Chris Barrow’s Blog

On Friday morning I drive over to The Riverside a little earlier to enjoy breakfast with the housemates.

Linda has made a special effort to find and cook haggis – just for me – so that famous Scottish dish, with the addition of a fried egg and some mushrooms makes for even more gastronomic delight.

At 9.00am we all convene in the lounge for a final feedback session.

The first feedback is mine – observations of each housemate’s strengths and how best they could be channeled for their own future development.

The second feedback is theirs’ – explaining their “highs and lows” of the retreat and the overall effect the last few days has had on them.

There are some tears shed, both male and female, as honest truths are told about how useful this environment has been. That, of course, is not very “British” from a cultural perspective and so I appreciate just how much it has taken out of some of the housemates.

By 10.00am we are ready to close the formal proceedings and there is much hugging and kissing as journeys commence.

I am asked to hold a inpromptu training session on how to introduce oneself at a networking meeting. One of my clients, Dr Marcus Spry, is an experienced member of Business Network International and so the two of us explain the theory behind and the application of “the elevator speech” – and have some fun designing such introductions for random professions suggested by the audience. My favourite is Marcus’s response to being asked to introduce himself as a purveyor of eggs!

After a short 1:1 session with a housemate who is leaving corporate UK to start a brand new coaching practice, I am done – and we are ready to roll.

I’ve agreed to drive a housemate to Newquay Airport for a flight “up North”. I call in at Bonnie’s home and we hold a brief management meeting to clear the decks before the holiday weekend.

The airport is fog-bound and, eventually, the flight is cancelled and he is offered the option of an 8-hour bus ride at 5.00pm on a Friday holiday weekend. No chance.

A few phone calls and a short drive later he is deposited in a nice room at The Royal Hotel in Truro and advised to just chill out this evening and catch the first-class Virgin train at 8.30am tomorrow morning.

We no longer tolerate cancelled flights.

I’m back home by 7.30pm and, as you can imagine, trashed.

After a few slices of pizza and a glass of red wine I quickly fall soundly asleep on the sofa – and drag myself up to bed a little later.

Before our housemates left I asked them all to pen a testimonial.

Reading them this afternoon was a wonderful experience.

After rather a late night at The Smoke House restuarant there were a few grey faces on Thursday morning – but the best cure for a hangover is to start thinking about finances (?) so we dived quickly into our main topic of the day.

I have always been the “authenticity coach” and so there is no better way to demonstrate the application of an idea than revealing it’s operation in reality.

Out came Chris Barrow’s personal and professional cash flow forecasts for 2006 (in Excel). I presented a printed copy to each housemate and showed them exactly where the money comes from in my businesses and exactly where it goes to both in business and in my private life.

As an aside, I have been doing this for many years in workshops. It usually takes people by surprise as culturally we regard such information as being private and confidential. I don’t give a damn whether people know how much I gross (£600,000 this year), how much it costs me to operate the business and how much I keep and I’ve always adhered to a policy of complete transparency in that regard.

Having detailed how I prepare my cash flow on the annual retreat and then change budget figures for actuals as the year progresses, it was time for the housemates to do the same for themselves.

Out came the laptops and I wandered around The Riverside like a chess-master, observing and commenting as the spreadsheets were constructed.

A couple of observations:

1. Yes – constructed – everyone there was doing this for the first time;
2. I was quite surprised at the lack of basic knowledge on the easy shortcuts in Excel – the moral being that a day’s Excel training would go a long way for most people.

After 2 hours or so of concentrated work, everyone had calculated what their gross sales target was for the year.

Reconvening after lunch at The Shipwright’s Arms, we began the process of converting the number of income generating days (from yesterday) divided into the gross sales target (from today) to identify the average daily income target for each individual.

By about 3.30pm the beans were counted, the numbers crunched and the reality was staring the housemates in the face from a hastily constructed spreadsheet projected onto the wall of the cottage.

Everyone has to put their prices up. That’s the bottom line – they are not charging enough.

Once again – I could see lighbulbs popping in the minds of many of the housemates.

The advantage of having a spouse, partner or practice manager along is that the revelation is shared and endorsed by your nearest and dearest as well as by the peer group.

Our conclusion was a detailed question and answer session on the application of the knowledge gained so far.

And, interestingly, a unanimous vote that the housemates want to reconvene next year to repeat the exercise together and with my facilitation – oh dear, I seem to have invented another business here.

Mind you, living somewhere nice for a few months each year and welcoming successive groups of housemates does sound like rather a nice business proposition.

Dinner at The Riverside last night, lively chat, some rounds of applause for the “back stage” team and a confirmation that a few life-long friendships may have been created.

Friday morning we will be breakfasting together and holding a final brief feedback and review session before the housemates disperse.

I need a holiday!

Blimey

I’m tired!

Wednesday we began with a session on tolerations – asking each of the housemates to write their own list, listening to their comments and reflecting upon the commonalities – we are all tolerating much the same in the way of:

1. Relationships that are not functioning and
2. Things that are not functioning and
3. Personal untidiness/procrastination

It’s somehow comforting to know we are all in the same boat.

Session 2 was on personal and business mission statements. I first explained the difference between a mission statement and a plan, shared my own and described the process by which they are created.

Then on to the main event of the day – time management.

Having explained the process by which I plan my own calendar a year in advance, I then produced a Sasco 2007 wall-planner for each housemate and sent them off to “do the work” there and then.

As each individual completed the process, the energy level in the room just got higher and higher. People looking at a shift from 1 to 4 weeks annual vacation – up to 8 to 12 weeks. Weekends extended from 2 days to 3 days. The addition of a complete business leadership/management day in each working week.

And then the “fear” that the remaining days would be insufficient to generate sufficient revenues to pay the bills.

There we left it – as Thursday will be focused on finances – we will discover how the bills will get paid.

At 4.00pm I welcomed a guest speaker – Simon Hocken – dentist and coach, who entertained us with a snappy explanation of the differences between business and personal coaching.

Clsoing the formal proceedings to give the housemates a rest, we all then congregated in Porthleven, a nearby Cornish fishing village where, after a pint in The Ship Inn we braved the gale-force winds and crashing seas to walk 100 yards to The Smoke House, our restaurant for the evening.

More excellent food and wine, lots of laughter, good conversation and a bus home at 11.00pm.

After a splendid feast on Monday night our housemates were all off to bed early and ready for their first full day of planning.

My own day began at 6.00am with a 90-minute email catch up before heading out to the Riverside. As I have mentioned, there is no mobile phone signal or internet connection down in the Helford Estuary – so my client maintenance must be completed early and my own mobile phone messages collected on the drive to the cottage.

Arriving just before 9.00am I found the housemates finishing off an English cooked breakfast (Linda working her magic again).

I had decided earlier to set up my laptop and digital projector in the lounge – a strange contrast between chintzy furnishings and modern electronics – but better than a flip-chart because I can make notes, create mind-maps and show PowerPoint – keeping a permanent record for the housemates on their return to the 21st Century.

So what happened on our first coaching day?

8 hours of discussion and field work on:

• Establishing each individual’s objectives before Friday morning
• Describing the “breakthrough” process – moving through the discomfort zone into the breakthrough zone (thank you Paul Fox)
• Writing a limiting belief which admitted the “uncomfortable truth” about each housemate – what holds them back?
• Re-writing the limiting belief as a liberating statement – how it would sound if they were to change
• Introducing the concept of Personal and Professional Evolution Circles – what they are and how they work
• Identifying 12 key limiting beliefs around 6 areas of personal and professional evolution
• Turing each of those limiting beliefs into a liberating statement
• “Joining up” all the liberating statements into a 3-year vision statement (much to the surprise of the housemates)
• Introducing the concept of Strategy Circles (thank you Strategic Coach) and showing how each liberating statement can then be reversed into a 12-month plan of action
• Introducing 90-day goal setting and showing how each 12-month planning action can be reversed into a 90-day goal
• Identifying the key obstacles and reseources that would be necessary to achieve each 90-day goal
• Establishing the need to build a superb support team to do all the “stuff”

Bingo!

We have 3-year visions, 12-month plans and 90-day goals. Never easy – but so simple once you have a protocol.

By 5.00pm everyone (including me) was truly exhausted.

After a couple of hours to enjoy some relaxation and fresh air – we reconvened for yet another magnificent dinner:

• pate
• salmon steaks with potato and vegetables
• the most amazing chocolate cake

After a management meeting with Bonnie and an emergency coaching call with a client (parked in a Cornish lay-by) I arrive at The Riverside for 3.45pm Monday and begin the process of “meeting and greeting” our “housemates”.

They arrive in dribs and drabs, one has taken the train from London, two couples have flown to Newquay Airport and the rest have negotiated the A30 – the highway to the South West, currently disrupted my major road improvements from Bodmin to Indian Queens – it’s hell at the moment but in 2007 will reduce the journey time enormously.

As an aside, the discovery of human settlement from 4500 years ago is a fascinating aspect of this controversial road development which was delayed for many years due to the threat posed to many local flora and fauna. The modern world has compromised, for once, and the route has been changed to provide protection.

If you are fascinated by archaeology take a look at http://www.highways.gov.uk/roads/projects/3485.aspx.

Back to The Riverside.

Our guests are all in by 7.30pm and those arriving earlier have found their rooms, unpacked and are enjoying tea, coffee and home-made walnut cake in the lounge.

We have made a momentous discovery – Linda.

Linda is our cook for the week – she will be preparing breakfast and evening meals.

Linda is one of those people who you know that you will like in an instant.

She has a knack of remembering names and, after being introduced to each of the “housemates”, uses their name every time she speaks to them.

Nothing is too much trouble – herb teas, access to a telephone, slight changes to plans.

“No problem, leave it with me, I’ll get it sorted.”

I’m intrigued as to why somebody with such personal charisma is cooking for a dozen people this week – so I wander into the kitchen and engage her in conversation.

She has enjoyed a successful career in – wait for it – customer service training in the hotel and catering industry.

She conducts “mystery shopper” surveys, checking into hotels and restaurants and sampling the service standards.

She runs training sessions for receptionists and others.

She ran her own business, sold out for “enough” and now spends most of her year living in France.

When in the UK she loves to cook – hence the “hobby” of looking after us this week.

She also now runs training courses for people looking to buy French property.

Our cook is an entrepreneur!

I knew most of her life story by 5.00pm yesterday – we’ll see whether any of the “housemates” discover as much.

At 7.45pm last night we all sat down to a splendid dinner.

Starter – paella;

Main course – roast pork with all the trimmings;

Dessert – a choice of treacle tart of the most amazing bread and butter pudding I have ever tasted.

I left the “housemates” at 10.00pm.

They have no mobile phone signal and no internet access. One of them begged me last night to hook her up to the telephone line so that she could check her emails using a dail-up connection.

Remember dail-up? It’s so quaint.

So now a few emails and then back over there for 9.00am and our first working day.

3-year vision, 12-month plan, 90-day goals.

Later today I will be hosting the introductory dinner for our first client retreat in Helford, Cornwall.

The Riverside Cottage is way off the beaten track, with no mobile phone or internet access and I will be working with a group of 7 clients, hand-holding them through their own “annual retreat”

• Tuesday – 3-year business vision, 12-month plan, 90-day goals;
• Wednesday – time management and their calendar for the next 12 months
• Thursday – financial controls and a 12-month cash flow forecast, leading to accurate pricing

The group includes 4 dentists, one finance broker, a property developer and a management consultant – quite a mixed bag and so I am interested to see how the week develops.

I am envisioning a cross between a Chris Barrow workshop and Celebrity Big Brother!

The setting is so English – the Helford Estuary is a secluded beauty spot on the South Cornwall coast – very close to the setting for many of Daphne Du Maurier’s novels, in fact Frenchman’s Creek is a few minutes walk away.

http://www.dumaurier.org/

My plan is to spend each morning “training” the clients on how I do my own retreat, using many of the tools that I talk about in the workshops – and then each afternoon have them work on their own material, with me in attendance as a sort of roving “chess master”, answering questions and assisting. Then working dinners to discuss progress each day.

One of my clients arrived from the North of England yesterday, complete with wife, baby and parents-in-law. They have decided to take a week’s break in a rented cottage across the estuary from The Riverside (5 minutes walk) and he will walk over to us every morning.

This is new ground for Chris Barrow – I’m excited and apprehensive at the same time. Hopefully by the end of the week we will have a list of “did work” and “didn’t work” – and then I can look at repeating this exercise in other locations over the years ahead.

We already have a waiting list for the next event.

I’ll bring you reports from The Riverside as the week progresses.