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Creative Thinking to Survive the Credit Crunch The credit crunch is starting bite us both in our personal and organisational pockets. So what can your company do to stay ahead in these increasingly competitive times? Plough money into advertising? Develop your staff? Change your culture? Try to come up with more creative ways to do things better and / or cheaper? Or do you just not spend / do anything at all? Before you decide, consider the following true story: During World War I, chocolate, like everything else, was rationed. However, Cadbury's chocolate ploughed nearly their entire budget into advertising and development. In 1915 Cadbury's launched a new product - Milk Tray - and bought out the market leader Fry's. They did radio and newspaper advertising; sent warm clothing, books and chocolate to the front line. So why the huge campaign when no one could get any chocolate? Well when the war ended and rationing stopped, sales rocketed. The images of Cadbury's delicious chocolate had been in everyone's mind during this difficult period, when the Armistice Day celebrations started, people started to buy chocolate. Now Cadbury's could not have predicted that the war would end in November, but their newest product, Milk Tray, was one the most popular Christmas presents in 1918. Will your staff be ready when the recession ends? Will you be capable of handling the explosion of business? Don't wait until you are caught up in the whirlwind; train your staff now while we are in the eye of the storm. Budgets may be tight now, but they won't stay that way. So if you develop your managers, leaders and employees now - and get them engaged in making real changes and improvements - you will be ready to increase, expand and develop your business and, like Cadbury's, you will stand the test of time...and this recession. As Charles Darwin said: 'It is not the strongest or most intelligent of species that survive . . . it's those who can adapt best to change'
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Dear Pearlcatchers, Like many organisations, we are used to change being coordinated through major and highly-structured programmes with reports, project plans, work-streams, key deliverables and the like. A new director has recently joined our division and has been put in charge of a major culture change programme across the organisation. He has told us that he will be using a different approach - viral change - and recruiting a team of advocates to 'spread the word'. I don't want to seem stupid, but I have never heard of this approach and from what my director has said it doesn't sound very organised. Can you give me any information on what this 'viral change' is all about and how it can fit with our more structured approach to change. |
Culture Change at Staffordshire Libraries The mission of the Staffordshire Library & Information Service is 'To deliver an excellent customer-focused service in an innovative way in partnership with others, investing in staff and improving performance to attain standards'. As with many library services, Staffordshire had been 'going through changes' and moving to 'new ways of working', when they first contacted Pearlcatchers regarding their staff conference. Much progress had been made already, particularly in terms of access, environment, stock and marketing. There have been huge physical, process and cultural changes within the service recently, such as partnership working, setting up one stop shops and being more creative / empowered. |
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Getting Your Message Across through Storytelling There has been a lot of talk recently about the need for managers and leaders to use stories to envision the future and motivate their employees to change. However, stories are part of our everyday life and have a far more wide-ranging set of uses that just influencing change. Most of us have been conditioned to believe that business communication must be clear, rational and objective, with no place for emotion or subjective thinking. But great communicators know that the best way to inspire, motivate and persuade others is to infuse a human element into discussions through the simple telling of stories. The sense of human presence in communication is frequently elbowed out by 'criteria' designed to make communication clear, bite-sized and attention grabbing, but which instead oversimplifies, truncates and irritates. These 'sub-goals' often obscure the real goal: human connection. Communication can't feel genuine without the distinctive personality of a human being to provide context. The missing ingredient in most failed communication is humanity. In order to blend humanity into every communication you send, all you have to do is tell more stories and bingo - your communication now has a human presence. Click here to get our Top Tips on getting your message across through storytelling |
Get Creative Get Results - More than Just an Event Find out about how our exclusive community and in-company consultancy and training can help you harness creativity for real business results.
In the first of our new regular feature, we introduce you to Diana Gibbs (co-creator of Get Creative Get Results) and discover what makes her tick.
As Get Creative Get Results we are running the Experiential Learning Zone at this week's prestigious exhibition at Birmingham's NEC |
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