I SAY, I SAY BY PETER GRAY
“IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES…
“…It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…”, the opening lines from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. And how apt for the times in which we’re living.
Australia has been through recessions before – including the one we ‘had to have’ in the early 90s – and we all claim to have learned the lessons that such times teach us. And yet how quickly those lessons are forgotten when times are good. In a recession businesses tend to scale down their staffing to just the levels they need; they take on debt for only the most essential purposes; they seek avidly for new business opportunities. But when the good times come again, as they surely do, old - and bad - habits die hard.
Business soon becomes flabby again; taking on staff it really could do without, not really thinking out that next expansion plan to avoid unnecessary costs and, worst of all, not being quite so hungry for new business.
It’s no wonder that we’re in the grip of a recession because wherever you turn that’s what the headlines – in print, in the electronic media, on the radio and television – scream at us. This, of course, is because good news doesn’t sell newspapers (or attract people to web sites). And, of course, companies – particularly banks – that use incentive programs and reward their staff when they achieve their targets are fair game. A recent edition of one of News Limited’s more popular but less than accurate newspapers pilloried one of the major banks for taking a group of high achievers to Hayman Island where, it casually mentioned, the top suite costs in excess of $1,500 a night. The fact that this group didn’t use that particular suite didn’t seem to worry them, but why let the facts spoil a good story?
This particular newspaper also forgot to mention that it and most of its competitors regularly take advertisers who meet their advertising revenue targets to off-shore destinations (usually ranging far wider afield than Hayman Island) as a reward for their business.
There was a time when an incentive reward was something to shout about. Signage on buses and at hotels, special headrest covers on airline seats, in-flight corporate videos, welcome signs at arrival airports and plenty of name-dropping at hotels that had secured the business. Sadly, no more. A combination of security considerations and, more recently, the attention of the media has meant that incentive reward groups often travel incognito and only the incentive company, the DMC and the hotel know why they’re there.
So much negativity!
Phillip Adams in his column in a recent Weekend Australian magazine quotes Ismail Seralgeldin, director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina: “The worst of times? No these are the best of times, an opportunity for unprecedented creativity” and to use his own words in the same article, “pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy”. Negativity is stifling creativity and opportunity!
Not long ago the NSW Chamber of Trade surveyed its members and reported that one out of four of them had reported that they would be laying-off staff by the end of the year. This was reported across the media – newspapers, radio, television and the Web. Wouldn’t a more positive spin on this have been that three out of four of their members would not be laying-off staff and might even increase staff numbers?
Similarly, when, earlier this year, the an association in the training sector reported that fifteen percent of the companies surveyed would be cutting or eliminating the amount they spent on training a much more positive message would have been than 85% weren’t!
Incentives are the most effective marketing tool when times are hard; when the market requires much more effort, skill or persistence to secure a sale or to increase a regular order. Or if there’s a need to change attitudes, to increase awareness of a product’s benefits; to increase the efficiency of support staff, to promote cooperation and even to change corporate culture. Too often incentives are the first casualty when budgets are tight and yet they are the way forward. So, grab opportunities, be creative and, above all, be positive.
Peter Gray is the Managing Partner of Motivating People www.motivatingpeople.net
For Speaking availability, Quotes and information email peter.gray@motivatingpeople.netcopyright Peter J Gray Motivating People 2009
