A Note From The President

Avil Beckford, President

I sent out the last issue of Ambeck Edge in May 2007, and recently, I was reflecting on how easy it is to break good habits and how difficult it is to form them. I broke a commitment to myself to publish Ambeck Edge monthly, and it has taken me a while to get back my rhythm, but one of the lessons that I have had to learn is to be a lot easier on myself. I have learned a lot during the hiatus and I hope that the newsletter has improved because of that.

Over the past few months I have been thinking a lot about service and how I can serve others better. How do I change my life to better serve others? One of the main reasons why I produce Ambeck Edge is to share information that I have come across and I hope that my readers learn from it. I interview successful individuals because I would like to learn from them and readers have told me that they too learn from the people profiled.

In this issue, Dr. Robert Fugere talks about his experiences and the challenges he faced managing and advising a Non Governmental Organization. And this month, I review The Go-Giver, a business book written as a fable, which addresses the importance of giving. I remember always being told - but I cannot remember by whom - that it is better to give than receive, and I always thought that, that made no sense. The authors of The Go-Giver, Bob Burg and David Mann talk about the fallacy of the whole idea of it's better to give than receive. They suggest that receiving is the natural result of giving. I will stop my message right here and leave you to draw your own conclusions.

P.S. Like this newsletter? Will customize for medium-sized firms that want to distribute it to their staff. Contact me at avil.beckford@ambeck.com and let's talk!

Book Review

The Go-Giver by Bob Burg & David Mann

The Go-Giver by Bob Burg & David Mann doesn't present any new information, but it presents old information in the form of a fable, that's a reminder for you. At 127 pages, The Go-Giver is an easy read.

We all lead such busy lifestyles and are constantly bombarded with new information, so we inevitably forget things that we are supposed to know and even practice. The Go-Giver is a gentle reminder to us for some of the things that we should be paying attention to. One example is the importance of paying attention to your thoughts because you usually get from life what you focus on. According to Pindar, one of the key characters in the fable, "Most of us have grown up seeing the world as a place of limitation rather than as a place of in-exhaustible treasures… You get what you expect… What you focus on is what you get… Ultimately, the world treats you more or less the way you expect to be treated."

A lot of emphasis is placed on service and the book suggests that the goal of a great product or service is to provide higher quality than any money could possibly pay for. Ask yourself these questions about your product or service:

• Does it serve?
• Does it add value to others? And if yes,
• Does it make money?
  

The following Five Laws of Stratospheric Success summarize what The Go-Giver by Bob Burg & David Mann is about.

Five Laws of Stratospheric Success

1. The Law of Value: your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment
2. The Law of Compensation: your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them
3. The Law of Influence: your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people's interests first
4. The Law of Authenticity: the most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself
5. The Law of Receptivity: the key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving
   
   

5 Great Ideas

1. The secret to success is giving - make it a way of life - givers attract
2. Making money isn't a goal that will make you successful. The truly successful people, the ones that are successful in all aspects of their lives, focus on sharing and giving
3. Appearances can be deceiving, it's like the old adage, never judge a book by its cover
4. People will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like and trust
5. There are three universal laws for working: to survive - meet your basic needs, save - expand your life and go beyond basic needs, and serve - make a contribution for the greater good. Strive for the last reason
   

Words of Wisdom

It doesn't matter what your training, education and skills are, no matter what area you are working in, you are your most important commodity. You are the most valuable gift that you can give to yourself, so start appreciating and accepting you.

It's a nice book and easy read, so if you have the inclination to get a refresher on some old success principles pick up a copy.

February's Book List

The Go-Giver by Bob Burg & David Mann

Survey Results

According to The StepStone Total Talent Report 2008 research conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit:

• Most respondents see Asia-Pacific as providing the best opportunities for revenue growth
• The findings suggest that economic development and rising skills in these emerging markets will be an advantage to companies when it comes to recruiting talented individuals
• With demand for talent in the region [Asia-Pacific] far outstripping supply, firms will have to ramp up pay and offer improved working conditions if they are to exploit its potential
• Rates of remuneration remain important; 43% of executives seeing this as the most important factor for retaining key employees
• However, career development opportunities are seen by almost half as the most powerful tool in this respect
• 54% of the respondents have used the offer of higher starting salaries to overcome recruitment difficulties in the past, but a significantly lower proportion (24%) say they would deploy this strategy again in the future
• 41% of respondents believe attracting and retaining skilled employees will become significantly harder, and 45% agree that their organisation is currently experiencing a shortage of talent
• Of the 395 senior executives who responded:
  • Close to half the respondents described one of their main functional roles as human resources
  • 32% were c-level executives,
  • 13% directors, vice-presidents or senior vice-presidents

Source: http://www.stepstone.com/EN/TotalTalent/Report/2008/

How Did They Do That?

Interview Dr. Robert Fugere, Consultant

Challenge: I had been managing and advising Canadian and international NGOs for more than twenty five years until I retired, but my most challenging assignment came when I offered to be the six-months interim Executive Director for a local environmental group.

This group had a seventeen year history of excellent secondary research, good neighbourhood projects, and most of all, effective lobbying of city councillors.
A bookkeeper and canvass manager (with five contract street fund-raisers) were the support staff; most of the content work over the past seven years had been carried out by four campaigners.

I knew when I started that two of these campaigners had just moved on to better positions elsewhere and the third one -whom I was replacing- was going off on maternity leave. My assignment from the Board was to "hold the fort and prepare for a strategic planning process".

Within six weeks, I discovered that our $500,000 budget seemed to be overspent by $100,000. After two months the remaining senior campaigner informed me that he was leaving to run in the municipal election.

That left me with one part-time replacement campaigner, two challenging reports to prepare for our major donors, and a lot of sleepless nights, trying to figure out what to do to keep this noble but battered ship afloat. There were only three options to put to the Board:

1. Borrow some staff from other NGOs;
2. Set up an emergency fund-raising campaign;
3. Or quietly close the shop.
   

Resolution: I leaned toward the last option. That Board meeting was crucial. Two canvassers pledged to increase their door-knocking for the next three months. One Board member from the labour unions declared that this NGO's work was so crucial for its worker/members that they would put up a line-of-credit loan to see us through the next six months.

Those votes of confidence were enough to permit the hiring part-time of two experienced campaigners who helped prepare two successful grant submissions and the raising of $20,000 from a few key friends who also valued the work we had done.

Lessons Learned

1. In my NGO management classes, I had long taught that our major asset as NGOs was the quality of the work we did, and this experience had proven that thesis
2. The excellent work this NGO had done over many years had built its reputation -and its acknowledged presence- in Toronto's civil society, so that even with an almost complete turnover of staff, it still merited others' support. It was this reputation, not the salary level, that attracted the new campaigners, that garnered the unions' support
3. For me personally, I saw how important it could be to maintain an open, fully-informed and calm hand on the tiller when the seas run high. Though I couldn't provide either the money or the technical environmental knowledge required, the staff, the Board and the donors all needed to sense that a trusted person would provide the information and maturity to bring each of their partial contributions to a common result
   

What Can Ambeck Do For You:

Ambeck Enterprise provides diverse business research and analysis services to senior executives, through the relevant distillation of diverse facts and data.

Formula for Success

Dr. Robert Fugere

Good quality work builds your reputation which is a major asset.

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