Time to capitalise on confidence

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

It seems that confidence (or rather the lack of it) has become a global obsession. Scan any of the business pages in the newspapers and you’ll find constant references to consumer confidence, confidence in the housing market or confidence in our political leaders to deliver. Sadly, most it is dipping, plunging or on its last legs, especially in politics. So what part can we play in restoring confidence? And how are we advising our leadership on the best ways to restore confidence in our companies and our brands?

The Company Agency, a group of management consultants that specialize in communication, has attempted to unlock the “confidence” genome in its latest study, 'Seven types of confidence'. This morning, the group, led by Martin Newman, a partner at the firm, presented its findings in the form of a short but rather luxurious 22-page handbook, printed on some extraordinarily plush paper previously only reserved for scrolls, doctorates of nuclear physics or landmark documents such as the Magna Carta.

Littered with fabulous quotes on confidence by essayists, biblical figures, company executives and even JK Rowling’s fictional wizard character Harry Potter, the Company Agency interviewed some well-known senior business names to drill down to its seven types of confidence. These included a “legendary” fashion entrepreneur, one of Ronald Regan’s key advisors and two people who had lead their countries’ Olympic efforts in London 2012 and Sochi in Russia. Future home of the 2014 winter Games. There was no expense spared.

But rather than agree with many management theorists who claim that confidence is either recipe, the sweet spot between arrogance and despair or distinguished by three cornerstones, accountability, collaboration and initiative, the Company Agency’s top talent identified seven types of confidence: respect, vision, track record, openness, authenticity, consistency and simplicity and said that it can be any one, or any combination of these seven distinctive yet frequently overlapping qualities. “Confidence is not a potion ready mixed and following a recipe, it is a palette,” said Newman’s introduction.

The report makes some great cases and dishes out some great advice through its expert panel of confident business characters, but my only issue is that it’s all very well explaining the meaning of confidence, but as far as I can tell, the large majority of us are the opposite. The seven types might be nice to pin to the wall but until the climate improves, not many of us are going to adhere to these principles.

But as internal communicators, perhaps now is the right time to write each seven guiding words down on a bunch of Post Its and stick them to your desktop? When we’re feeling at our lowest - whether it be through reduced budgets, mass redundancies or the fact that even if you do have a deposit to put down on a property the interest rates are so bad you’re discouraged - learning, appreciating and disseminating those confidence values to your team, your leaders, and the company’s employees could be the solution to many business’s worries. Think banks, think financial services, think property sector, all of these previously flourishing businesses now sit at the bottom of the trust pile. The opportunities are beginning to become apparent so now might just be the right time for them to pick themselves up.

As we saw in Melcrum’s Key Benchmark Data for Communicators survey last week, internal comms is having to re-evaluate everything it stands for and its value to businesses worldwide. Transmitting these principles across your organizations could be the key to re-energising the workforce and liberating the leadership. If nothing else it will make your superiors and the key decision makers within your organisations think about where it has all gone wrong and how it can all be put right.

Then again, Morgan Stanley’s European media analysts today printed the thoughts of a 15 year-old intern who was asked to write a report of micro blogging phenomenon Twitter. The report generated six times more feedback than the investment banks’ usual emails. Meanwhile elderly media moguls gathered at the Allen & Co conference in Sun Valley in the US to discuss social media and their ageing business models. So much for inspiring confidence. Perhaps we should all be quoting Harry Potter after all?

Comments

[Martin Newman]

Thanks for covering our Seven Types of Confidence paper - downloadable free online from www.thecompanyagency.com from tomorrow morning, though downloaders will have to provide their own luxurious paper if they want hard copy. The fact that confidence is at a premium (as James' sharp piece points out) is exactly why we're in business!

Can confidence be taught or acquired? Yes and no -the evidence is ambiguous. Evidence for? A classic piece of behavioural psychology research proved decades ago that one person holding out consistently for a particular view has an extraordinary effect on the confidence of those around him or her. Evidence against? Recent research from Canada into the effectiveness of self-help books (the sort which are about making positive affirmations in the mirror about how much more sexy, successful, bright, lovable one is becoming day by day) suggests that for those with a low starting point of self esteem you actually go backwards - the gap between reality and fantasy just makes people feel even more like losers than to begin with. (You can find out more about this research as well as all sorts of other fabulous stuff from our report).

The art of confidence is about understanding what type of confidence (and yes we have rather rashly identified seven) is right for you and credible for you in any given situation. Then and only then can you get to work on developing your confidence.
Needless to say, we're the experts!