Tom Peters and The Results Group

One of the two in the blog title certainly was worth going to see. Tom is a 66-year old guy with big energy, simple ideas and is an amazing story teller. The Results Group well - there are a few words I want to use but probably won't. I think they see themselves as "Business Coaches", but it wouldn't surprise me if many of these guys battled to get a job doing anything, got some 'business coaching' and then started coaching!

Back to Tom - he told a great Nelson Mandela story on how Nelson Mandela was able to get his way via his disposition and his smile, but while in a South African jail he couldn't click with the Head of the jail. So each time he went to meet with this guy to discuss the possibility of him leaving it was always a 'no'. So he did some research on this Africans chap and found out that he was a Rugby nut, so Nelson Mandela for the next 6-mths studied and learnt Rugby. He managed to find out which team this chap supported, who he played for when he played etc.

The next meeting between Nelson Mandela and the Head of the Jail was going as it normally did - poorly. He waited until 10-minutes into the conversation before mentioning what happened in the latest South African provincial game that this guy team played in. Nelson Mandela talked about the key moments in the game, made comment on the referee etc. Nelson Mandela had this guy. From that moment onwards the relationship changed and Nelson Mandela got treated like royalty while in this Jail and eventually got released.

A little long winded but it smacks of great planning and research - something that is sometimes missing in the Recruitment game. It isn't overly hard hop on Linkedin and find the candidate you are going to interview, the client you are about to meet etc

One last thing from Tom Peters - well it is actually from Wayne Gretzsky - "You will miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - I love this attitude and thinking

Check out more from Tom Peters on www.tompeters.com