Building resilience

Coaching support is a one of several useful strategies for companies to use in the process of building resilience – a much needed quality in business generally, but particularly so during recessionary times.

Mufasa Coaching shared techniques on how to build a recession resilient company at a recent workshop. “In our current economic climate it is our vision to enable our clients to achieve greater self-awareness and clarity of vision, empowering them to develop strategy and to take responsibility for change and generating in them a ‘winning’ mindset”, said Mufasa’s Anthea Megaw.

In order to build the competency of resilience, companies and the individuals within them need to do things differently and employing a change management model can be useful said Mufasa’s Wynand du Plessis.

For change to take place there needs to be dissatisfaction with the existing status quo, a clear vision of where to go and a plan how to get there. These need to be greater than the cost or fear of changing, he said.

Some of the processes associated with major change include: establishing a sense of urgency; creating the guiding coalition; developing a vision and strategy; communicating the changed vision; empowering broad based action; generating short term wins; consolidating gains and producing more change and anchoring new approaches in the culture.

Neither change nor resilience is possible without an attitude to support it and in the words of Charles Swindoll, Mufasa’s Steve Reid indicated that our attitude is where we express our personal power.

“Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. The remarkable thing we have is a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.”

Customer service, marketing and sales are important elements which distinguish companies that survive and grow and those who don’t, Reid said.
Workshop delegate Jean Davis of Tiger Wheel and Tyre said her company had benefited greatly from the Mufasa coaching approach.

“There has been a significant turnaround in our company as a result of coaching. Attitudes have been positively impacted, there is an improved climate of emotional intelligence and one of the key areas we have adjusted is the way we recruit staff. We now focus more on attitude than skill which has added to a much more passionate workforce.

“We also saw achievement in our cash flow goals and Steve guided us through a debt reduction programme where we set the amounts and dates by which payments would be made. We also implemented milestones along a timeline to facilitate achievement of our objectives and to be able to respond to other needs along the way,” she said.

Theater of the Mind

Hats off to SABC for holding national creative workshops at which existing and prospective advertisers had great fun making a radio advert with SABC’s production unit Rap Studios.

With delegates providing sound effects and guidance to freelance voice over and script writer Jonathan Pienaar, the advert which was recorded and mixed on-site at the workshop assisted delegates to understand what goes into making a successful radio advert.

Radio is commonly described as theatre of the mind as listeners are encouraged to stretch the imagination about what is possible.
Rap Studios provided valuable information on the importance of developing the concept of an advert in the language of the intended listeners and cautioned against assuming concepts can easily translate from English into Xhosa.

Research indicates that in order for an advert to generate sales or the intended awareness, it needs to be heard at least three times and advertisers should budget with this in mind.

Raps Studios encouraged using a professional voice over and cautioned that a brilliant radio script could fail if the voice over was poor. BKCOB’s recruitment consultant Sam Rheeder and Legalwise’ Helena Archer tried their voices out for the voice over of the advert and Sam proved she might have a future career in radio.

An Environmental Conscience... Mercedes C-Class leads the way

Anyone talking to engineers and technicians at Daimler AG invariably hears the following: “These are exciting times”. Oddly the Daimler people saying this, are truly positive, despite the tough times facing the automotive industry. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that the Daimler people believe that every crisis harbours an opportunity. The company’s main focus is on cost-cutting and the rapid enhancement of fuel efficiency. And therein lies the opportunity.

Mercedes-Benz accepts responsibility for finding solutions to help slow down global warming and ensure efficient use of raw materials. It has always been their aim to harmonise transport with our natural environment. “We (Mercedes-Benz) often set new milestones for the entire automotive industry,” says Thomas Weber, Daimler AG Board of Management member responsible for Group Research and Mercedes-Benz Cars Development.
Mercedes-Benz is the world’s first car brand to be awarded Environment Certificates based on the international standard ISO 14062, which allows environmental compatibility to be gauged objectively. The TÜV awarded the first certificate of this kind to the S-Class in 2005, then to the C-Class sedan and estate in 2007, to the A-Class and B-Class in early 2008. Recently the Mercedes-Benz E-Class added another accolade to the company’s already illustrious environmental record.

Recently Mercedes-Benz in South Africa has added an extra-economical BlueEFFICIENCY saloon to its C-Class range.
By introducing this environmentally-friendly model Mercedes-Benz is not only making the vehicle more attractive, they are giving customers the benefit of lower fuel consumption and the added benefit of acting upon a ‘green’ conscience.

For the new BlueEFFICIENCY model, Mercedes engineers have harnessed innovations from all fields of development to reduce weight, aerodynamic drag and rolling resistance even further.

The vehicle specialists have made very detailed improvements to the comprehensive lightweight construction of the C-Class, and have managed to shave off up to 32 kilograms in weight.

This achievement is due to many new technologies applied, amongst others:
• a newly developed windscreen made of laminated glass, which weighs around 1.2 kilograms less than before
• Forged lightweight wheels which tip the scales at around 1.8 kilograms less than conventional light-alloy wheels, saving a total of more than 7 kilograms per vehicle
• The noise-insulating lining of the firewall has also been weight-optimised with the help of special materials, reducing the weight of the lining by around 20%.

Mercedes engineers have succeeded in bettering the highly impressive coefficient of drag (Cd) figure in the standard C-Class. The Cd figure for the new BlueEFFICIENCY model has been reduced by 7% to 0.25%, representing another major contribution to fuel economy, and hence to protection of the environment.A number of other intelligent measures and technologies have enabled a further reduction in fuel consumption, by up to 12%, while retaining the high levels of comfort and safety typical of a Mercedes.

The C180 BlueEFFICIENCY with its 115 kW output covers 100 kilometres with 6.7 litres of premium petrol. This corresponds to a low 159 and 173 grams of carbon dioxide emission per kilometre.

Mercedes-Benz is certainly setting high standards in vehicle efficiency… “And with our technological innovations we’ll (continue) to play a major role in shaping the future of the automobile as well,” concludes Daimler’s Thomas Weber.