The Power of Combination

By Anita Holbrow

Ok before I start…. You can’t begin to read this (and watch/listen) until you have considered doing one or two things…

• Firstly – explain to your boss/staff that this is learning… even if they happen to walk past you and see you watching the short video clip bits – that it’s all part of the bigger message...
• Secondly – forgive me…. Yes, I am using ancient humour to help my message along… 

So, here we go…

One of the great debate in life is the good old argument of.. nature vs nurture.. instinct vs training.. And, those of us naturally talented in all things of course know quite factually that we don’t need to give credit to any combination of things…. We are just naturally awesome… right???

I’ve been doing a bit of pondering lately on why it is that sometimes we feel ‘excellent’ and sometimes we feel ‘less excellent’ – I think it’s based on lots of things, but mind-training, brain-training, knowledge training and mind-fitness are definitely some of the things that tip the balance upwards…  Just as only having the ‘self-reliance’ and ‘self-belief’ that out natural excellence can see us through, can equally tip it downwards sometimes … So there must be something about ‘combination’ that is important.

I love this idea.. that its the combination of factors that deliver excellence.. The Medici effect.. The idea that bringing different things together makes more than the things alone. The infamous Medici family did this through the centuries – leaving a legacy for the world. And we do it without realising – even us naturally excellent people… we bring lots of things together to deliver the things we do… The only difference is that normally, we don’t recognise that we are instinctively combining things to perform at our best..

Here’s a short clip… I love it (there are many similar on-line..).. the combination of talent – and the introduction of something very random (the music)… delivers an excellent bit of twisted humour (not sick-twisted – just slightly bizarre)

Imagine if on purpose we learned to purposefully set out every few weeks to learn new things – or develop new knowledge.. not to simply know essential things – but to enable us to use a new combination of inputs to deliver even more exceptional outputs.

Customer excellence is an instinct – isn’t it??? Or is it a learned behaviour.. here’s an example of learned customer management. In this 1970’s clip from Are You Being Served… Mrs Slocombe gives us 53seconds of the best-worst version of ‘the customer is always right’.

It’s funny… and it’s a comedy – but the stilted version of acting out a learned paradigm means if it was real – she would probably be on some sort of performance warning.. where as if she applied the combination of the learned idea that ‘the customer is always right’ with other factors – her performance would be exceptional.

Combinations of new material in our own performances help to make us authentic – because we have more material for our brains to act on instinct with… I’ve got one more clip.. and I love it – funny in a way that it is just pure excellence… the power of combination… but with a time-delay.. The Two Ronnies…

So….. unashamedly… you can always do with a new stimulus.. You need to get a different perspective once in a while… And if you manage people – you need to give them a different perspective..

IRP has lots of this on offer – especially through the CMI portal… which you can access through this link if you are a member

(if you’re not a member of IRP, you should be… it costs less than a packet of crisps and  can of pop a week to join..:-)) )

So – by way of other things you might want to consider – I also thought I’d give you the links to some practical combinations you might also want to add in to your life over the next few weeks….

So here are some of our up-coming short-training courses … I know you will be busy, but places are going fast on the November and December recruitment training that we have left .

Enjoy making plans to find new inputs – and enjoy feeling more excellent more of the time..

Develop & Win Big Business. London 11 Dec.

New Manager Essential Training. London 12/13 Dec. London.

Set things right for 2013. Negotiate & Close The Sale. 19thDec. London.

For more info on our training courses click here

Please let me know what you think? All best