when the place was locked up and empty whilst they were in the UK.

However, last night they became a statistic and were robbed of some minor possessions, the usual camcorder, mobile phone some cash etc. Fortunately they weren't harmed or harassed.

But these are signs of the times and thieves are venturing into wealthy expat suburbs and villages where the pickings are rich.

Another, example of the times was a recent voluntary return home by a South Asian family from New York. The husband and father of the household was the main breadwinner, he lost his job late last year, subsequently his house was repossessed and he went bankrupt. With no immediate job prospects he returned back to his native country with his wife and two kids and will live out two years there until the job market is stronger in the US.

Some immigrants have a choice which is quite refreshing that allows them to sit out the recession in a country where they have land and an income which will pay for a lifestyle that costs very little in comparison to the West, whilst others have nothing to come back to and may resort to crime.

I think this recession is affecting every person on this planet in one way or another and here we are witnessing one aspect of the dark underbelly of globalisation.

But hey I am an eternal optimist and I think in countries such as Bangladesh, India, Pakistan etc where law enforcement and crime resolution is a joke, there is a great need for private security firms to step in and provide a service that is much needed.

Till the next time

Shah Alam

Can politics be harmful to a company?

Yes I definitely think so. In the last decade as a consultant I have seen political games being played across all levels of an organisation. I've seen individuals who are the "yes" man or woman to their bosses. These "yes" people will tag along regardless of whether decisions will benefit the organization in any way.

I've seen examples of where senior management have commenced an initiative to improve or change the business for the better, then as is normal in business a new CEO comes in and those initiatives are dropped. This is not because the new CEO has proposed an alternative but rather to please the newcomer and ensure the individuals are on his good books, because he/she said not to proceed.

Of course certain amount of politicking does oil the machinery that are the behemoths of business world. Funnily, the larger the company the more political wrangling is prevalent. However excessive politics can freeze a business and make it immobile.

Decisions are stymied action is not taken and competitive edge is lost.

Internal politics can cause ill-feeling amongst colleagues, it can cause undue stress and a myriad of other symptoms which ultimately lead to lower productivity, a greater number of sick days and ultimately a huge cost to the business.

Unfortunately, as is human nature certain individuals encourage such behaviour within their departments, divisions and teams. This is part of ensuring their empire survives (see my previous article Empires Strike Back). Others resign and take the attitude of if you can't beat them then join them.

I don't think politics within any business can be eradicated, purely because we are all humans and it is nigh on impossible to say what an individual brings to a job apart from their academic and business experience.

However, I think it is crucial that management see this as a disease and weed out such behaviour where it is identifiable. In the business world there is only one model that should be supported above all others and that is meritocracy.

That ends today's musing, till the next time.

Shah Alam

Good morning all from London.

Well we have good news from all around. The Chinese are showing very strong growth, Goldman Sachs posts record profits and the FTSE 100 has been climbing steadily with the banking sector leading the way. So we must be on the road to recovery? NOT!

Putting aside the so called recovery which in my view is a distant blip on the horizon, I want to talk about Empires Strike Back. No not Darth Vader in his raspy voice and his long lost son, young Luke.

In almost all the companies that I have implemented a change or performance improvement program over the last decade, I have seen a disturbing feature that is hugely detrimental to any business.

Empires!

Empires built by management at all levels within a business, but more prevalent within middle management. Empires that serve no purpose in running a business successfully. Empires that inhibit change, create a static environment and destroy value for all stakeholders.

My definition of an empire is as follows:

"A mini organization within a company that runs semi-autonomously with very little transparency and accountability"

These empires may be a small team or a whole department or even an entire account run by an individual and his 'minions'. These empires are very hard to identify until you come to review what is being done and who is doing what. They are also very hard to penetrate as the top two or three individuals running the outfit are very defensive and protective.

Such empires are run like fiefdoms and performance, efficiency, accountability and other key deliverables are 'managed' by those at the helm.

In my view the main reasons for the existence of these empires are:

1. To hide the weakness and inadequacies of the manager in charge
2. Reduce workload within the department or team, to create a 'cushy' work environment, i.e. lots of tea breaks and web browsing
3. Hide inefficiencies within the division
4. Develop a managers need to feel important and needed, massaging their ego
5. Job protection

I have come across one such incident recently where an account manager had a site manager running the day-to-day activities of the account, who in turn had a team leader running the teams workload, who in turn had a work allocator and also another person writing management reports. This was before we arrived at the people delivering the service.

It was such that the three individuals 'looked out' for each other to massage reports and numbers. When the performance improvement program was implemented, within 8 weeks the account manager moved out taking a sideways job change, the site manager resigned and the team leader was eventually replaced.

What strikes me is that when called upon for greater transparency and a clear measurement of performance these empires fall apart like a house of cards. These empire builders can never rise to the challenge of delivering when asked to, they usually become very defensive or walk away of their own volition.

It also seems that the larger the company the greater the number of empires it will have residing within. Don't get me wrong when a CEO or a senior manager is replaced he/she will bring in their team to make the changes they see fit to improve a companies fortune, but this should not be just so that another empire replaces the incumbent.

I think it is important that teams, departments and the whole organizational structure is reviewed by senior management on a regular basis to identify any unnecessary building of empires. These should be backed up with clear performance indicators that all managers should be held accountable to.

However, I do not believe this phenomenon will go away overnight or ever, it is human nature to create such empires and often these will happen organically and before you know it a behemoth is straddling a section within a business.

Till the next time

Shah Alam

Hello everybody from a sweltering day here in London. It feels good to have 30 degree Celsius in the capital for a few days straight.

Good Morning from London,

I trust everyone out there is enjoying 2009 which is a year of elections around the world and some surprising results are manifesting here and there that will hopefully move the world towards peace and understanding amongst the human race.

I was recently watching a programme on the BBC about the evolution of the human race, the anthropologist who presented the programme concluded that we the human race have a gene that indicates our emergence from a small handful of tribes that left East Africa approximately 70,000 years or so ago. They left via the Arabian peninsula through what is now Yemen and then beyond to populate the whole plant. So if we are all related to one another why do we have so much war, strife, hatred and violence towards our fellow man?

In the 21st century this has gone beyond the battlefields of Iraq, the diamond fields of Sierra Leone and the Korean peninsula.

It drives us crazy when we dial a number to pay our bills and we hear in a heavy accent someone saying "Hello my name is Fred, how may I help you?" When we clearly know this persons name isn't Fred and they are in an office thousands of miles away.

Call centres! They are the bane of modern life for many of us and I'm sure we've all seen red sometime or another when the person at the other end of the line cannot or does not seem to understand our needs. They speak like an automaton from a fixed script without any consideration for what our dilemma is.

When I first started consulting back in 1999, the client was a call centre operator with five locations in the UK's southeast. All the operators were young students or just out of university and had the ability to communicate clearly concisely and effectively. These operators handled calls for utility companies, banks and other companies selling services to the public. One of the noticeable beneficial aspects of using operators who are native to a country is that there is less of a misunderstanding in communication and the operator is more able to empathise with the customers needs.

However, as we all know most call centres were moved overseas and my first client also closed down all five locations in the UK for sunnier climes. A bulk of these call centres whether in Europe or USA were moved to India which has the advantage of English as its language of business. Couple this with low labour costs and you get a situation where any business would relocate to achieve costs savings.

Now, don't get me wrong I am just as much a capitalist as the next CEO, but some aspects of achieving costs savings that affect quality and the level of service should not be compromised.

So what happened in the early years of the new millennia? Well, in the UK for one, many companies brought their call centres back home and even went so far as to advertise the fact that "Our call centres are now based in the UK".

There definitely is a solid business case for locating call centres in a places where the labour is cheaper, for example I recently completed an assignment with an ICT services firm that have their first line based in Romania. The same client was also looking at options to base some call centres in Malaysia.

The key issue here is for companies to get a balance between what can be sent overseas without a drop in quality and quantity of service and what aspect of the operations must be kept in the home country?

Take a bank for example that offers a two tier personal cheque account. One is the basic account and the other is a premium service whereby the customer is paying a monthly fee to have the premium service. Now, you would expect the premium customer to be offered a service that ensures a qualitative handling of their needs. This does not mean that two call centres are operated, one in the home country and one overseas.

It is about implementing controls, metrics and reviews that measure and allow the continuous monitoring of customer satisfaction at all levels. Whether a company decides to send all its call centres abroad or keep some at home there needs to be a clear strategy on how to ensure customer service and satisfaction does not get compromised.

At Storm we have several articles on Call Centre Management and some tips on 'How To'. Click the link below to take you directly there.

http://www.storm-international.us/resources/KnowledgeBase.aspx

Till the next time have a great weekend

Shah Alam

In the past years I have been looking for an answer to the following question. Why do clients tell us that they agree with our findings during the analysis, but still feel that they do not need us?