Many great managers think they must make a great director.

Sadly this is not always the case. The skill set is entirely different.

There are some fabulous managers in British industry and some great and strong directors. There are even a number of people who are good at both roles. But that’s rare.

In many businesses, the promotion from manager to director has been given for entirely the wrong reason (for example: length of service; having the same name as the owner; the conviction that X was a great manager and therefore must make a great director). This over-promotion is ripe and is responsible not only for board failures but also for corporate disaster.

Imagine the following scenario. You have a great delivery driver. His van is the cleanest. He is always on time for work. His deliveries are 100 per cent accurate. Customers love him and he gets on well with all other drivers. So what do you do? You make him transport manager.

Here’s why that could end in disaster:

•He has no training

•He doesn’t want the responsibility

•He no longer just has himself to sort out but a load of guys who were his friends and now he is their boss

•He has no customer contact and he used to like that

What happens?

•He leaves (you lose a great driver)

•He starts alienating the rest of the drivers and can’t cope so goes off sick

A manager must be largely operational, focused on the performance of their department. They must be hands-on when needed and have an eye for detail. Implementation is the name of the game as is budget management.

A director, on the other hand, must be strategic and consider the whole business. They’re not hands-on with day-to-day matters but must be corporately aware in terms of governance plus legal compliance.

To hold both positions requires a chameleon-like personality.

You’ve been warned.

Sage advice indeed but what do you do if your core business is in fact beyond recovery or you are no longer inspired to ensure it does recover? Should you allow yourself the ultimate business indulgence of going off piste for a while? To take that risk you have dreamed of but just never dared explore? Go down the black run if you like, when you were on the nursery slopes less than a month ago!

Ummm potentially a make or break move for you and your business. Much of this I believe depends on a number of factors;

1) what are you gambling with in terms of your and your families assets?
2) are you one of those “let’s put it all on red” people?
3) have you in fact tried this manoeuvre before and had a modicum of success?
4) do you believe that actually failure isn’t an option?

This risk profiling may change, dependant on where you are personally. Some people are just born risk takes others always a little more guarded and reserved.

I think I probably fit into the former category which is why 1% of any success I have had has been represented by 99% failures (even though I definitely never considered failure an option!)

Having said that I don’t think I have ever been so very reckless as to potentially loose it all, though have come close a few times!!

The mistakes (oh yes I have made more than a few!!) I recognise retrospectively, oh the joy of hindsight!

For example;

Not enough planning (though I do admire John Lennon’s philosophy that life is what happens when you are busy making plans), I know I have sometimes jumped into things far too quickly.

Not enough money (always!) or underestimating. I now always add 20% more costs to every project I embark on.

Not enough staff/ time (well of course I believe, not only am I invincible but also have 26 hours in every day, if only).

I don’t learn quickly enough, I am an eternal optimist, my glass is the overflowing when everyone else’s is empty, so I allow things to go on far longer than they need to in the vain hope all will come right because I believe it will!

I now have a board that take me on hand, and rightly so, if I go off down my own particular dream alley. I don’t like to but it has saved me the odd £100k or so!!

I get bored very easily which, when going off piste, is never good having recognised I am no detail person. I ensure I am surrounded with those who thrive on the process and who are adept at sweeping up behind me.

So a few lessons learned but I still make mistakes.

You know what they say there are those that make things happen, those that watch what happens and those that say what happened!!

Equally, I know countless people who have little to offer the business world on the face of it – but their friends, family and friends of family have put them in places simply unavailable to their less well-connected peers. 

This is clearly not fair. But business is sadly not about fair. 

Conversely, I don’t believe this issue is insurmountable. 

I like to consider myself very well connected. I have an address book of thousands but it didn’t just happen and it was certainly, in my case anyway, nothing to do with birthright. 

Connections are generally made over long periods of time. Unless you are lucky enough to be born with the silver spoon and little black book intact (and some are, of course), you have to work at it relentlessly. 

The best contacts are those that you can also help. This process should never be regarded as point-scoring. 

The “pay it forward” principle, evoked in the film of the same name (ie: for every good deed done for you, you must do three positive things for others), is a good one. This approach of asking how you can help other people has been very fruitful indeed for me. When I have needed help personally, or for my family, my network has been simply fabulous. Not least, in securing internships for my children in a difficult economic climate. And in that particular case, I “re-credited my account” by being able to give that person an excellent and lucrative contract. He neither asked nor expected this, but I wanted and was able to do it – and know it’s appreciated. 

Networks are mercurial. You need work to maintain and grow them. Used properly, they can can be the difference between success and failure.

Relationships and recruitment have one thing in common: a high failure rate. I can’t fix your love life but here are eight ways to improve the way you recruit.

Rarely does love at first sight last. Similarly, the instant (well, two-minute) decision to employ a new recruit is likely to end in disaster for all parties. 

The “long courtship” and “trial by assessment” approach for new graduate positions works better: it doesn’t necessarily guarantee longevity but it does give both sides a better idea of how this relationship may work out in the longer term. 

Recruitment is an expensive exercise, not just in terms of recruitment fess but in terms of your time involved in the process, the learning curve for the newbie, and the general disruption everyone goes through when a new team member arrives. 

The lesson? Get it right from the start.

Likewise, if it’s clearly not working, a swift exit for all parties works much, much better.

Here are my recruitment tips (learned the hard way!):

1) Recruit on cultural fit

2) Find a mentor or a “buddy” to support all new recruits from day one 

3) Set and agree strategic milestones (to which both parties happily sign up) BEFORE the employment starts

4) Don’t break promises and don’t accept breaks 

5) Don’t over hype any opportunity and be crystal clear about all the downsides 

6) Don’t judge too quickly but neither should you procrastinate indefinitely 

7) Have garden leave clauses in all your contracts 

8) Don’t listen to office politics

I’ve written three business books (and just finished a fourth for the FT). I write countless business articles a month. I train thousands of senior staff at around 80 events a year. I sell or buy around 20 companies a year. I sit on the board of seven companies as a non-exec director. I travel thousands of business miles every year. I’m setting up a new online business. I run three homes (one overseas). and I bring up four children (five if you count my husband). 

How do I do it? Here’s how.

• Firstly, “I” do not do it all. I admit to being an A* control freak and like things to be my way but, once I trust people, I’m an A* delegator. And I have help. Lots of it: brilliant PAs; a fantastic professional support team; a full-time housekeeper; two gardeners; and every gadget you can think of. 
• I’m very, very organised. I am one if those very sad people who writes everything down. Yes, I have lists of lists. And I have a daily update from each of my key reports. 
• I use every moment to maximum advantage by travelling in anything other than the car (where I am driving) so that I can write, use the phone and catch up on emails in what would otherwise be down time. 
• I take my work to the hairdressers and even the beauticians, the latter being somewhat challenging at times. Even a multitasker like me struggles with a manicure and sending emails from the iPad. 
• I do as much shopping online as possible. I have all my Christmas shopping done and wrapped by end of September, latest.
• I’m blessed with very good health and much more than average stamina. If I am not very, very busy all the time I feel both worried and bored. I do go on holiday a lot to renew my batteries but largely, after a few days, I am itching for a distraction. 
• I admit that I’m not an easy person to live with. I’m manic. But I am happy.

Is this what makes a successful entrepreneur? Well it makes me.

If, like me, you seem to spend your life going from one board room to another, here’s some advice on meeting management.

As a lead adviser I am currently involved in about 17 live transactions, have five active mentoring relationships, sit on six boards as a non exec, and on two as an exec. Plus am just in the final stages of my fourth book and about to start my fifth. Just a tad busy!

Each and every client must believe they are number one. The trouble is some meetings can be so, so boring. I am no women’s libber, absolutely not, nor am I a hardened feminist, but I do find, by and large, it’s often my male colleagues and associates who do not get to the point. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve witnessed the dancing-round-the-table routine at meetings. My own style is to get straight to the point (politely, naturally) – the fact is, I have another 1,001 things to get through.

Sometimes this goes down well but, I admit, I have been accused of being abrupt.

To avoid being seen as rude, I have learned a few simple rules that allow the meetings to stay on focus. These don’t work for impromptu meetings. But for more formal settings such as negotiation and board meetings, they work well for me.

1) Have a clear pre-issued agenda that all parties have agreed upon.

2) Allocate time to each item. This stops people running away with things and critical items not being given sufficient air time.

3) Make sure you have a good chair that controls the debate in the appropriate manner.

4) Take and retain minutes. Allocate responsibility for each action.

5) Prevent meeting saboteurs by banning AOB. If you must have this, put it at the start of the meeting agenda. 

Finally, and above all, don’t be hostile. It rarely has long term benefits and is perceived by others as juvenile at best.

Positive thinking. Does it really work?

“Think like a winner and you will become one.”

It sounds a bit “US management speak”, doesn’t it? But when a client told me this was their corporate management training theme for 2011/12, I starting thinking about it: can you become successful just because you act like you’re successful?

I was recently introduced to a fairly well-known businessman in the personal-grooming market. As I would have expected, he was very well turned out, with an embossed business-card as thick as a nail.

We arranged to meet to talk about a transaction. He arrived in the obligatory soft-top Bentley and we went to a well-known London eatery, notorious for being booked up months in advance. No expense was spared and small talk was of private jets and luxury villas. The man oozed success. The guests, including myself, hung on to his every word.

Therefore it came as a substantial shock when, on pulling the latest accounts from Companies House, I realised his business was barely solvent after yet another third year of disastrous losses.

Never, at any time, had our entrepreneur alluded to his financial predicament. Indeed, he wasn’t planning on selling his clearly failing business or even attempting to raise a recovery fund. Oh no. He wanted to buy another company!

At our next meeting, this time at his palatial offices, we had a rather different meeting. Acquisition, he told me, was the road to recovery. He needed to attract money to “prop up his empire”.

It was an interesting strategy with one obvious flaw – no money (and the prospect of raising any, based on his historic performance, highly unlikely). And, in a strange display of arrogance, he suggested I could help him because “it was an opportunity to show my own capabilities”.

Success, or the appearance of success, is often built on sand. Sometimes the sand turns to cement. Sometimes, and particularly in this economy, it turns to silt.

On the other side of the scale is a computer gaming entrepreneur I recently met. Still in his twenties, he had just sold his business for a little over £40m (and he was no geek: Hollywood would have been glad to have his face on a billboard). He told me, quite surprised, that Coutts were pursuing him to open an account. “I’m amazed they want me,” he said. “I’m hardly a classy guy!”

Between these two extremes sit most of us, proud of what we have done but English, and therefore reserved enough to know that bragging is not acceptable.

Sure, a little bit of balanced bravado can go a long way if appropriately used. But make sure you are competent enough to carry it through.

So problematic are these deals that I need extensive persuasion to even consider assisting professionally on such a transaction.  

There are all sorts of reasons why these deals are very difficult. 

1) A trade buyer will always be able to offer more money (through synergies or by leveraging their own balance sheet).

2) If the management candidate has no substantial funds of their own, they are seen by the vendors as a “parasite” using what they consider their own assets (eg: building, stock, debtors) to lever a deal. This isn’t true, of course. The assets are the company’s not the vendors – but vendors rarely see them as such.

3) The success factor: Whereas a trade buyer who needs to borrow funds to support a deal is seen as low risk, the management candidate who, very possibly, has little direct experience, is seen as very high risk. 

4) Trade buyers tend to have sophisticated advisers and possibly their own internal corporate finance team. The management candidate who has spent many months, if not years, looking for the right deal is short on resources. Their advisers are acting on a contingency basis and will sometimes just look to do a deal, ANY deal, as this is the only way they will get paid! 

So, for these reasons, I steer clear of management buy-ins unless the deal is well defined, trade buyers are out of the picture and the management team has access to funds or reasonable personal funds.  

Recently, such a team asked for my advice on a deal they were running themselves. They’d been pursuing the opportunity for 18 months. Both of them had given up well-paid jobs to try and bring the deal to completion. They were very bright, highly educated with top business school MBAs. They knew the industry and could see the potential that the retiring vendor had no desire to pursue. 

The stumbling block? A difference on value of circa ten per cent. 

Should they dig their heels in or is it time for capitulation, they wondered.  

When it’s not your money or your fees, a glib answer is “fight on”. After all, why should you give in if there’s no-one else in the game? 

But, in truth, that’s poor advice. After 18 months – with no success and only ten per cent deal value difference – they should do the deal. All deals should leave both parties with the feeling that it should have been better – but it could have been worse. 

The pair took my advice and the deal is moving forward. That ten per cent extra consideration will be recovered in 12 months or less – and they can build the business they know is there. 

I know they feel they’ve paid rather more than they had hoped. But that will be very quickly forgotten if they achieve their plans. They have a fair deal and that’s what matters.

“Thank you for your quick response” says email after email. At first I didn’t understand. Doesn’t everyone reply immediately or at least in the same day? 

Apparently not, according to my colleague with over 300 unread emails in his inbox. 300! And that is with a spam filter.  

“Are you worried?” I asked? “There might be something really urgent to deal with?” 

His response: “If they want something really badly, they’ll phone!” 

We’re meant to be in the service business. How can waiting for the urgent call be deemed “service”? 

The trouble, with mobile technology, there is no escape. I readily admit I am an email junkie, hooked on the constant “ping ping” into my inbox. I get quite despondent at the weekend and during bank holidays when, instead of the usual 100-plus emails I usually get, only two or three lowly messages arrive in my inbox.

On holiday, I’m glued to my iPad, iPhone and Blackberry (yes, I do have all three). My husband says: “Turn them off or, better yet, don’t bring them”. He is nearly two decades older than me and mourns the loss of the age when you’d actually speak to someone to conduct a transaction. He points out that, by the time you have fired back 20 emails, texts or both, one call (or, better still, a face-to-face meeting) would have resolved it all rather more effectively.

Begrudgingly, I have to agree. But will it change my working style? Not likely. 

A client of mine, who is deeply committed to improving communication, has banned all internal emailing and all emailing completely on a Friday. This is a brave move and I have seen his colleagues reverting to texting, albeit under the desk, to ask a friend on the floor below if they would like a pint at lunchtime. Everyone works electronically these days – most people expect (well, I do anyway) instant reactions and, when I don’t get this, I feel cheated out of precious time. 

When I started my career, the most instant tool was teletext. When fax arrived, we couldn’t believe that we could send not only written words but pictures and diagrams instantly to someone’s office. Then when we all got car phones and there was no stopping the barrage of conversation as you drove down the M1. We live in an entirely new world of communication. Sure, my husband ran one of the world’s biggest advertising agencies in the eighties without any of these “new age” (his words) tools – but back then, there was no choice. 

I’m not going to place a ban on internal emails but I do promise to consider: 

1) How my email sounds to the recipient

2) Stop for a moment to re-read the message before I hit “send”

3) Spell-check all my emails (it’s simply rude and lazy not to do so)

4) Sign off emails in an appropriate manner

5) Be more tolerant if people don’t reply in ten minutes

6) Stop being afraid of the phone

7) Pop my head outside my office door if I want to ask my colleagues for a drink at lunchtime!

Of course for the OCD challenged individual (aka Moi!), due to my obsessive desire to plan and be organised, time contracts like nothing on earth.

Unusually for me this year I have not quite finished my Christmas shopping. It is a fact that, for the last, oh eon years, I have, by this time, not only done all my shopping but wrapped it all up.

My sister, considerably more laid back than me (but then most people are) tells me I could speed the whole thing up by simply opening them individually afterwards.

All this aside though, and long may it last, but when do you actually start feeling your age? Or maybe you never do. I quite like being well, shall we say 25 ish! Then again just think what you would have missed, all that experience (otherwise known as co**ing it up) all those great nights with family and friends and, of course, all the amazing moments watching my children turn into fabulous adults and making me prouder than anything I have ever achieved, personally or professionally.  

Of course at 25 I was filled with anticipation, had amazing plans and unlimited ambition – but come to think of it I still seem to have retained those so I guess that’s not an issue either.

I didn’t look quite the same then as I do now but, for me anyway (and particularly so of late), I have found myself not at all unhappy with who I am and for, most of the time, I quite like myself.

Whether this is a confidence that comes with age I couldn’t really say but whatever it is its quite satisfying.