Linking In
As a member of LinkedIn, I’m flattered by how frequently I receive invitations from others whom I do not know inviting me to LinkIn with them.
LinkedIn, as I am sure many of us have found out, is a double-edged sword. It can be highly useful for building networks and relationships, but it can also become a nuisance when people simply reach out without any introduction.
I have a simple rule: I don’t LinkIn with anyone whom I do not know or to whom I haven’t been introduced by an existing connection. Whilst this may sound harsh, it pays to remember that once we LinkIn with someone, they have access to all our contacts. The risk is that they then contact those connections to sell something, or for other questionable purposes.
I believe that I have a responsibility to those to whom I am connected on LinkedIn to make sure that their privacy is respected. I am perfectly happy to provide introductions where I believe they will be beneficial for both my contact and the person I am introducing to them.
I have, on several occasions, when faced with a request to LinkIn with someone I don’t know, reached out to mutual contacts to ask them about the person concerned. Sadly, I have often received the reply, “I don’t really know them.”
In real life, one does not walk up to total strangers and ask. “Will you be my friend?” That sort of behaviour is likely to get you arrested! “Networking Events” are different because the purpose is clearly stated, and people go with an agenda. Personally, I feel that reaching out to LinkIn with someone should only happen once you have established contact either at a social or business networking function or after being introduced by a mutual contact.
In short, I am happy to LinkIn with anyone who is either introduced by one of my contacts, or with whom I have formed a connection through social or business events. I appreciate that business these days is less about what you know than about whom you know. I am a firm believer in networking, but I also believe that there is a “right” and a “wrong” way of doing so.
To summarise:
- If we wish to LinkIn with someone whom we don’t know, we should first find out if we have any mutual connections and ask them to introduce us.
- If we have no mutual connection but still wish to link in, then we should preface our request to connect with a brief message as to why we wish to connect.
Remember networking should be a win-win situation. It should not be a case of one in the relationship leveraging off the goodwill of the other.
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Career, Social, Strategy
Checks and Balances
With the departure of the latest prime minister of the UK on 20th of October 2022, the world witnessed the concept of checks and balances in one of its purest forms.
A “mini-budget“ announced on 23 September 2022 ran into a solid wall of opposition from financial markets and criticism from financial bodies respected around the world.
The result was a sell-off of gilts (UK Treasury finance bills) and a looming rise to unprecedented levels of interest rates to counter V inflationary pressures that would result. As the Economist observed in its 22nd October 20 222 edition, “Mr Kwarteng (Chancellor of the Exchequer/Finance Minister) declined to show it his draft budget, which threw monetary and fiscal policy into conflict: he just opened the taps and declared it Andrew Bailey’s (Head of the Bank of England) job to deal with the resulting rise in inflation.“ suffice to say, Mr Kwarteng did not last long after that. He was sacked on 14 October 2022.
A new chancellor/minister of finance has been appointed. He trashed the policies that caused the economic ruckus and financial markets stabilised as a result.
There can be few better illustrations of the “checks and balances” system that prevails in democracies and financial and free markets. The downside may be that it may be the markets that have control over free democracies rather than governments themselves. In this case, I prefer to take the view that the proposals made on 23rd October would have resulted in incredible economic hardship for the UK and its people, let alone provoked massive inflation which would have resulted in even more increases to the cost of living exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine. Clearly something had to be done and it was. Brutally.
If nothing else, we have all been presented with a lesson in the danger of “hubris” - excessive pride in one’s own intellect and capabilities, leading to one’s downfall. The Chancellor has gone. The prime minister has gone. I suspect that, at the next general election in the UK, the governing party will also go.
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Financial, Leadership, Strategy
A New Era of Protectionism?
Recently, I asked whether global globalisation was finally in retreat. The retreat was mainly caused by the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 to 2022 which saw the worlds factory (China) close down because of coronavirus concerns. Even now China continues to pursue a “Zero-Covid“ policy.
On realising the downside of relying on overseas partners to produce strategically important products, many countries began to consider “re-shoring“ production previously outsourced overseas.
This is a perfectly natural and understandable reaction. The downside, however, is that it can also act as a justification for a new round of protectionism. At times this may have little significance. At others, especially in regions such as the EU, we may find that countries that compete in the same industries not only re-shore production, but also recommence handing out state subsidies in order to boost those industries’ strength vis-a-vis competing countries.
If coronavirus and the current events in Ukraine are taken in a certain way, it clearly makes sense to become once again self–sufficient in the production and distribution of strategically important goods and services. The problem comes when this morphs into protection and subsidisation of inefficient and outdated national champions who, in the “free market”, would be consigned to oblivion. This has been a constant refrain in the EU over examples such as farming subsidies which some see as benefiting inefficient producers using outdated methods but who must be kept happy to preserve governments.
China’s rise as an industrial superpower resulted in a number of small and medium-sized businesses not only competing against cheaper products, but also, at times, becoming customers of the very country that was putting them out of business. This is one of the drawbacks of so-called “globalisation”. It’s necessarily implies a re-distribution of production capacity and this is usually accompanied by a fall in demand for workers in the industry affected in the other country.
Offshoring has its benefits; of that there can be little doubt. Balance is necessary, as we have seen, to ensure that in an emergency, vital supplies can still be obtained. We none of us want to rely, for example, on another country racked with pandemic or that has become a political foe (as is the case with the invasion of the Ukraine by Russia) and can therefore “turn off the taps” as Russia has done with the flow of gas to Europe.
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610
Labels: Crisis Management, Customer Care, Financial, Productivity, Risk, Strategy
Is Globalisation in Retreat?
From the late 1980s two roughly the end of the first decade of the new millennium, globalisation was the rage. Goods which would normally be expensive at home dropped in price as the manufacturers outsourced manufacture to low-cost countries. As part of this, a huge and complex global supply chain group developed alongside. Consumers, manufacturers, labour markets in low-cost countries, and transport companies all benefited.
All this was great whilst it worked. Look at what we are facing now however, and one begins to wonder whether globalisation is finally coming to an end.
After years of “cheap money“ following the financial crisis of 2008 to 2009, interest rates are now rising. Global inflation is also rising, putting pressure on central banks to increase interest rates even further. The US dollar is at its strongest for some time, meaning that those with US dollar debt Have a problem. Shares have dropped in terms of value meaning that pension funds are also shrinking resulting in reduced purchasing power for pensioners.
The question now is whether we are in for a period of economic uncertainty for a major sea change. The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 to 2022 has taught us the danger of outsourcing the supply of critical goods and equipment overseas because, as was clearly demonstrated if a pandemic hits the country that manufactures those goods, those goods will not be in production. This will mean that certain goods will now be “insured“ again and this means a possible increase in price.
Additionally, in order to keep their economies going, governments poured huge amounts of money into compensating workers for drugs that, of course, could not be done due to social distancing requirements. Those governments are now working out how to repay this debt, some perhaps with more success than others.
Events in the Ukraine also resulting in great uncertainty. Oil and gas prices have increased as a result putting all economies on the more stress. We may also see an increase in defence spending amongst the countries that constitute the EU and that are members of NATO.
In many of the developed countries, populations are a dream. This means significantly increased costs in the healthcare in general.
Will we see countries retreating into economic and financial isolation? Personally, I don’t think so. What we will see is a review of supply lines for what are considered essential goods and services for economies, a review of defence spending, more of a tilt towards energy sources that rely less on oil and gas. The global supply chains are still heavily interlinked and will take time to dismantle (just as they took time to build in the first place). What I do think we will see is a restructure of the global economic order but whether this is for better or worse has yet to be decided.
I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Financial, Productivity, Selling, Strategy
