It’s time for a paradigm shift:  in-thinking; in-acting and in-doing.

Regular, mini retirements that  redress the sole, the mind and the body are an alternative worthy of consideration; I am.

“I’ll be happy when I can…” “it’ll be alright when I am able to…”these are the words of the frustrated and disconnected. Ask yourself what would happen if you never got to the date in question? What a waste of life that would be.

A final thought, if you enjoy what you do for a living, why stop? If you don’t enjoy what you do, change!
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Evaluating from your audience, customer or potential client perspective can be overlooked all too easily.

How to cope with rejection:
Find someone you can trust to be independent and ask them to evaluate your offering, discover where your holes are and address them. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the enthusiasm of ‘it’s-great-because…’

Certainly hold on to that feeling and do some bench testing before you ‘go-live’ with a real, potential customer. Better still ask someone you don’t really class as a supporter; the feedback may surprise you.

Practice makes perfect? maybe; more accurate to say, change becomes less scary the more you experience it, and by default, easier to deal with.

Homework: do one thing each day which scares you; let me know how you get on.

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Economically, politically and socially our lives are changing. Whatever the result of the general election in May 2010 it’s certain more change will follow; the need to balance the books will remain.

Budget cuts, less job security, more uncertainty; in essence tough-times ahead.

So how best to cope with the bumps in the road?

I’m reminded of the directing staff at basic training: ‘get fit, stay alert and remain flexible.’

Hoping change won’t happen or blaming others, are strategies others may choose; which is one is best? You decide.
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It’s certain there will be job losses, how many and exactly where, is yet to be announced. Kraft will already be working on the who and where but as yet, all that remains a closely guarded secret. There are legal implications and competitive consequences of divulging information about job cuts so we’ll just have to bide our time until the official announcements are made.

As with any business deal, Kraft believes there is a benefit to be derived from the acquisition of Cadbury. If there was not a financial return to be leveraged, why bother?

It’s possible though less likely that new products or markets can be sourced in an already mature marketplace, so it’s more likely that cost savings have been identified. Integration of ‘back-office’ systems as well as preferential buying terms from suppliers can also be anticipated but what about the human cost?

The takeover will mean significant change for those directly and indirectly associated with Cadbury.

We observers will likely have to wait for the passage of time to see whether this latest development benefits one of Great Britain’s world class brands.
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