As you exit the M4 junction 5
near Slough, Berkshire, you then enter a winding slip approach road which
extends onto the A4 towards London. This
dual carriageway runs parallel to one of the biggest trading estates in
Europe. The slip is a few miles long and
controlled by no fewer than 14 separate sets of traffic lights set at approximately
300 metre intervals. Planning and speed
are vital because it is a strange anomaly that if you meet the first of these
light sets as they turn to red, you will then encounter every single one thereafter
just as it turns to red; no amount of acceleration, revving, anger, handbrake
turns or sat nav adjustment can alter it. Conversely if you arrive at set one on green,
then you sail majestically through to your business destination at a steady and
comfortable passage casually observing the easy change of each. It’s all about timing speed planning and
patience.
Indulge me in suggesting that
you cast your minds back to my previous blogs which reference emotional
intelligence, emotional quotient and its link to self-management. In her seminal book Emotionally Intelligent
Living, Geetu Bharwaney explains, ‘The signal received by the brain from the
heart is the most powerful signal in the body. The electro-magnetic field produced by the
heart is five thousand times greater in strength than the field generated by
the brain’. I recently experienced this
surge in my own national grid whilst (under time constraints) attempting to
operate my smart phone, pad, sky drive and search engine in unison, thereby
conducting a speedy efficient completion of several business proposals: It was at this point my information
technology apps took on their own characters. MS documents became known as ‘not responding’,
Nokia 620 ‘signal unavailable’, cloud ‘not recognised at this time’ and google
chrome advised me in a Dickensian accent (in my own mind) ‘Did you mean to
spell it…?’ My verbalised descriptors of
inanimate objects surprised even me as my frontal lobe was hijacked by the
surge of heart sent electricity designed adjectives.
So there shouldn’t be any
surprises really because after my dip in emotional control I quickly regained
reality remembering that not so long ago these apps would have been regaled as
nothing short of technological (or other) miracles; things change and so with
that change aligns our human ability to rely on them and demand the best. And if your competitors have something better
then you must find a leveller.
It is acknowledged that the only constant is change, if
you stand still you will stay there, a year from now you will wish you had
started change today, failing to plan is…etc.
We just operate in a business
world that is, and has access to, a lot of stuff that must be fast, efficient,
reliable. It would be an erroneous
supposition on my part, if I suggested that any of you now should commence a
business protocol linked to change, and I recognise that we are in a fast
moving world beyond that of which our parents, grandparents and ancestors before
them would find unimaginable. If you explain
to a teenager about written records, collecting pictures from the chemist,
filing information in a wooden box and telephones that were used to make phone
calls!, said young adult would display features of surprise and horror only
matched equally if you then invited them to climb a tree for fun; actually this
latter arboreal challenge was (over the years) completed regularly and
successfully by my offspring particularly when I didn’t expect or want them to
do it.
So recognising speed of market
and technological change, transformation, drivers, benefits, urgency, vision
strategy, communication, empowerment, leadership; this is change and it is
constant.
The last traffic signal at Slough is adjacently positioned to the regally designed 19th century town hall and as you sit waiting at the last of your many red lights you have plenty of time to glance across and read the proudly displayed council logo ‘Mondays are rubbish days’
“What if I told you that 10 years from now, your life would
be exactly the same? I doubt you would
be happy. So, why are you so afraid of
change?” – Karen Salmansohn
