Poppy magazine - issue 2

Poppy BRAIN FOOD FOR COMMUNICATORS IN FINANCE

ISSUE 02

AU CONTRAIRE Introducing a magazine for communicators who wish to be heard above the din and have something a little different to say We feel an affinity with contrarians. We called our business magazine Poppy after all.

What links this issue’s seemingly disparate contributors and their wide-ranging fields of expertise is atypical thinking. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, they do not go where the path may lead, but “go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” And we urge you to do the same.

Lock up your smartphone; take your business lessons from Trappist monks; let 3D printing revolutionise marketing – not manufacturing; treat your colleague as you would a hostage taker; and open your arms to the upstarts disrupting your market and threatening your livelihood. This is not your average advice, and Poppy is not your average business magazine.

There should be something here for anyone with an interest in technology, society, business and the future, and food for thought for those of you in comms and marketing roles in the financial services sector. Please enjoy these big ideas responsibly and let us know what you think via feedback@readpoppy.com.

We leave you with this thought from mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, who, writing in 1925, recognised the value of picking at perceived wisdom: “In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat: but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress towards a victory.”

THE POPPY TEAM

THE LEGAL & GREEN BIT

WHITE LIGHT MEDIA

Publisher: Fraser Allen Creative Director: Eric Campbell Senior Editor: Simon Lyle Editorial team: Christina McPherson, Malcolm Triggs Design team: Islay Brown, Lauren Lee, Matt McArthur Business Manager: Jo Allen Cover illustration: Andy Smith

All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission from White Light Media Co Ltd is strictly prohibited. The paper used for this publication is made from FSC certified sources using 100% ECF pulp. This magazine can be recycled through your kerbside collection or at a local recycling point. Not many people read this bit.

Poppy is published by White Light Media.

We work with clients to create intelligently written, beautifully designed magazines, print and online. If you would like to explore how our team could help your comms or marketing strategy, contact Fraser Allen at: fraser@whitelightmedia.co.uk or 0131 555 6494.

White Light Media, 54 Timber Bush, Edinburgh EH6 6QH. 0131 555 6494.

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MANIFESTO

bunch of individuals and we want Poppy to reflect their adventurous spirit and enquiring minds.

The launch of Poppy was inspired by several trends we have observed in design, marketing and publishing:

BIG IDEAS Many of our clients tell us that they are constantly fighting fires – work is busy and stressful; they don’t have time to think about the big picture. That’s where Poppy can help. Each issue will comprise a small number of in-depth features exploring big ideas that deserve attention.

BORING BUSINESS MAGAZINES Most business magazines haven’t changed in 30 years. They rely on the same tired, cluttered formats, with content designed to attract advertisers and promote events.

They’re boring to read and even more boring to look at – black and white pics of middle-aged men in boardrooms abound. Our financial services clients are a diverse

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SLOW JOURNALISM We enjoy reading a magazine called Delayed Gratification published by the London-based Slow Journalism Company. Conceived as a reaction to the 24-7

rolling news agenda, it reflects intelligently on the past, providing a fresh perspective on stories that have fallen off the news carousel.

Poppy is informed by some of that thinking and doffs its cap to their pioneering work.

COLLABORATIVE JOURNALISM The scribes of News International could learn a few lessons from the way content marketing journalists create copy. We don’t tap phones, ruin people’s lives or sit in ivory towers. Instead, we work with our clients to create accurate, useful, well-written content. Poppy takes the same constructive approach.

Each feature is created by a talented writer working closely

with an industry-leading expert.

We call it collaborative journalism.

THE GOLDEN AGE A fresh generation of entrepreneurs is shaking up the magazine world. Publications we admire include Monocle, The Gentlewoman, Cereal, Printed Pages, the aforementioned Delayed Gratification and our own award-winning Hot Rum Cow (www.hotrumcow.co.uk).

The influential blog MagCulture describes this new wave of craft publishing as ‘The Golden Age of Magazines’ – and Poppy is keen to spread the golden rays of this enlightenment through the backwaters of business magazine publishing.

IN THE COMPANY OF MONKS When a skydiving accident interrupted August Turak’s stellar corporate career he turned to Trappist monks for spiritual support, not realising they would transform his entire business philosophy.

EXPLORING NEW DIMENSIONS 3D printing can revolutionise everything from marketing to medicine through personalisation, says TCT magazine editor James Woodcock.

SPRINGING THE DISTRACTION TRAP We are addicted to digital devices and they are increasing stress, reducing productivity, damaging our relationships and physically rewiring our brains. Frances Booth can help you and your business.

WARNING – DISRUPTIVE THINKING AHEAD Financial services firms must adapt, simplify and harness the power of digital upstarts or be lost in the disruptive deluge, warns start-up champion Julie Meyer.

ARMED WITH INTELLIGENCE In his former life working in British Intelligence and the UK Armed Forces the ability to influence people could be life or death. Graham Cox applies ‘responsive design’ to humans.

CONTENTS 3

WORDS Malcolm Triggs ILLUSTRATION Sergiy Maidukov

IN THE COMPANY OF MONKS Trappist monks are unlikely practitioners of successful business management.

American entrepreneur and corporate executive, August Turak, however, knows their secrets. After all, he’s lived amongst them for years

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ugust Turak began his professional career as a salesman for 3M business products in Boston, MA. In 1979 the founder of the IBM Executive School, Louis Mobley, became his mentor, and before he knew it, he had embarked upon a career with the then nascent network television company, MTV, and later with what is now the A&E Network. In 1993 he founded Raleigh Group International, a software company that by 1996 was named the 18th fastest-growing company in Research Triangle Park, NC. In a short period of time, August had found himself flying high, and not just figuratively either: a group of college students whom he was coaching at the time had managed to talk him into going on a skydiving expedition. As he likes to say, “I was brave enough to jump out of an aeroplane, but not brave enough to tell these students that I was too damn old to be jumping out of an aeroplane.”

Consequently, he found himself back on solid ground; solid enough to send him for a week-long stint in hospital. Fortunately, the result of the impact sustained by his ankle was not irreversible. The impact the jump had on his life, however, was.

Confronting mortality

In hospital, August suffered a series of panic attacks. He couldn’t tell where they were coming from at first, but gradually came to realise their profound origin as he lay in that bed, not in a life-threatening condition, but surrounded by patients who more or less were: “I was, for the first time in my life, confronting my mortality.”

It’s both a terrible and an inevitable realisation that everyone must ultimately confront the same fate. “Hey, Augie,” he thought, “I really am going to die one day.” It was a thought that terrified him. Moreover, all of the spiritual research and work he had done over so many years, going right back to his university career, and coaching college students on such issues – absolutely none of it was helping. He had nothing to fall back on. Sure, he had his companies and a successful corporate portfolio under the belt, but of what value were these now?

When August came to leave the hospital the panic attacks had ceased, but he still

felt like a broken man. “I returned to work but for months afterwards I had no energy.

I was depressed and felt utterly hollow, cast into uncertainty and unable to address the ultimate question: Why am I here?”

Chasing monks

Five months after his discharge, August received a phone call from one of the college students whom he’d been coaching at the time of his accident. “Augie, I just wanted to let you know that I’m taking your advice this summer.” August explained that he couldn’t recall giving the student any advice for his summer. “You did!” the student replied. “You told us to do something meaningful during our summer vacation instead of drinking beer and chasing girls, and so I’m spending mine at a Trappist monastery called Mepkin Abbey as a monastic guest.”

That student called up on a Wednesday.

August went down to Mepkin Abbey on the Friday and stayed for the weekend. After that he wrote a letter asking for permission to become a monastic guest during the Christmas period that year, and ended up staying for three weeks. The following summer he stayed for three months.

“That was 18 years ago,” says August.

“I still visit Mepkin Abbey as a guest on a regular basis, for my experience living with the monks began to address my insatiable need to understand my existence.” Just as the monks were searching for God, he was searching for meaning, and so, here were a people with whom he could relate.

It may seem incongruous; since when did successful entrepreneurs, corporate executives and MTV employees enter the cloisters as monastic guests? For August, though, the monks embodied a mentality so contagious that he couldn’t help himself from returning, and he soon came to realise that this was in part due to an altogether more worldly aspect of Trappist monastic life. You see, Trappist monks are experts in an unlikely field. Not only was August living with some of the most pious men in the world; he was also living with some of the most successful businessmen in the world.

Orare et laborare

Mepkin Abbey is beautiful – 3,200 acres of mossy woodland, pastures and gardens in which the monks spend their entire lives, adhering to a highly structured daily routine

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conducive to a traditional life of work and prayer. They rise at 3am, attend church at six specific times throughout the day, and spend several hours in solitary contemplation and prayer. The remainder of their time is allotted to their work conducting the abbey’s numerous businesses.

Within the monks’ business ‘portfolio’ are a library, a conference centre, a guest centre, more than a dozen retreat houses, a gift shop, a timber business, a fertilizer business, a mushroom business and, until recently, an egg business. The efficiency with which the monks conduct these businesses is remarkable. All the more so when one considers the fact that the average age at Mepkin Abbey is 70, and that they only work part-time. In almost total silence.

Such is the life of the Trappist monk.

The Rule of St Benedict, the document upon which Trappist life is based, dictates that monasteries must steadfastly abide by the principle of orare et laborare – to pray and to work. These two activities are of equal importance to Trappist monks. In fact, they consider work a form of prayer and prayer a form of work, thus affording them a constant opportunity to extol the virtues of their mission in everything they do.

It is easy to be astonished by the success of the monks despite their commitment to their calling. The thought of rising at 3am before a day’s work, for one, would seem nothing short of madness to most people, not to mention the silence and the prayer.

It is not despite but rather because of their commitment that they manage to achieve as much as they do,” says August, and herein lies an ancient economic model applicable to the secular world of modern business.

Mission matters

August remembers an incident that occurred during his first day at Mepkin.

Standing in the lunch queue he watched as an aged monk in front painfully stooped to obtain a tray from a stack on the floor. As August suppressed his impatience the monk turned and, with a look of childlike delight spread across his face, handed him the tray.

Later, whilst packing eggs August encountered a similarly aged monk called Father Malachy who was once asked by Mepkin’s abbot to write summaries of 50 French theological textbooks. Malachy, whom the

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abbot incorrectly assumed was capable of understanding French, set about his task without complaint, and just a few months later presented the abbot with the summaries. He had learned French in the meantime.

Such acts are second nature for the monks of Mepkin Abbey. Moreover, they are a constant reminder that the monks are subconsciously working in accordance with a higher mission. Theirs is a life of unquestioned commitment to an overarching mission to which they are selflessly devoted in everything they do.

There's historical evidence of this dedication in the secular world. “When Cortés arrived in Mexico from Spain,” says August, “legend has it that he burned all of his ships, telling his soldiers that they were either going to gain victory in the New World or die trying. Ambitious Americans once adhered to their nation’s mantra, ‘Go west, young man, and grow up with the country!’ during the conquest of the western frontier. And imperial Britain, her people used to be so determined: ‘What do I want to do when I grow up? I want to make Britain great.’

“But what of today, where would one go to hear such words? Striving towards such overreaching causes is something from which businesses shy away instinctively on the grounds that they are ‘unrealistic’. We simply remain satisfied when a job is done, especially if it meets our ends.”

The fallout caused by the absence of such motivation runs rife throughout our world in August’s view: “It is little wonder that today’s youth find themselves tangled up in gang culture, or that, dare I say it, young

Muslims are turned to extremism, for the opportunity to selflessly serve a higher (albeit illegitimate) mission is one too great, but often too rare, to be neglected.”

Louis Mobley once told August that the most important question every single business leader must ask is this: “What is the business of our business?”

“That is a mission question,” explains August; “a long-range, open-ended, big-picture conceptualisation, and the kind all too often absent from today’s workspaces and boardrooms. We should be constantly addressing it in our professional lives, just as the monks do at Mepkin, in order to ensure that we stay committed to our causes.

“In golf we aim for the back of the cup. In basketball we aim at the back of the rim. In archery we aim past the target. In business, then, we should do the same. Aiming past the target corresponds with the business’s mission, and the target corresponds with planning. It’s not a profit game, and it’s not about golden handshakes. There are people in this world with neither plans nor missions; there are people with only plans; and then there are people with missions, and it is these people who ask the questions, ‘Why do I get out of bed every morning?

What is my business doing with itself? What am I doing with my life?’”

Excellence in everything

Trappist products share one thing in common: excellence. Fertiliser, mushrooms, eggs, vegetables or preserves, the commitment Trappist monks put into producing these prosaic products is a continuation

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of their devotion. The popularity of their products is undoubtedly influenced by the culture surrounding their production.

Perhaps the best example of this is the beer produced by the monks of Saint Sixtus Abbey in Belgium, Westvleteren 12, widely considered the best beer in the world.

To reach such a status, though, a product’s popularity cannot be purely based upon the culture that surrounds it, and Trappist monks refuse to allow this to determine production. August remembers Mepkin’s Father Stan, with whom he often delivered the abbey’s eggs, once rejecting a substantial offer from a distributor who was convinced he could sell the eggs at a premium price.

Although the eggs were of a high quality, Father Stan wasn’t prepared to set them at a higher price; he simply understood that in order to support the monastery’s mission the monks had to produce a product that would return a sufficient profit.

Excellence isn’t found only in the products of Trappist monks, though, but in the monks themselves. Take the elderly monk on August’s first day at the abbey going painfully out of his way to provide a lunch tray despite his frailty, or Father Malachy’s seemingly superhuman effort in learning French. Such acts reflect the monks’ collective motivation, whilst also affirming excellence of character. “They, like Cortés did in the New World, make their vows, begin their mission and from there on have their backs against the wall,” says August, and from this we can learn a considerable amount.

As the top salesman in the New England area, August was once accosted by two salesmen intent on learning his ‘secret’. “OK,” August said, “I’ll let you in on it. If you make a certain number of telephone calls, a certain percentage of them will be answered; a certain percentage of the ones that are answered lead to an appointment; a certain percentage of those appointments will want to see your product; and a certain percentage of the people who look at your product will purchase your product.”

It’s a numbers game for August, but that’s not what matters. “What matters,” he says, “is the back against the wall mentality. When my partners and I launched our first software company, we were pretty well-off financially, but we decided as a discipline to only put $2,000 into the business, and in the very first month, we agreed that if we can’t return enough to pay September’s bills, we close the company. It was tough, but we weren’t going to reach into our pockets and come up with another $2,000 just like that. We had to do something, so we ended up scrubbing floors and digging ditches for the first few months. This attitude worked for Cortés, and it’s been working for Trappist monks for over a thousand years, so why not make it work throughout the secular world of business?”

Even outside of business we can adopt the approach. “Look at magazine counters,” says August.

“Every health magazine tells us that we can lose fourteen pounds in ten days, and we believe them simply because we don’t want the truth. The truth is, being in good shape is a way of life. It means chipping away every single day at it, doing the little things that make the difference. It’s not a question

of losing fourteen pounds in ten days, and it isn’t a question of eating nothing but banana peels because there is no silver bullet.

“It’s so difficult because human beings are more often concrete than conceptual. We want a Cadillac, or a BMW, something we can touch. To me, though, the greatest people have dedicated themselves to excellence of character above all else, as have the monks at Mepkin. Every refrigerator I’ve ever owned has been graced with the following Dostoyevsky quote: ‘Man is a mystery. If you spend your whole life trying to figure it out, do not say that you’ve wasted your time. I occupy myself with that mystery because I want to be a man.’ And that resonated with me as a young man starting out in business.”

Stay secure

The monks at Mepkin don’t have to spend half their time looking over their shoulders worrying about what the next brother is doing, or if there is someone after their work, or looking to take credit for something they did. They are clear on their mission and help each other on the way.

“After my software company was sold to the Israeli firm, MuTek Solutions,” says August, “they pushed out the CEO who had bought it from me, and they brought in this hard-charging venture capitalist to run the company. I was still running the company’s US operation, and he said to me: ‘You created this bug-tracking product, Visual Intercept. It’s your baby, and you made it the number one product in the marketplace. If someone was to say to you that a new CEO is doing nothing but trying to kill off your product, they wouldn’t be far wrong – yet you haven’t squawked a bit. Not only that, you’ve been helping me to kill it. Now, I’ve been in business for more than 30 years. You have to explain this one to me.’

“I had read his business plan, and I understood what he wanted to do with the company. The product I’d created simply didn’t fit into his strategy. It wasn’t about me, my ego and my little product. It was about everyone involved in the company, and it was my job to do what was best for them. What’s more, it was a product. ‘I don’t expect to have a logo of that product on my tombstone,’ I told the new CEO. ‘It’s not me! It’s just a product.’

He was absolutely gobsmacked by this, but it opened up a whole new relationship between us with so much more trust, and he began to realise that he didn’t have to fear me.

“In business, when you’re there with the same people day in, day out, it’s not what you say but what you do that matters. Your colleagues pick your actions up through osmosis, but in order for your values to be absorbed you need to have good, secure people at the core of the business who really believe in them, and really live them.

“Insecure people are so easily threatened, and therefore want neither the best nor the strongest people around them because they see them as threats. They become paranoid, and they worry that their colleagues will want to divide and conquer and undermine other people. Who wants to work in a company where everybody’s fighting and struggling, and nobody trusts anybody? It’s like working in the mafia.”

August asked him why and he said: “Because people don’t believe in anything enough to fight that hard for it any more.” On the one hand August thought: “Good, good – half a million men died in that city, so maybe that’s a good thing that no such battle will happen again.” Yet on the other hand he thought: “There’s something sad and pathetic that we don’t believe in anything enough any more.”

This is the reason why monasteries are dying out; people don’t believe in anything enough to commit themselves to it. August sees the same thing in divorce rates, too: “Men and women don’t have the commitment to slap a smile on their faces – the old British ‘stiff upper lip’ – and tough it out for the benefit of their children. They get up in front of the priest and say: ‘Till death do us part,’ but they don’t really mean it.

“Likewise, it’s hard to start companies today because a lot of people tell you a lot of bullshit about being one for all and all for one, but as soon as somebody offers them $5 a day more, or as soon as they get discouraged when things get tough, they jump ship.

“What I’m getting at is this: I’m not some kind of academic jerk or college professor who came up with the idea of going down

believes such an environment is the root of the monks’ success. He once asked a middleaged monk there why he had entered the monastery. “I almost didn’t,” the monk replied. “I was meeting with Father Stan, and I said, ‘If I join and take care of all these old men, who’s going to take care of me?’

Father Stan explained, ‘I don’t know. All I know for sure is that I’ll be here.’” The monk was so moved by the answer that he signed up on the spot.

The school of life

“I didn’t go to the monastery in 1996 because I had a plan that in 2004 I would win the $100,000 John Templeton Power of Purpose prize for an essay I wrote on my experiences,” says August. “Nor did I have a plan to sell my company which was started on $2,000 and which ended up worth $150 million. People suggest that I must have had some sort of exit strategy, but none of it was planned.

“Trappist monks don’t make success happen, they know how to let success happen. They know how to put themselves in the right position so that when the skies open up and start raining money, they’re underneath. This is what happened to me, because my life hasn’t been lived in accordance with a plan, but a mission.”

The next time you’re watching a classic like Star Wars or The Matrix or The Truman Show, August urges that you look out for the common theme: the hero gets a call or a vocation which he initially resists. He is trained in the desert, and then he has a trial in which he has to decide whether he’s going to become selfish like Darth Vader or resist this pull and become selfless like Luke Skywalker.

“In America we say: ‘Money talks and bullshit walks.’ In other words, if you want to know what people care about, look at what they’re spending money on. And what is it? They spend billions and billions to watch people take the hero’s journey from selfishness to selflessness. It may take place in modern New York City, or in the future, or long, long ago, but the theme is always the same.”

This is August’s mission in life: to find out who he is and be the best person he can be, and to face his fears. “If you want to be great,” he says, “you’ve got to work on yourself. I didn’t go into business with any romantic notions. I was the kid who joins the Marines because he wants to find out what he’s made of. What’s more, this purpose is the same for everyone. It’s not a matter of taste or opinion, and it’s not relative; every person is put on this earth to be transformed from a selfish person into a selfless person.”

His success may seem extraordinary, in the same way that Father Malachy’s superhuman efforts to learn French do, but such achievements can be made if you live your mission every single day. “I became an entrepreneur to see what I would learn about myself through personal development under pressure,” he says. “I wanted to see whether I could do it the hard way to see what it would reveal about myself, and if I would stick to my principles when the shit hit the fan.

“Life must be lived forwards but only understood backwards. It is one big school in which we’re supposed to be learning.

And if you live such a life of seeking and searching, people will begin to look up and admire you.” Just as August did when that frail old monk offered him his lunch tray all those years ago.

“It’s not a matter of taste or opinion, and it’s not relative; every person is put on this earth to be transformed from a selfish person into a selfless person.”

Faith and trust

A few years ago August visited a friend in Volgograd, where the greatest battle of WWII was fought. There, his friend said: “There’ll never be a battle like that again.”

to the monastery and hanging out, studying monks. I’m not telling people theoretically like a tree-hugger, ‘Oh, we should all be nice and get along in business.’ No, I’m not saying any of that. I’m saying: ‘I did this.’

“I started my two companies on a couple of thousand dollars and a couple of friends, and nothing else. It was my partner who said: ‘We don’t have a business plan, but we’re smart people, we’ll figure something out.’ And although we didn’t know what we were going to do, we knew who we wanted to be, and we trusted the process. The first thing we did was sit down and write a list of our principles and our mission.

“Anyone can be nice when the pressure’s off, but when you’re in business and you’re faced with the prospect of either lying to somebody to get a sale or telling your employees that you’re not going to be able to pay them, then you’ve got some really hard thinking to do. This isn’t some kind of intellectual exercise from your armchair general or academic – this is real-life stuff.

“We chipped away at our receivables, and never let them get out of hand. We worked day in, day out, bending over backwards according to our mission, and it produced some tremendous results. I was in business for seven years, and I took purchase orders from anyone who wanted to give them. I never ran any credit checks, and I collected 99% of my receivables. I never sued anybody, and I never took anyone to court.”

All of this August and his colleagues achieved because of their faith in their mission and their implicit trust, and he

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August Turak, founder of Self Knowledge Symposium Foundation, is a successful entrepreneur, corporate executive, teacher, speaker, consultant and author who attributes much of his success to his experience as a frequent monastic guest at Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina. A regular contributor to Forbes, he won the John Templeton Power of Purpose prize in 2004 for his essay “Brother John” and has recently published his first book, Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO’s Quest for Meaning and Authenticity.

Find out more at www.AugustTurak. com.

WORDS James Woodcock ILLUSTRATION Anil Yanik

EXPLORING NEW DIMENSIONS The real impact of 3D printing will finally match the hype when we realise its enormous potential for personalisation, says TCT Magazine Group Editor James Woodcock. And when we do, everything from marketing to medicine will be revolutionised

3D

printing or additive manufacturing – call it what you will, the whole lexicon and naming convention is something with which the industry has struggled for years, and continues to do so even now. When the magazine I now edit, TCT, started up it was all called ‘rapid prototyping’, but today that term doesn’t suffice because as the technology has developed, so too has its application. Where once, for example, 3D printers were being used to create prototypes, now they are being used within additive manufacture and a plethora of other environments too.

It’s a set of technologies that have been around longer than most people realise. The first 3D printed part as we would recognise it today was made in 1984, which then led to the creation of the first 3D printing company, 3D Systems, in 1986. At this nascent stage, however, everything was still under patent, and everybody wanted to protect and milk what little intellectual property they had.

Prices were high, competition was low, and adoption lower still.

That’s not to say that the potential of 3D printing went wholly unnoticed on the corporate front, though; BMW purchased their first 3D printers in 1990, four years after commercial availability. They started their own internal application development and remain a major user of the technology.

The aerospace industry saw potential too, investing in 3D printers to expedite phenomenally lengthy project lead times.

There was, then, a mass of advertisers and a community substantial enough to make 3D printing viable in the pre-internet days, and the processes established during those days would be recognisable today.

The next big wave in 3D printing was the advent of metal manufacturing devices, around the turn of the century, raising awareness and opening up a whole new world of possible applications. Like everything else, the internet and connectivity have revolutionised 3D printing, too.

The building blocks of all 3D prints are their digital files, so being able to create more complex, larger files, shareable around the globe, has been massively important.

3D printing now comprises dozens of processes, hundreds of materials and thousands of applications.

Building the way and the will

As 3D printing technologies get quicker, as more materials become available, and as the processes become more efficient, the

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capability for meaningful disruption grows, although this could happen tomorrow or in 10 years.

One area it has the potential to impact dramatically is supply chain. If you break part ‘X’, for example, you could have it manufactured at a local hub as opposed to depending on centralised distribution hubs all over the world relying on dispersed manufacturing plants.

Such local hubs already exist, often run independently but also by established

companies such as Staples, and interest in them is growing, as it is for online printing ‘social manufacturing’ hubs. Moreover, consumer access to ‘desktop’ 3D printers is increasing. However, the capability of the technology is such that manufacturing like this on a large scale simply isn’t viable yet.

Take an often-hyped example: washing machines. Serious production of these devices is so far down the road at the moment. Certainly, it’s possible to batch-manufacture specific parts for them, but to do so on a serious scale of production is horrifically expensive compared with traditional manufacturing – mind-blowingly expensive, in fact. Mass manufacturing is not the battleground for 3D printing today.

It isn’t just a case of technological capability and efficiency, either, but also one of attitude. Being able to self-manufacture that one-off, bespoke component for your washing machine is one thing; completely changing your attitude to a task you would normally leave in the hands of a skilled tradesperson is another thing altogether.

People simply aren’t going to suddenly find the time and skill overnight that enables them to fix their own washing machines, regardless of how accessible the tools are.

Most people could already buy the tools needed for car maintenance at a fraction of the price of a 3D printer, but how many do?

Adapt or die

The big changes are going to come to 3D printing when industries and businesses realise more and more potential applications for the technology, but that necessitates a degree of adaptation.

In the case of manufacturing firms and companies involved in producing physical things, they will absolutely have to adapt to the technology. And if a company occupied with the production of bespoke products isn’t looking at 3D printing, then it really should be.

However, the technology of 3D printing is markedly out-accelerating its operational skills base because of the fact that people cannot be trained quickly enough to keep up with the pace of technological change. As such, there are countless dedicated courses for 3D printing, especially at postgraduate level, and the people undertaking these are the people who will go on to advance the technology’s application in the future.

All businesses, though, should be exploring the potential benefits of 3D printing because there are so many tangential and related technologies available through it. Ultimately, it comes down to time and how much of it a company can spend looking at something that is, at the moment, admittedly blue-sky.

A return of manufacturing?

There’s much idealistic prophecy surrounding the return of Western manufacture, as if a new era of opportunity is waiting just around the corner. Truth be told, though, it’s not likely to happen, at least not any time soon.

Consider it thus: the moment a product comes out in the West there’s already a clone in circulation in China. The Chinese wouldn’t be able to sell such clones in Western markets because they would be sued immediately, but within their home market (which, remember, is huge) the devices are proving massively beneficial to the economy.

What’s more, Eastern economies are starting to put serious amounts of money into 3D printing research and development, and thus include that as part of their economy alongside manufacturing. They are equally intent on education and specific training, too, and are gradually coming around to lower design and production costs.

Because of the free market, the rest of the world has access to the very same technologies that we have in the West. That being the case (and an especially beneficial one for economies with the advantages of lower labour costs and booming business environments), it isn’t likely that the UK will get significant leverage from 3D printing, at least not in terms of manufacturing.

The West is not entirely out of its economic depth here, though, for there’s one thing it does have, especially in Britain: an engineering heritage. It has a massively skilled workforce built up around decades of automotive and aerospace engineering, and 3D printing is such that you absolutely need highly skilled operators – it’s not just a case of ‘push button, get part’.

The personal touch

In the case of 3D printing there’s a general consensus that there is no need to disrupt largely efficient production chains with something still significantly less efficient. But imagine what it could mean if harnessed, as indeed it already is to a degree, within the medical industry. Jaws, blood vessels and functioning organs are prints that constitute the tip of the iceberg that is biomedical 3D printing, a process wholly reliant on customisation.

Phenomenally advanced examples, yes, but herein lies the true potential of 3D printing: its ability to manufacture

such one-off parts, or sets of parts that are different. 3D printing a one-off, complex shape is significantly more cost-effective than producing it by traditional manufacturing routes, while something like a bespoke human organ would be impossible without it.

The human-oriented environment is one in which 3D printing is proving quite a force. It’s not just the domain of doctors and dentists, though; corporations are also reaping the benefits of using 3D printing in conjunction with their own human-oriented operations, most notably in marketing.

The way in which 3D printing is tapping into personalisation, especially in the case of gifts and figurines, is making for huge business. Coca-Cola, for instance, ran a campaign in Israel whereby you could fully digitise yourself in order to have a model 3D printed to promote their mini bottles.

Disney offered a similar opportunity to its fans, as did LEGO with customisable bricks.

The film industry is tuning in, too, with fans able to print physical replicas of props, as are fashion companies like Adidas. Even the automotive industry has turned to the technology from a marketing perspective, most notably Volkswagen with their ‘The Polo Principle’ campaign which effectively turned consumers into car designers via 3D printing.

There’s an insurance company in the Netherlands which has been looking into 3D printing for the repair and replacement of items which people claim on their policies, and one bank has begun 3D printing attractive scale replicas of customers’ future homes as a way of clinching business.

Even though such outputs could be considered gimmicky, the sea of opportunity afforded by ‘3D marketing’ is undoubtedly opening up uncharted environments in which customers and brands can interact meaningfully. 3D printing is ultimately a waiting game, though, and its potential, although higher than its current capability, lies largely dormant. Yet with every new development the entire industry tips in the favour of those able to see, or at least begin to imagine, what it will one day become.

FUNDING THE FUTURE Compared with generic companies dealing in physical parts, it’s particularly expensive for 3D printing companies to get up and running because of the hardware involved.

The innumerable 3D printing shows taking place around the world each year do, however, garner high levels of interest from the investment community, often to the point that investors and bankers constitute the highest proportion of attendees. The shows, especially those in New York, London and Frankfurt, see massive crowds, not mainly of users, but of people looking for investment opportunities.

9

The crowds can be divided into two camps, too: the old school who fund through traditional means like stocks, and the new school who favour crowd funding. Crowd funding is brilliant at the lower end of technology investment.

Here, the rate of innovation is high and there is little legacy with which start-ups must contend. Granted, it’s a more or less unproven investment strategy and generally doesn’t appeal to traditional investors, but for a potential investor having the chance to get one of the first printers off the line in return for chipping in $20 through the likes of Kickstarter, now you’re looking at a less considerable commitment.

James Woodcock is Group Editor of TCT Magazine and Conference Director for TCT’s events in the UK, Europe, Asia and USA. TCT covers 3D printing and additive manufacturing “from hackerspace to aerospace”.

WORDS Frances Booth PHOTOGRAPHY Carolyn Eaton/Alamy

SPRINGING THE DISTRACTION TRAP Our addiction to digital devices is increasing stress levels, reducing productivity, damaging relationships and physically rewiring our brains. Author and digital detox expert, Frances Booth, considers the toll of digital distraction and offers some solutions

I

started noticing that everyone was staring down at a screen. I noticed it on trains, on buses and in the street.

In offices, I saw people fixed to their desks, eyes glazed, seeming frantic. And I started to question whether it was really all that urgent, or whether something had gone wrong.

I asked people how they felt about the way digital devices were changing their lives.

Everyone I talked to had a story. They told me they wanted to throw their partner’s phone in the bin. They told me they had to be on call 24/7 because of work – but that they were exhausted and didn’t know what to do about it. They told me they couldn’t keep up with posting social media updates for business.

They felt pressure from their boss, pressure from their clients, yet were also putting immense pressure on themselves to keep up.

They asked me for help because, despite all this, they were getting nothing done.

So, in 2013 I wrote The Distraction Trap: How to Focus in a Digital World. I studied

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research done in this field, and gathered examples from business, technology and life. I took advice from productivity experts, psychologists and scientists, and created a nine-step programme on how to focus in the digital world, and have since taken this into businesses, developing solutions to manage distractions, improve productivity and achieve a better balance.

Digital distraction is costing businesses dearly. There is a significant cost, for example, of time wasted on email. Many companies are starting to realise this, and financial services and technology have been two of the first sectors to tackle distraction.

Why? Perhaps because those working in technology can see sooner than most the impact it is having, and those working in finance are acutely aware of the cost of lost productivity.

For anyone working in communications or marketing, distraction can be a near-constant issue. When you’re working in a communications role, you often consume vast amounts of information and communicate with many different people. This can quickly lead to information overload. You are likely to get frequently distracted by demands from other people or by unimportant information. Many people in this situation feel overwhelmed, or as though they are getting nothing of any substance done.

Logging into Facebook, Twitter or email has become automatic to us through repetition

We must all learn to take time out from consuming information. Particularly when we need to create something.

The picture that emerged during the work I carried out for the book confirmed and expanded upon what I had heard anecdotally with solid research: many people feel they are battling against a neverending information stream. But, beyond that, I heard evidence that our dependence on digital devices is damaging creativity and productivity and, in extreme cases, is resulting in addiction. What is even more shocking is that our constant connectivity has actually physically rewired our brains.

As one neural pathway opens, another closes

Neuroplasticity is how scientists refer to the malleability of the human brain. When we learn a new skill, connections are formed between neurons creating new pathways within the brain. If we stop using that skill or spend more time practising another new skill, the connections weaken and stronger

connections form around the new activity.

The skill becomes easier as the pathways become stronger. If we think about how effortlessly we log into Facebook, Twitter or email, it’s clear this has become automatic through repetition – a very strong brain pathway has been established. We reinforce these new pathways every day, sometimes every few minutes, and it becomes very difficult to resist them.

As Nicholas Carr says in his book The Shallows: “If, knowing what we know today about the brain’s plasticity, you were to set out to invent a medium that would rewire our mental circuits as quickly and thoroughly as possible, you would probably end up designing something that works a lot like the Internet.”

Research on the changes that happen to our brain when we use the Internet has been carried out in various scientific studies. One piece of research was done by scientist Gary Small and his team. They found that after just five hours of Internet use, a person’s brain began to change. In

a separate study of 19-year-olds in China, excessive Internet use was linked to changes in parts of the brain that control attention and emotional processing.

More recently, research has been done into wellbeing and Internet use. A study by researchers at the University of British Columbia found that checking email less often reduces stress – something any of us who have been overwhelmed by email might want to try.

One reason we struggle with digital distraction is that the Internet is very good at grabbing our attention. And we tend to give our attention away a little too freely – to every link and message that demands it. So we browse YouTube while Internet shopping, check our email every time it pops up, or Google a question and emerge 20 minutes later via a string of links, reading about a completely unrelated subject.

We believe the myth that we can effectively multitask (though research shows we cannot), and have forgotten how to focus on just one thing. Operating on ‘split attention’ has become a way of life for many of us. However, when we ‘switch-task’, our productivity goes down by as much as 40% (according to researchers including David Meyer).

Digital distraction is damaging our relationships, disrupting our sleep, causing stress and reducing our productivity. In some cases, it is even putting lives at risk, with distracted walking and driving causing serious injuries. Even the way we form memories is affected by this new, distracted way of experiencing the world. We are so busy trying to do so many things at once that we are only processing memories on a superficial level. We are also using the Internet as an external memory. If we think we can easily find information we will need again later, we often remember how to get the information, rather than the information itself.

However, there is a growing recognition of the problems digital distraction can cause, and individuals and businesses are taking positive steps to make sure that we develop a more healthy and balanced relationship with technology at home and in the workplace.

This is a global issue that is increasingly being discussed. Since I wrote The Distraction Trap, it has been translated into Korean, French, Chinese, Italian, Spanish and Arabic. These are widespread issues that have an impact on us all. As technology and our relationship to it develop, we need to keep exploring what this means for us.

FOCUSING ON A GLOBAL PROBLEM

F

inancial services have been one of the first sectors to act on finding ways to stay focused in a digital world. I run training on managing distractions for businesses including Lloyd’s of London, looking at the cost of distraction, how to stay productive and what a difference being focused can make. This type of training highlights

the importance of concentration skills, which are vital in business for things like decision-making and creativity.

But being able to concentrate is in danger of becoming a lost art.

GERMANY German vehicle manufacturer, Daimler, introduced a policy whereby when someone goes on holiday, all their email is deleted.

SWEDEN This is an issue that is being tackled worldwide, and companies have already developed and trialled some very innovative solutions.

In Sweden, government workers have been trialled on six-hour working days.

FRANCE In France, labour

unions and corporations agreed to an obligation not to check emails outside of working hours that applied to 250,000 workers in consulting, computing and polling firms.

IT giant, Atos, banned internal email on discovering that staff received more than 100 internal emails a day and

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thought only 15 per cent of them useful.

They switched instead to instant messaging, social networks and cloud computing.

USA An experiment at Boston Consulting Group found that when people disconnected for a few predetermined hours every week, they worked more productively and were happier about

work. The research found that people responding to demands and being highly available made the demands increase. By breaking this ‘cycle of responsiveness’ people adjust their demands.

ITALY Ferrari limited to three the number of people to whom staff can send emails, stopping endless ‘copying in’.

Frances Booth is the author of The Distraction Trap: How to Focus in a Digital World (Pearson) and is an expert in digital distraction and digital detox.

She works with businesses to boost their productivity in a digital world.

She has worked as a journalist for The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph, and is an experienced media commentator, featuring in publications including Wired, Vanity Fair and The Huffington Post. Frances also blogs regularly for Forbes. Find out more and get in touch at www.hereare somewords.com

HOW TO DO A DIGITAL DETOX V

A digital detox is one way to stay productive and balanced in a wired world. When we return, recharged, we’re more productive and have a different perspective by allowing our thoughts and conversations to get all the way to their conclusion – rather than a smartphone interrupting by pinging every five minutes.

Here’s how to go about it: What is a digital detox? A digital detox is switching off all mobiles, smartphones, tablets, laptops and computers for a certain length of time. It should ideally be around 24 hours long as a minimum.

Prepare for your digital detox by thinking about some of these things:

motivation Remind yourself why you want to do a digital detox. Is it as an experiment to see what it feels like to go the opposite way in an increasingly connected world? Is it because you need to recharge your batteries? Do you want valuable thinking time?

* time for detox Choose a time that’s realistic for you to switch off for 24 hours or more. Tell anyone you need to that you’ll be away from your email and smartphone.

* make some plans Plan enjoyable activities for your time switched off. These can be things like cooking, walking or spending time with friends and family. You could pick up a neglected hobby or spend time reading.

* logging off

Straight after switching off, you might feel a sense of unease, and will perhaps have a strong urge to check your phone or computer. Just wait, and these feelings should pass.

* enjoy!

During a digital detox, there tends to be a feeling of having plenty of time (rather than rushing against time). You may well sleep better, think more clearly and more deeply, and feel re-energised.

Enjoy the change and notice your reaction to not being ‘on call’.

* logging on

Don't be overwhelmed returning to the digital world. Use the perspective you have gained. Redefine what is urgent, what is important, and what doesn’t need to be done. Unsubscribe to email lists you don't need. Check email and social media less frequently.

* repeat

A digital detox shouldn’t be a one-off. We can’t expect to recharge our batteries just once all year. So plan your next digital detox, and see if you can go further this time.

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WORDS Julie Meyer PORTRAIT Alex Rumford

u

< WARNING > DISRUPTIVE THINKING AHEAD Financial services firms must adapt, simplify and harness the power of digital upstarts or be lost in the disruptive deluge, warns start-up champion and Ariadne Capital Chief Executive, Julie Meyer

I

am an observer. This is the way I approach the world. I’ve been thinking the thoughts that I’m going to share with you for eight years, and I keep on trying to refine the thesis to find out whether or not I’m smoking dope.

I keep having conversations with smart entrepreneurs and investors, because, one day, someone might tell me something that I’ve observed incorrectly. If I’ve made a mistake or I need to refine my thesis, I will be open-minded. Yet, to be honest, the opposite is happening. The market is approaching where I’ve been. I understand how digital disruption is affecting traditional, non-tech businesses and the vital role digital enablers can play in helping them build digital revenues.

Disruption is a constant process of change in business. It’s always happening.

Sometimes you get a good run of it – say a 20-year monopoly like Microsoft. But sometimes, it’s very short-lived. You can think of it in Darwinian terms. Charles Darwin didn’t say that the strongest survive, but that the most fit are the ones who can change – who have that adaptability.

Companies and markets are in constant flux. It’s easy for those at the top, or deeply embedded in a large business, to think that they’ll simply stay there. But that’s not the case. What we know as we look back at history is that even the most profound monopolies give way to new business models, new empires, new industries, new market leaders.

I take guidance and signals from people like Carlotta Perez (LSE Professor of Technology and Development) who have analysed the way that technology has changed the world over the past 300 years.

She’s done the hard yards to be able to say

disruptive technology or these ‘big bangs’ – be it the microprocessor or Arkwright’s mill or the combustion engine or the printing press – happen roughly every 60 to 80 years. There follows a process of embedding it into society whereby a new common sense emerges by the end of the cycle. Understanding this, we realise we don’t need to be smart enough to understand the cosmos; just humble enough to read history.

I try to anchor things in historical events, like how capital has always followed ideas (it’s not about the Medici family, it’s about Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

Queen Isabella put Christopher Columbus on a retainer but he’s the guy that found the New World). It helps put things in context and allows us to observe a pattern. I’m interested in patterns because that’s my business: to anticipate. When an entrepreneur tells me their vision of the future, and asks me to help bring it to life, it’s about listening to them and analysing their business model.

But putting it in this broader historical context is one more part of the due diligence and helps realise that what they are doing isn’t so crazy because it bears a similarity to what happened 10 or 40 or 100 years ago.

Building highways for digital cars

If change is the constant, then the disruptors are the people who are challenging these monopolies or these market leadership positions. They are the people who have come up with the latest understanding of how the market is shifting. If that’s not you, and if you don’t have the capacity to see the early signs, then you have to find a consistent and systematic way to get hold of that information. I would argue you must find a way to engage the digital enablers.

Entrepreneurs are obsessed with the future. They have an insight, a secret about

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the way that the future is going to work, and they are obsessed with making that future the present. Large companies are not obsessed with that. Large companies are obsessed with how to scale products into very large operations to maximise profits.

In the case of financial services, I see a lot of companies spending a lot of money on big innovation programmes and hiring accelerators and creating cost centres, as opposed to building digital revenues. And I think the reason they are doing that is because they don’t really know what to do. They see the Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google brigade and they are scared out of their minds.

Then they see their baby brothers – Uber, Tesla, AirBnB – and the world is moving so fast. And they think, “Oh my God. Do we set up a corporate venturing fund? Do we buy companies? Do we buy an accelerator programme? What do we do?”

What they should actually be doing is analysing the winners and figuring out why they are winning, and then imitate, copy and steal. There is nothing wrong with that.

If somebody is highly successful, figure out why, and figure out if you could do the same in your own particular way with your own particular assets. If we look closely at the winners, we see that all of these companies basically become platforms. They are engaging with the app economy and enabling all of these start-up companies to push their ideas and applications through their vast distribution networks. They become a highway for these digital cars.

Why can’t financial services institutions become true platforms and use their scale and distribution networks in similar ways?

It is the ‘digital Davids’ who are figuring out next-generation customer applications – like what Nutmeg is doing with wealth management or what Money Dashboard

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“If you’re not happy with the status quo then change it,” says the entrepreneurial Julie Meyer

TONY FRENCH

is building. Large, traditional business are never going to get there. They don’t think these big thoughts, and they’re not obsessed with the future and what the next big thing is in their consumer insight. The Goliaths are obsessed with scaling, managing customer relationships and making sure it doesn’t all fall over – and that’s a good thing to be obsessed with. The ideal model is to leverage the strength of the larger firm’s customer base and build a highway into that market for the smaller firms. Goliath must dance with David.

Hence, a lot of financial services companies are still hiring consultants and buying companies, and just spending millions on accelerator programmes, and they are not actually testing and piloting applications and working with digital enablers whose whole focus is to build the sector’s future.

While there are some good examples within the industry (see Schroders’ work with Nutmeg), there are still far too many ignoring or trying to outsource the problem, and much of it comes down to how people in large corporations are incentivised.

If people are incentivised to get sales for existing products or to build profits, they will do what they are going to get paid for.

Why is there an opportunity for Bitcoin, or next-generation digital identity, or any

such insights to become propositions that the digital Davids in the financial services bring to market? Because, fundamentally, the industry did not clean up its act after the crash. It is still doing things which are deeply untransparent, it’s still taking fees on many different levels, it’s still far too complex.

We’re now living in a world of radical transparency, of trust worth trust. A world where people say: “You know, it’s all very nice that we’ve known each other for 17 years but I don’t trust you. I want to see the data.”

Balance sheet is dead, long live distribution network

Apple Pay is fuelling the Apple business and is now threatening the banks (who used to be in control of their own networks) – just as it did music and telecoms. They are a new entrant into the business model because they got a grip of a whole bunch of consumers, and have become the organisers of the economics in the banking network.

And the banks can’t believe it’s happened.

This is because they did not align themselves with consumers, work out what they want, and then organise a set of economics to enable that to happen even more so.

I met with a London company recently that has basically created a solution to facilitate trading (bonds etc.) in a radically

A RECIPE FOR DISRUPTIVE THINKING

A

ny entrepreneur who has had any amount of success has a secret. They understand something about the future for whatever reason. It could be a unique life experience, or they have a particular talent, or something happened that made them a twisted individual. They understand something about the future that normal people, who have been socialised

and worked in normal circumstances, have not understood yet. A lot of people can be that way, but not everybody is driven to bring that obsession to the world. It’s a combination of understanding the inevitable, communication skills and the obsessive drive to actually make it happen, because they have to be comfortable with people telling them, “You’re crazy! It’s not going to happen like that.” They

have to have a kind of resilience and an ability to withstand pressure, and to get the right people around them. They have to be leaders. A lot of people can have pieces of that but they could be too abrasive, or poor at communication, or they may lack drive and persistence, or they may have a flawed insight into the future. Those are the things that when you see them happening you say, “Tick, tick, tick, tick.”

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new way, and it’s just growing like a weed.

The whole eco-system of the trading world between banks and asset management firms and traders, and who gets information from where, is changing completely.

It’s another great example that the power is now in the distribution network and that’s fundamentally difficult for a lot of banks to understand, because they can’t control it. People in the industry are still thinking that the balance sheet is king. But entrepreneurs have now created ways to maximise a network effect. So you’d better find a way to engage with them and be valuable to them to help them build the network effect and make a better market for you. Just don’t believe you can control it because of your balance sheet.

Beyond the banks

Entrepreneurs are subversive people. I am a case-in-point. I want to change things.

I’m not happy with the status quo. If I were happy with it, I wouldn’t have set up my own business. The act of setting up your own business is to say: “They’re not doing it correctly, and so I’m going to set up my own shop.” They’re used to working in unstructured environments because they are egotistical enough to think that they can make better structures. That’s not even greed, it’s ego.

Technological developments from these people are going to affect every industry eventually, not just financial services.

Transportation, oil and gas, shipping, you name it, the world is being transformed by digital business models, and so from the Church, to the government, to schools, to the NHS, the entire separation of public and private is disappearing. Forty years ago it was impossible to think that British Gas would not be a publically owned entity, and then magically it became privately held.

As individuals are being empowered through technology, they are being empowered to live lives that 10 or even five years ago we couldn’t imagine. If you’re not the person about to rip up the rule book, maybe now is the time to engage with the people who are.

WORDS Graham Cox PHOTOGRAPHY gl0ck

ARMED WITH INTELLIGENCE Imagine, for one heart-stopping moment, that you’re sitting face to face with terrorists.

How would you attempt to influence them?

With a background in British Intelligence and the UK Armed Forces, Graham Cox has lots of experience in persuading difficult people what to do. He calls it ‘responsive design’

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Y

ou are the most important thing in your world. And I am the most important in mine. Human beings are intrinsically lazy.

We are programmed to see everything around us from our own perspective. It’s all about us.

One of the first things you learn in Intelligence is the importance of thinking not about yourself but about those whom you want to influence. I call it responsive design.

There’s a lot of talk about responsive design for websites (ensuring that they can be viewed across all platforms) but responsive design for humans is much more powerful. In simple terms, it means constantly adapting your behaviour to influence those that surround you. Of course, it’s not necessarily as simple as it sounds – but here are some key steps towards starting to get it right.

Know yourself

When we react negatively to someone’s behaviour, is it their fault or ours? Far too often, we blame them without questioning the reason for our response.

Take the issue of trust. I have an extrovert personality; I want to be trusted and I want to be trusted fast. I also place my faith in people very quickly. That’s just the way I am and it’s useful in an operational context … well, sometimes. But I meet lots of people in business who are relatively slow to trust others. They may be highly intelligent, analytical people who like to go through a critical process before bestowing their trust; they may have had their trust broken in the past; or they may just be naturally cautious.

I therefore have to be self-aware and ensure that I don’t take offence when trust comes slowly. If I do, the person I am meeting will pick up on negative signals from me, and any hope of trust will be kicked into touch.

Trusting someone involves making a decision, and decision-making is also a process that differs widely in people.

Some people like to make fast, instinctive decisions; others are far more methodical. And at the extremes, these two types of personality can clash unless they are both self-aware and recognise where their own frustrations are coming from – which isn’t easy.

Because we each believe that we are the best thing in the world, we tend to justify our own behaviour and blame others for causing arguments and problems. That’s why psychometric testing can be very useful – it provides an insight into our personalities that we would be unable to achieve on our own. Take care though – there are a lot of unregulated psychometric tests out there.

I use techniques endorsed by the British Psychological Society.

“I’m surprised at how often people will attend a business meeting with someone they have not met before without having done basic homework. You can tell a lot from reading about someone online, and begin to understand what ambitions, fears and motivations they might have”

Understand people

Just as we have to understand ourselves better, we need to understand those we wish to influence. A simple example is personal space. Some people are uncomfortable with people ‘invading’ their personal space.

Others like to talk close up. Get two of the more extreme types of those personalities together and you end up with a waltz, with one chasing the other around the room. Those conversations will never lead anywhere fruitful.

Powerful influencers understand the feelings of those they speak to in terms of personal space, and mirror them. They have a natural way of monitoring those they are with, checking their body language, looking for signs of distrust or irritation, and endeavouring to build empathy. When powerful influencers put on a presentation to a group of 10 people, they actually put on 10 one-to-one presentations.

Knowledge is also very powerful. I’m surprised at how often people will attend a business meeting with someone they have not met before without having done basic homework. You can tell a lot from reading about someone online, and begin to understand what ambitions, fears and motivations they might have. More importantly, showing the other person that you have some understanding of who they are and what they have done is hugely important when building trust. And if you think you’ve reached a level of seniority where you don’t need to do that kind of thing any more, you couldn’t be more wrong.

Learn to persuade

As already hinted, and as most people working in comms and marketing will be aware of, mirroring someone’s body

language in subtle ways can be a very effective way of making them feel comfortable with you. But of course, the best persuasion skill of all is simply to listen – and to listen carefully with interest. Looking out for clues of things that are important to the person talking and then bringing them up yourself will build trust.

This stage in a relationship is all about building empathy. Anything you can find in common between yourselves will be useful.

Above and beyond that, we humans are powerfully influenced by non-verbal factors (see Poppy issue 01, p12-13) – the way we dress, the way we talk, even where we choose to meet. There is also a theory that you can influence someone positively by dabbing a small amount of their perfume or cologne on you before meeting them – but maybe that’s taking things a little too far.

Tell the story

Storytelling was also covered in depth in issue 01 of Poppy (p17-19) but, in this case, it’s as much to do with the way that you tell a story as the content. We’ve probably all seen films featuring a negotiator who slows the pace down by telling the hostage-taker a story.

Our brains are wired to empathise with someone telling us a compelling story. We will relax, we will listen and we are much more open to persuasion. Without sounding stilted or scripted, it’s a good idea to have a

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fund of stories at the back of your mind that you can call on to drop into conversation and mould towards the interests of the person you are talking to. This story can be the key moment in a successful negotiation or discussion – but don’t tell too many, and don’t launch into them too early. Listen and build trust first.

Challenge your prejudices

Offending someone is easy. It’s so easy that we all regularly do it without realising we have. You can build self-awareness and awareness of others; you can learn persuasion skills and storytelling techniques; but unconscious bias can wreck it all.

However enlightened we like to think we are, we are all prejudiced in some way or another. Indeed, those who claim to be enlightened are invariably every bit as prejudiced as anyone else. Ultimately, we tend to like people who are like us – in terms of personality, class, interests, outlook, race, sexual preference and so on. When we are with people who are very different to us, we may feel insecure or uncomfortable; it’s human nature.

Tackling unconscious bias means interrogating our own thoughts and actions in a relationship to ensure that we are not behaving in a way that is prejudiced or discriminatory – because if it is, it will be spotted, even if we are not aware of it.

GRAHAM COX Graham Cox is a Director of Boundaries Edge (www. boundaries-edge. com), a team of former intelligence and military officers working with business psychologists to help give businesses an edge in recruitment, comms and strategy.

EIGHT RULES OF RESPONSIVE DESIGN ONE

Arrange a psychometric test and discover who you really are.

Use the information.

EIGHT

TWO

And if all that fails, wear the same perfume.

Where do you stand on the trust scale? If you trust people easily, don’t be offended if someone is slow to trust you.

THREE

If you don’t do it already, start exploring the art of mirroring body language. It may prove handy when you need it most.

FOUR

However senior or junior you are, find out about people before you meet them. Show your knowledge of them without giving them the impression that you are a stalker.

SEVEN

Most important of all: listen, listen, listen.

SIX

FIVE

Choose your moment in meetings, and then tell a story that weaves together your messages with your understanding of your audience.

What are your prejudices?

Identify them and ensure they don’t detrimentally influence your relationships.

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