Collective Conversation Feed: Moving away from the pack

The recent UK coalition agreement is just another reason why this June’s G8/ G20 meeting is shaping up to be a marvelous opportunity for Canada. As part of the coalition agreement, the government will be introducing a bank tax levy, and will be following the US lead to investigate the possibility of separating retail and investment banking. Other members of the G8 have publicly advocated similar action, with Canada being the lone hold-out. While here in Canada the main stream media are focused on the PM’s signature initiative on women and children, the real political opportunity is to shine the light on Canada as a safe haven for business and, in particular, financial services.

Politically, there is one part of the country that offers the conservative government a real opportunity to finally get its majority. The G8 for Canada is really all about Toronto. With so much of the mining sector ‘hollowed out’, the only industry that Toronto really owns in Canada is financial services. Both the Ontario and Federal Government have invested a lot of political capital in corporate tax reductions and, in the case of the Federal Government, a continued commitment to personal tax reductions once the deficit has been slayed. Without further tax reductions, Toronto is an attractive place to do business. In addition to having the lowest corporate taxes amongst developed countries, the cost of living is very affordable, the economic forecast is strong, skilled labour is plentiful, and business can be transacted on the same time zone as New York. Much has already been made of the few businesses like Tim Horton’s who shifted their headquarters (HQ) operations to Canada. Less well-known is consulting giant KPMG’s recent relocation of its head office from London to Toronto. Now no one really believes that global HQ’s will flock to Toronto. But, there is a real opportunity for the city to become a strong regional centre for financial services.

As countries of the G8 continue to turn the screws on the financial service industry, the Harper government has campaigned against bank taxes by pointing out that the most straightforward approach to ensuring that the world does not go through another financial service meltdown - is to simply limit the amount that banks can leverage. The simplicity of the Canadian approach has shown the G8 ‘reforms’ as punishment for ‘causing’ the recession and a tax grab. The truth of it is that the banks performed to the regulatory standards of their local markets.

Expect Canada to break the consensus on the bank tax that emerges at the G8 and G20. Instead the government will attempt to capitalize further on Canada’s reputation as a low cost and stable financial service sector of excellence. The economic objectives are investment, jobs and growth. But the real objective is to demonstrate to voters that the Federal Government has a plan for Toronto in its economic vision.Collective Conversation Feed by mike.coates@hillandknowlton.com (Mike Coates)

Collective Conversation Feed

Last week Simon Houpt, of the Globe and Mail wrote an interesting piece called “In praise of older relationships”. He quoted Shelly Brown, president of the Toronto-based ad agency Zig, as saying “I think we live in a culture where the grass always appears greener on the other side, where change is always good, and where [people often say] ‘Let’s move on’.”

I reflected on his article as I was travelling back from Montreal to end another busy week. I had participated in three major client meetings where there were significant customer/relationship issues to address. One involved a disagreement about a strategic direction for a campaign, another was to gain a better understanding of the client’s service requirements, and the final one was a contract re-negotiation. All these meetings ended successfully, though at any point it could have gone off in another direction. Although I did not plan it this way each meeting took on a similar pattern that resulted in a successful resolution of the issues at hand

First, in each case I spent a great deal of time listening to the point of view of the client. This took some restraint on my part, because what I really wanted to do was to come at the problem with “both guns a blazing”. Instead I tried to focus on the client’s perspective, and damn if I did not start feeling some empathy for their point of view! So I just started asking questions about why the clients felt the way they did.

Once I had established with the client that I knew how to listen, I found that the client was more open-minded about my perspective and prepared to take on a mutual responsibility for solving the problem. The perspective I gave was direct but respectful, and most importantly I had listened and took account of the information the client had just imparted to me. We were then able to drive to a satisfactory outcome. Just to make sure there were no second thoughts, the next day our team followed up to reconfirm our go forward plan. (In one case the reconfirmation was critical because our meeting ended up being a very late night out and memories were a little foggy).

Anyway the pattern was effective because I was on “receive” instead of “transmit.” As Houpt discussed in his article, a client relationship is no different than a good marriage; you really have to work at it. If things really fall off the rails you can bring in a third party to help, but hopefully by spending more time listening to your client you won’t have to reach this point.
Collective Conversation Feed by mike.coates@hillandknowlton.com (Mike Coates)

Collective Conversation Feed: H&K Once Again One of Canada’s Best Workplaces

It was great reading in the Globe & Mail today that H&K once again been named as one of Canada’s best workplaces for 2010. While the positive reactions from clients and staff are very gratifying I don’t think people fully understand the significance of being a great workplace.

Our business is about people not brands. When H&K melted down in the early 90s it was because we lost many of our best and brightest colleagues. We continued to be the best known agency in the world but that didn’t stop our business from declining or for public relations and public affairs practitioners from looking elsewhere for employment opportunities.

Without going through the H&K Canada history – that would be a book not a post – our comeback has been about putting our people first. I have been known to say in very large new business pitches that “Clients are not my most important priority. My people are”. That statement usually generates a surprised look around the table until I ask what the client’s biggest problem is with their current PR agency. Invariably, the client says, “staff turnover”. That’s when I say, “it’s my job, is to make sure that the same people involved in the pitch will be with us a year from now”.

The relationship between client satisfaction and the stability of our account teams has been demonstrated by over 10 years of our customer satisfaction measurement. So working hard to make H&K a better workplace only makes good business sense. It is amazing how many of my peers in the service industry just don’t get this and love to make ‘hairy chested’ claims about putting their customers first.

So I am pleased to accept congratulations on behalf of the great people who really do the heavy lifting here at H&K day after day. Being named as one of Canada’s best workplaces is a critical proof point that we have got our business right.
from Collective Conversation Feed by mike.coates@hillandknowlton.com (Mike Coates)