TW3: That Was The Week That Was

A busy and enjoyable week. Mainly working with established clients which is always particularly pleasurable: an opportunity to see the improvements beginning to reveal themselves. For the students on the full-time MBA at WBS, the honey-moon is over and exams are kicking in. We worked hard on becoming excellent presenters. (Don’t forget PresentationZen, by the way). And it was great to be working along-side one of my colleagues from Strategic Edge, Zoe, who helped with ‘refinement’ of presentation style. As Zoe pointed out: there is of course no one style you are trying to copy: simply reveal your own style. As always, that is our definitive quest: to be the best version of you.

With Barclays I taught at one of their ‘Universities’. Those of you who have been on one of my seminars will know that one of my ‘rants’ is the New World of Work & 7 Drivers of Change. Barclays is of course in one of the markets where change needs to come rapidly if there is going to be more that just modest survival. Key idea we were working on: if you can’t change the market, change yourself.

On Friday, I was with Hudson the recruitment company. A tough environment at any time. At lunch had a salad at Prêt a Manger in High Holborn, London, UK. Having finished I went back to the counter to get a peppermint tea (highly recommended by the ancient science of Ayurveda, by the way) and handed over a £10 note. The assistant, on enquiring if I had anything smaller and me apologising and saying no, said the drink was on the house. That’s cool. So easy, no hassle. But I’m remarking on it: it’s remarkable. How much stuff do you and your team do for others which is truly remarkable?