Presents and Presence – the Values of Christmas

If your company was able to give something valuable this Christmas what would it be and to whom?  What present would you be giving, and in that giving what presence would you be conveying?

We live in an age when businesses thrive on expressing the right values.  These values should permeate throughout the business, internally and externally.  Christmas presents an opportunity for companies to reflect their values against a background of the Season of giving, caring and sharing.

This Christmas some major household names have come a cropper by not thinking carefully about where their advertising presence is.  John Lewis, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer have all been hauled over the Christmas coals for advertising through the Daily Mail, Daily Express and the Sun, publications that do not expound the same values as those proclaimed by these scions of British retail.   The clash comes as these newspapers are seen to publish ‘dehumanising’ and ‘demonising’ articles which are directly opposed to the values touted in the advertisers’ Christmas campaigns.

Marks & Spencer includes these words in its mission statement: ‘quality, value, service, innovation and trust’ ;  John Lewis’s principles mention ‘happiness, honesty, loyalty, trust, fairness’ – all the values that are intrinsic in the spirit of Christmas.

There is a lesson with the advertising hoo-ha, to keep a close eye on your business Presence and on your business Presents.  If our values are the presents we would give our people, our customers, our stakeholders, our community, then we need to be present in the right places.

Let us all therefore consider the following before we offer something to our people, our customers, our ‘others’?

  1.  What are the values represented in our company’s mission?

  2.  What is the effect we intend our business to have on the world? (a Biggie!).

  3.   What is our promise?

  4.   What are our aspirations?

   And knowing all the above…

  5.   What are we giving? What is our real present?

This Christmas, Smart Coaching and Training are giving to our customers the chance to gain a valuable insight into how their business could work better. Our present is a sample C-me profile to show how this can be achieved.  This reflects our presence in the business support landscape as a provider of excellence in people development.

Now you may want to find out more so get in touch  with us and we will help you explore some wonderful possibilities!

Isla Baliszewska 04 December 2016