Chairman's Blog

I have certainly covered some miles since my last blog which I wrote as Th!nkFM came to a close. On the Friday afterwards I was at Ladies Day at Aintree for the Grand National meeting, I had one winner so was reasonably happy. If you follow my tweets you may have noted I was observing some of the challenges FM face in large sporting venues and I have to say it is amazing how quickly the venue is cleared and made ready for the next day despite hosting around 70,000 people.

The following day was a complete contrast as I went to stay with friends between Geneva and Lausanne overlooking lake Geneva, with a regular service from Leeds Bradford airport we can be door to door in under four hours. It was nice to relax, get a little sun and explore before returning to work after an extended weekend.

The following week I was in London for our BIFM board meeting and took the opportunity to network with our previous chair Iain and Liz Kentish, our newest board member the night before. With our differing (and plentiful) experience it was a great discussion which went on somewhat later than planned helped by the odd drink or two. The board meeting went well too with lots of progress made against plan and discussion about where this puts us in the current market as (hopefully) we start to see green shoots of recovery.

Last weekend was as busy as ever with a team night out on Friday, football on Saturday, a 30th birthday party and a 25 mile training walk on Sunday so it was a rather weary and sunburnt me that fell in to bed on Sunday evening.

At Hallmark we are currently looking at a number of retail options and on Tuesday I had a long trip down to Ebbw Vale to view a unit on Festival Park. This is a beautiful area of the country but clearly blighted by industrial closures over the years, the unit we are looking at sits on the site built for the international garden festival back in the 1990?s. On Wednesday I attended a Midlands rising FM?s event at which our CEO Ian Fielder and myself presented on networking and motivation respectively. This was kindly sponsored by Kinnarps and a very good event too.

Over the coming weekend I have a mixture of a 10 mile run I do every Good Friday, work, a sibling to stay and hopefully see my football team striving to get away from relegation. Over the next week I am back out at retail and then next weekend joining the Catch22 charity walk along the Cumbrian Way, 80 miles in 3 day so lets pray for good weather as we raise funds for the Lords Taverners. Apparently there is a big wedding that weekend but for us the big event is in the Lake District.

Following this I have a couple of days in the office before flying out to Australia for a week but I will save that for my next blog.

During my talk on motivating a team on Wednesday I shared these words with the delegates, as you take some time off over Easter (I hope) why not use it as a chance to review where you are with your plans for the year, how your team is performing and whether you need to re-assess and re-direct. Anyway whatever your plans I hope you enjoy this period of bank holidays.

"Everyone is a potential winner
Some people may be disguised as losers
Don't let their appearance fool you"

So whether you are a manager or part of a team here are some things to think about

- Know you are making (our) world a better place
- Make sure everyone is working towards a shared goal
- Make sure everyone is in control of achieving the goal
- Cheer each other on, celebrate
- Re-assess and redirect
- Congratulations need to be TRUE (Timely, Responsive, Unconditional and Enthusiastic
- Make sure you and your team are working towards a common goal and everyone understands what it is
- Be aware of what risks are out there but when driving your team tell them what success looks like