Monday 10 December 2012

Christmas is not just for Christmas

Who is your favourite member of the Royal family?  Well I can tell you who mine isn’t; Prince Albert of Sax-Coburg (Queen Victoria's husband).  History attributes him for the introduction of the Christmas tree to the UK.  This Pagan tradition was already known to the Royals in Germany and Victoria was already aware of this before she met Albert so she has some part in the blame!  The, sorry, my, Christmas tree is unlike many other modern ‘bolt ons’ to the original Christian celebrations;  a red robed red faced Santa introduced as a marketing campaign by Coca Cola in the 1930’s, stuffing socks full of gifts replicated from a Dutch philanthropist in 1200, Christmas cards first seen in 1843 after Sir Henry Cole created the idea to help young boys practice their writing skills.  Even the ancient Celts believed mistletoe to have magical healing powers and it is said that among Romans, enemies who met under mistletoe would lay down their weapons and embrace.  None of these symbols of our year end marker of personal meaning have the destructive influence of the tree!

Every year I engage my dexterity, influence, assertiveness, patience and emotional intelligence in a ritualistic contest against an artificial Christmas tree.  The tournament usually commences in mid-December with an eye to berry across the loft encounter followed by a flurry of activity down the step ladder chased by cardboard boxes, stems, branches, colour coded inserts, plastic decorations and exploding dust bombs of synthetic snow; this does not of course include the wondrous fairy lights which baffle the art of electric circuitry.  Hours later I emerge triumphant, tree intact, house empty; note from family explaining they will be back when I’m in a better mood.

This is however a pattern.  By the sheer consistency of my toil every year( for the past eight years), I have the forecast; let’s face facts, I can be be assured when Christmas is coming.  I know the data set, I know the logistics, I know the challenges, I can predict the problems and I can identify the root cause (no pun).  And if I am perfectly mapped and planned, in January I could adjust my projections and problem solve it.

We all run patterns in our lives, some helpful some not so; equally your business will run patterns with the same equality of balance and yes of course there are some chaotic theories and capricious intervals, but these will be matched by equivalent predictable events.  Ask yourself, what you know about your business in twelve months’ time that you already know now?  When is your busiest period? When is the lowest resource time?  When is the quietest?  Where are your critical calendar times?  Throw yourself twelve months into the future and tackle it from there.  Future solutions focused business coaching is here and available.


What is your business Christmas tree?

I mentioned earlier the test of my emotional intelligence.  Here at Zest we are deeply involved with many organisations in Emotional Quotient profiling for senior leaders and therefore increasing performance capability.


The profiling asks you a series of questions based on your emotional reaction against certain circumstances.  Having completed one such EQi 2 profile myself, I am very proud to say that I have a higher than the norm score.  The reason for this, I now suspect, is that the new process has omitted a key question-  ‘How do you feel after construction of an artificial Christmas Tree?’

Tune in next year for ‘How to put a tree back in a box’.