Why can’t the rest of the year be more like summer?

Posted on September 8, 2015 by Chris Warburton

Returning to the office after the summer can be tough.

You worked hard all year and hoped to be able to take a break or at least slow down while the weather was better. You looked forward to it.

Then in a flash it is gone; the kids are back at school, the morning traffic is back to its normal crawl and finally everyone is turning up to meetings again.

Sometimes we are left thinking, “what just happened?… was it real?…and just where did the time go?”

So what type of summer was it, this year?

  • May be you couldn’t take a break and didn’t really notice the summer passing at all?…..“what summer, we never slowed down, it was just crazy busy”.
  • Or may be you did take a break, quickly falling into a relaxing routine… but in the last week realised you hadn’t done much, so ran around like mad trying to fit things in?…. “I was able to check in occasionally, but will need to work late tonight (read this week) to catch up”.
  • Or maybe you were really organised, carefully planned ahead and did everything, I mean everything… and was just so busy you did not get to relax, rest or enjoy the moment?… “Yes I know I’ve just come back, but I need a vacation to get over my vacation!…. I’m exhausted”.

Summers can be like this, and probably we’ve all had experience of these three extremes at some point.

As they say, hindsight is 20/20. So if you were to re-run the summer again, which would you prefer? If this was the only one how would you plan it differently?

It is of course an interesting analogy for life/career. Replacing the word “summer” with the word with “life” and suddenly none of these three scenarios seem very desirable at all. Certainly not great statements to be made at the end of your days.

Fortunately we get to re-run summer every year and thinking back to our most fulfilling summer holidays can give us great insight on the blend of activity we find most rewarding.

For me the holidays that worked best have been varied.  Travelling to different places, learning new things or meeting interesting people with new ideas.  All this, yet at the same time having some time each day to actually enjoy being there.

Now this may be different for everyone, and now we are back, it is a great time to reflect on your own preferrences.

Even if you had the most perfect break, by listening, adopting and continuing to include some of these elements in life and career it can help find a better balance going forward.

So as office life (not so gradually) returns to normal, reflect on your summer.  Maybe we can indeed have a little bit of it all year!

What was your lesson for 2015?

Welcome back everyone…

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Am I getting a good price for that? my lesson in price sensitivity

Posted on July 22, 2015 by Chris Warburton

I recently had an issue with my car.

Having driven the car over significant mileage over the last 12 months and leaving aside any comments about my driving style, I needed a new clutch mechanism.

So I went off to the nearest dealer to get it assessed and fixed. Quote £2,000…. Ouch that is nearly C$4,000

It seemed extreme and rather than just accept the price, I decided to shop around.

Final competitive quote: £800, for the exact same part that was removed.

60% lower, a saving of £1,200, all for about 3 hours of my time…. Wow, all fired up and excited by my success I decided to extend this to other purchases; Car tyres: £150 vs £120, Drain cleaning: £200 vs £100, Computer cables: £11.99 vs £1.99

The size and frequency of price differences, for the what was essentially same quality of product, certainly shocked me. It got me thinking about price sensitivity and consumer price sensitivity.

Now we all know we should shop around but, especially when time strapped, it can be a hassle getting competitive quotes, do we? Sometimes you just trust the market is competitive and transparent; reliant on other people doing the leg work and driving down the price…. ‘Surely if everyone else shops around and made decisions informed by price, I will be getting a reasonable price, the quotes will be close’… right…?

… wrong! This was not the case here and some significant savings could be made. The assumption that most consumers shop around and drive down prices is clearly flawed. The market is in fact rather opaque.

This also relates to my experience in the office, where I have seen similar dynamics at work. Items such as phones can be priced to your cost centre at £350, which you know can be purchased online for £180. You question it, but often this is the agreed price, it can be frustrating.

So there are savings to be made, cash flow improved, for both consumers and businesses. So we should be more price sensitive, but when should we be? To what degree? What is the trade off vs quality and service that helps offset the higher price?

All good questions, and to help have been using the following rules of thumb.

  1. Always get at least one extra quote. Even a little shopping around can save you a lot of money.
  2. Consider local businesses as well as the big brands. I have been finding better pricing and service from small local businesses.
  3. Limit the time you spend depending on the price of the item. With a rough guideline below.;

Quality and service are of course important considerations too, but all things being equal there is value to be added to your business and personally, simply by taking a few extra steps.

It is time to renew our commitment to finding value.

Let me know if you have had any similar experiences or would like to add to the equation…. am sure it can be refined!

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Pluto, close encounter, close to home

Posted on July 13, 2015 by Chris Warburton

Tomorrow a little space probe, travelling at 45,000 kph (or 1 about million km a day) will whizz past Pluto and its largest attentant moon Charon. At its nearest point it will be at an altitude of 12,500 km above the target, robotically taking photos and readings. It is nearly 5,000,000,000 km from earth.

An amazing piece of planning, engineering and project management, 9 years in the making. Great it is science fact rather than science fiction.

Tomorrow, the Greek crisis may or may not be solved, stocks maybe up, maybe down, those quartely results may still be a challenge or that project may be causing all sorts of stress at the office.

However if all goes well on Tuesday, we will know more about Pluto, another object in our solar system, than in the whole of human history. Our collective human efforts, will have just achieved yet another milestone, expanding our knowledge of the universe and our place in it.

So whatever your job, where ever you are, it is worth sparing a thought for this plucky project and probe.

We are afterall linked and part of this together. In our own way we have all enabled this to happen, playing a part however large or small as part of society.

It is something we should all feel proud about and hopefully celebrate with the engineering teams on Wednesday.

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