Letting your business’s various stakeholders, such as providers of products and services, know what you’re up to is always a good idea. These people are often individuals or organisations that you’re partnering with. They provide goods and services that you would otherwise have to build and deliver yourself. Best treat them with a bit of respect, eh?

Even armed with good intentions, we’re all capable of dropping the ball at times. This can result in things happening that we may not have been prepared for. “Surprise” is exactly that.

Earlier in my working career I was introduced to a business that was growing fast and looking for a production manager. Why the recruiter thought I was the best person for the job has always been a mystery to me. But the business’s owners agreed with his assessment and I was hired.

Auckland Mailing Service put things in envelopes. Lots of envelopes. In those days about 70,000 DLE or standard letter envelopes each day. The bulk of this work was done by machines. Bursting machines that reduced stacks of continuous computer printing into individual pages. Folding machines that folded those pages up so they’d fit nicely into an envelope. Inserting machines that put the folded material into the envelope and then stuck it down ready for the Post Office to deliver it. We also had a team of highly-skilled ladies who knew how to operate the gear and also how to sort mail in the required manner.

The business was owned by an enterprising couple who had started off in their lounge doing the Auckland Gas Company’s invoices by hand and then delivering those by scooter. The lounge soon needed a garage, that garage morphed into a small warehouse which was superseded by a much larger warehouse. Staff were acquired to help process all of this increasing volume. I joined at the small warehouse stage and managed the transition into the much larger warehouse.

The major reason for the spectacular business growth, other than outstandingly good customer service, was our business model. In those days NZ Post offered a 20% discount off the stamp price if qualifying volumes of mail were pre sorted and bagged ready to go straight into its distribution network. This discount reflected the savings to their business not having to sort through random letters that were lodged in postal boxes. That 20% discount was considerably more than our processing costs per letter, which meant that we could tout for business on the basis of handling our customers’ mail at no cost to them, and make a tidy profit.

For organisations that handled a lot of mail, our proposal meant that they didn’t need to find space for an internal mail room, to own specialist gear with its related maintenance costs, or hire administration staff. We did all of that for them.

It also meant that most of their customers were receiving invoices the day after we posted them. A couple of days saved on delivery can have a material affect on cash flow.

The move from the small warehouse to the much larger warehouse happened over a weekend. The two premises were about 100m apart. Specialist movers were hired to translocate the big equipment. A Phillipsburg inserting machine weighs more than 1,000kg and we had two of those puppies.

Various contractors switched over phones, electricity, security systems, changed locks on doors, enabled smoke alarms and all that sort of stuff.

Late on the Saturday afternoon we were done. Celebratory beers were consumed. We went home tired but greatly looking forward to the Brave New World that would begin to unfold on Monday.

Later that evening the phone rang at home. It was the security company. The alarm system had been activated at our Howick premises. Could I please go and accompany the security assessor on his inspection. Shit. I was into the van like a flash and off across town to Howick.

I pulled up outside the new warehouse to find everything dark and hushed. I checked all of the exterior doors which were securely locked with no signs of any sort of funny business or forced entry. Where was the security guard I was supposed to meet?

A glance down the street revealed a signwritten security company vehicle parked outside the old warehouse. I strolled down there to see what was going on.

Sitting in the driver’s seat was a burly Samoan gent in a security company uniform that matched his car. He was sobbing disconsolately. “Gidday,” I said. “I’m Brett. I got the call from your operation centre.”

With tears streaming from his eyes he said “I don’t understand. It only took me three minutes to get here.” Stepping out of his car he led me into the old warehouse that he had unlocked.

“I just don’t understand,” he said surveying its emptiness. “The bastards took everything -- including the alarms in less than three minutes!”

“Come with me,” I said. I led him up the road to the new premises, unlocked the door and let him in. His relief was palpable. He had soon found the wiring fault that had caused the alarm activation and fixed it. We were both off and away happily into the night.

On Monday I had a bit of work to do on our organisation’s “no surprises” policy for letting our business partners know what we were up to.

High on the list of things that changed my life is Thunderbirds. This was a television series broadcast when I was still aged in single figures. We didn’t have TV at home in those days. For special occasions, like watching the Tokyo Olympics, The Lone Ranger and Thunderbirds, we used to go across the road to the Hoskin’s place and watch their set.

We were hardly imposing on our neighbours, as there was only one channel available. In black and white.

I’ve always been a boy with an over-active imagination, so Thunderbirds was just amazing for me on that score.

In those days the moon was untrammelled by human feet. Colour television had yet to arrive in Taranaki. The digital watch, microwave oven, electronic digital calculator and even the cassette tape recorder were unheard of.

Yet, on an uncharted island somewhere in the Pacific, the Tracy family had managed to construct a technological paradise stocked with exotic kit that not only defied present day realities, but also most of the known laws of aerodynamics and other practicalities, such as a total lack of the minions necessary to make an enterprise like that run. Home-helpers Kyrano and his daughter Tin-Tin were good but surely not superhuman?

The Tracys were supposed to live in the year 2063, but for me at any rate, they lived in the same “now” as I did.

Practical realities counted for little, as each week we were swept up and into tales of brave derring-do, knowing that International Rescue would, after a bit of sweat and bother, eventually triumph over the forces of evil and darkness. Yay!

Yes, we knew it was make-believe. In certain lights you could even catch a glimpse of the strings that made the puppets move. Their expressionless faces dripped with meaning and, in the case of baddies like The Hood, malevolence. It was great stuff.

Now it appears that Weta Workshops, backed with Hollywood gold, is going to apply its 21st century animation and digital image manipulation techniques to resurrect Thunderbirds. Why? Clearly because there’s a dollar in it. It must also be easier to start from scratch then it is to convert very old tech television film shot in 4:3 format into something that meets today’s high tech audience viewing needs.

I hope that Weta doesn’t get too carried away with its enhancements. There is something fundamental to the delivery of Thunderbirds in having characters whose only moving facial parts are their eyebrows and lips. Characters that leap out of chairs and spruik around, rather than saunter or even walk. Nobody has ever seen Lady Penelope or ever-faithful Parker get into or out of the pink Rolls Royce. Why? Because their strings would get caught in the doors. That must really hurt.

Everybody used to have a favourite Tracy. Mine was Virgil (named after Mercury astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom). I’m a Thunderbird 2 kind of guy. I’m in the business of delivering solutions, rather than the first-on-the-scene, rip-shit-and-bust Scott, largely harmless Gordon and extremely forgettable Alan and John. I never really figured out what John did in Thunderbird 5 way out there in space. He must have been bored shitless most of the time.

I’d love to spend a day on Tracy Island. Why? To see how Thunderbird 3 gets home and back into its concealed swimming pool launch site. I’ve never seen a rescue barge or tower crane anywhere near Tracy Island.

At Cape Canaveral in Florida the rocket launch platform is several km away from any people or damageable property. The force from a freshly-ignited Saturn V rocket or Space Shuttle ensemble was enough to make birds fall from the sky. Yet on Tracy Island, old man Jeff stands in the lounge window and watches Thunderbird 3 go skywards out of the swimming pool only a couple of metres away. That’s what I call toughened glass!

Imagination is a marvelous thing. In my case my imagination is prepared to accept all sorts of credibility deficiencies if I’m getting swept along in the moment. I hope Weta doesn’t overdo the animation and make Thunderbirds too “lifelike”. That just wouldn’t be FAB in my book.

I have huge respect for people who are passionate not only about what they do but also about providing outstanding customer service. Whether such people are tradesfolk, consultants, front-of-house staff, professional service providers or public servants matters not a jot to me. By doing what they do, people like these build respect, trust and  customer loyalty. Customer loyalty produces word-of-mouth recommendations. That’s powerful stuff.

Even in the internet age, word-of-mouth is still the most powerful form of marketing available. Whether the comments are positive or negative, word-of-mouth has the greatest impact on what people think, for better or for worse. According to Entrepreneur Media, word-of-mouth is one of the most credible forms of advertising because people who don't stand to gain personally by promoting something put their reputations on the line every time they make a recommendation.

Social media gurus get extremely animated by something they believe has “gone viral”. What they’re really marvelling at is the power of word-of-mouth, or rather its online counterpart.

Those of us who are of “a certain age” will remember an advertisement used by Alberto to market its VO5 shampoo: “I told two friends, who told two friends, who told two friends.”

That is how word-of mouth works.

One of my fundamental business tenets is that the only real asset an individual or organisation has is their reputation. Reputations take a long time to build yet they can be destroyed in seconds, usually because an individual has not fully thought through the consequences of something they’ve said or done.

I’m not an advocate of not taking risks or always doing what you’ve always done. That’s because things that are seen as being edgy or risky can build individuality and respect. Standing out from the herd is what will drive business to your door. I’m also not an advocate of leaping out into the unknown without at least doing some form of risk assessment first. If nothing else at least pausing for a few seconds to imagine the worst thing that could happen.

Organisations need to encourage cultures that allow risk taking. I believe that this is where real success comes from. That means being prepared to accept failure and to learn from that, rather than condemning it either overtly or covertly. Acceptance of failure means being prepared to fess up and squarely own the problem when things go wrong. People don’t like hearing excuses, particularly when common sense clearly shows what the truth is. As a Wellington retailer once famously said “It’s the putting right that counts.” While that slogan worked well for his home appliances business, I would change it a bit to read “It’s the being seen to put things right that counts.”

“This stuff’s pretty obvious, Brett. Why are you telling me this?”

Because, sadly, there are still too many organisations and people that don’t get it, that’s why. Some are in “leadership” positions. I guess that organisations and individuals like that won’t read this blog either. But there may be others who read this who tell two friends, who tell two friends, who tell two friends...

Growing up we weren't poor or deprived, we just didn't have much “stuff”. There were plenty of ways kids growing up in 1960s New Zealand, particularly on a dairy farm in Taranaki, could amuse themselves and each other. However we were always appreciative when something new and exotic entered our world.

A highlight for us was when our Uncle Merv would come and stay. Merv was an aircrew Flight Sergeant in the RNZAF. Merv was young, single, well paid and had stuff as well as really good stories to share. Much of his stuff was acquired duty free on his various assignments to Australia or to Fiji.

Merv had a transistor radio. It had a short-wave band. And an earplug for private listening. But best of all, it had one of those extendible aerials that disappeared into the body of the radio itself. Small boys could amuse themselves for hours extending it and then putting it away again. Apparently. The transistor ran on batteries. It was awesome.

Merv also drove a Humber Super Snipe. It was vast. There was room in the back to play tennis, at least that's what it felt like. The seats were clad in leather. It had a push-button radio. Merv was a smoker, so the inside smelt like a gentlemen's club.

On one visit, Merv carefully unpacked and set up on our dining room floor a Hornby electric train set. It was amazing. The tracks went on forever and intersected through working points, just like real railways did, well overseas railways. Merv's set had more sidings and points than could be found in Eltham and probably Hawera combined. There were tunnels, bridges and scale model station buildings.

It was so large that electricity to power it was a limiting factor. Our farm was on the very end of the electricity supply line. This was only ever an issue during the time when all the farmers up our road were doing their evening milking. Electric current at those times was so scarce, a television's cathode ray tube wouldn't fire up. We didn't have TV but our neighbours over the road did. Mums cooking dinner would have to wait an age for potatoes to boil. Electric locomotives would just sit and hum without going anywhere.

There were electric locomotives, passenger carriages, freight wagons, coal cars and guard's wagons. Best of all was a carriage with a rocket launcher. No shit. It was powered by a spring, swivel-mounted and capable of firing in any direction above a horizontal plane. The metal rocket was capable of travelling some distance at a brisk pace. Use of it was banned when Mum was around, in case somebody lost an eye. Mum's are good like that.

Merv had a train driver's hat. This was required attire for whoever sat in the corner and got to command the switches and knobs that controlled this empire, when there was enough electricity to make things happen.

Meal times were a challenge, because this expanse of rail tycoonery ran in and around the legs of the dining room table and its chairs, as well as amongst the various other furniture in that room. Carrying food to the table and clearing up after each meal required precision and careful coordination.

Another variable that came into play was cats. We had three. Sam & Joe were half Siamese. They weren't that interested in this intrusion into what had once been their living space. They preferred to be outdoors exterminating rodents and mustelids. Our third cat was a part Persian called Smokey. He was called that before we learned that he liked curling up really close to electric heaters or close enough to sparks from an open fire that he would catch alight. During winter he always had scorch marks on his fur.

Smokey ruled the dining room. His general strategy was to treat with total contempt and ignore any intrusions into his space. So when a bunch of kids and their favourite Uncle set up an electric train set, they set it up around Smokey. They had to.

Smokey rarely showed emotion or interest in the world around him. An exception was party balloons. If one ever landed near Smokey, he would immediately pounce on it, teeth bared and claws extended. This would generally result in an explosive bang and a terrified singed Persian cat exiting the house at some pace. He never seemed to learn. Dozens of balloons over the years perished by his claws.

Trains whirred and hummed around him. Points switched in various directions. Shunting was done. Smokey cared not a jot. Until this one day...

The morning's shunting had just been completed and a fully-laden 9:30am express was rolling through the station on its way to the port. Most of the express had passed by Mt Smokey when, in balloon mode, he decided to take a swat at it. He hit the trigger on the rocket car. A projectile was launched. It hit a passing mother on the head.

Guess what we did for the rest of the day? We started by sitting outside and watching Merv smoke.

My grandfather reckoned that “spade” was an acronym for Sharp Pointed Agricultural Digging Equipment. For me this always coloured the expression about calling a spade a spade. In this context a mate of mine often used the expression “That’s not a spade, it’s an “effing shovel”.

And so it goes. Phrases and expressions that may have once been rich with meaning and purpose become locked into our language and our lives where people roll them out with little thought.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more conspicuous than in Management Speak™. I reckon that there are teams of people employed in various organisations whose sole purpose is to dream this stuff up. Expressions that may be amusing when heard for the first three or four times, but which quickly fade once widely embraced.

Management Speak is always changing. New expressions appear. Some hang around for a while, some for way too long. Sadly, I’ve used a few. When in Rome...

Here are some of the current crop that I bet some of you have used at least once.

• ballpark figure
• be proactive not reactive
• bring it to the table
• mission critical
• move the goalposts
• think outside the box
• blue-sky thinking
• pushing the envelope
• there is no 'I' in team
• knowledge base
• core competencies
• win-win situation
• client focus
• deliverables
• incentivise
• take it to the next level

I was wondering what the next crop of Management Speak debutants may contain. I thought that “crowd sourcing” may provide some useful insights.

What have you heard recently that has pricked your consciousness and graunched your gears?

Fabulous prizes may be awarded to the winning entrant!