Author Archives: Christophe Pelletier

Everyone has potential, just allow them to show you!

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j0414117[1]To illustrate this, I cannot think of a better example than one of my employees when I was in the aquaculture business. She used to work for the accounting department of a different division, and her performance was not great. At that time, I needed someone to help us out with administrative tasks and with the processing of information. I was offered to hire her, although all the negative feedback I had heard was not encouraging. Fortunately for her, the manager under which she was working, was not exactly an example of trustworthiness or integrity, and I decided to meet her and see for myself who she really was. I remember meeting her on a ferry to one of the islands off the coast of Vancouver Island. She was sitting in her car and did not expect much good from me, as I am known as quite straight forward and decisive. Anyway, we had our meeting, which went rather well, and I decided to have her meet further with the rest of my team to discuss the operational needs a bit more in details. As there still was some hesitation about her real abilities, I decided to give her a chance, under the condition that we would review her performance after 3 months and then decide. If the performance was satisfactory, she would stay; if not she would go. And what a transformation! From an unmotivated and dull person, she turned into a dynamic and resourceful collaborator. She did an amazing work, had a great productivity and came with many great ideas on how to process and present the information we gathered. Later, the person to whom she was reporting (who reported to me) surprised us with a change of attitude for the worst, and unfortunately, I could not have her to tell me what the reasons of that change were. After several attempts to get her getting back to her former self, it appeared that this would not work, and I fired her, which left a hole in a rather sensitive position. I went to the other lady, and asked her if she felt she could take over from her supervisor. She was a little hesitant about a fairly big step forward, but as I guaranteed her that I would fill in temporarily for the areas that she did not master, yet, she agreed to take the plunge. It was a position with much more responsibility and that needed decisiveness and authority, as she basically had the mandate to stop the plant if production was not in order. And once again, what a beautiful transformation it was! She not only adapted to a higher position, but delivered a quality of work that I rarely had seen elsewhere, and I had been in quite a few many places! She became the best QA Manager in the seafood business that I have met in British Columbia, and she has survived 2 mergers where I am sure she was in competition with people who had a much more solid academic background. She now is in charge of Food Safety for the largest salmon farming company in BC (and in the world) All that was needed, was for her to have the chance to be able what she really was made of, and that would have never showed up on her resume. It was selection on the job, in the real world!

Copyright 2009 The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Too old to change. Or was he really?

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As the Sales Director of the poultry plant, I also was managing our sales office in Germany. The problem with that unit was that it had not generated any new significant customer for years, and as we were growing aggressively, we needed to grow in Germany as well as we were in our other markets. Many discussions and meetings further, I came to the conclusion that the German sales office was simply useless and that we should sell to the German customers directly from our plants in The Netherlands and in Belgium. Of course, this was a very bumpy situation. My superiors trusted my judgment, but were quite afraid of losing business in Germany (our largest market), which the General Manager of the sales office was of course not missing to tell them over and over. After all his job was on the line… Anyway, the decision to shut the sales office was made and we had to figure out the next step. Most customers were very old relationships, and this was important to take that into account when deciding who to appoint as the sales person for Germany. From the whole office in Germany, we decided that we should keep only one person for sales, the nine other employees would go. There were two inside sales persons, and two sales reps. Quickly, the two inside sales persons did not make the cut and were eliminated. The 2 sales reps were very different. One was a young fellow, quite aggressive, well-connected and able to move large volumes, although quite a bit of a loose cannon, and with the tendency to yield to the customers when it came to price. Lots of volume but not much margin. The other sales rep was in his early 50’s, a very good relationship manager, but with no track record of developing new accounts for a long time. General opinion was that he would get good prices but low volumes. General thinking was also that he was to old to change and adapt to the new strategy, and would be useless to the organization. Yet, I chose the latter sales person, even though I shared the same worries as everyone else, but I knew one thing: he would listen and do as told, and he would bring a sense of continuity and trust to the existing customers. We decided to keep him, and I would spend quite some time in Germany with him, visit all existing customers and accompany him in some new prospecting activities. I presented him the sales plan, the objectives and the timelines and there we went. He simply became the best salesman we had. From a very apathetic and almost unproductive salesman, he turned into a dynamic, entrepreneurial and enthusiastic representative that brought new business, and lots of it. In the first year, our sales grew in Germany by 24%, while the industry average was only 2%. His performance was stimulating the other sales people, including me, to perform better in their respective markets. He was not too old. He just had lost passion, because he had no clear idea of what was expected from him. In the new structure, this changed, and then he could do what he was good at: selling! And he did a great job, because by then he had become happy at work!

Copyright 2009 The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

The hopeless rude guy from Planning

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When I became Sales Director of the poultry processing plant, I also supervised the Inside Sales/Planning/Logistics Department. One of the employee of that department was causing quite a few conflicts with the Production Department, mostly because of very poor communication skills. Requests sounded more like barking and politeness was a scarce commodity from his side. That problem probably should have been addressed a long time ago, but OK, I had to deal with it now. All I got was criticism about his conduct and “fire him!” kind of advice. Yet, he had many years of experience and had quite a lot of knowledge. That bothered me to just take the short cut and let him go. So, I had a meeting first with him alone and later with his supervisor. In the first meeting, I addressed the problems and made him clear that I wanted to understand what caused him to act the way he did. With his supervisor, we reviewed his job description and analyzed what he liked and what he did not like about his tasks. And bingo! We discovered that he felt very uncomfortable dealing with foreign customers having to speak in languages he did not master. The stress of the phone ringing and hear someone speaking German or English was just too much for him and he reacted his stress on his colleagues. We decided to remove the customer contact from him, allocate that to another employee who actually enjoyed the sales side more than the production side, and dedicate our difficult friend more to the technical and planning side of production. Within days, I was receiving positive feedback from production people who were wondering what I had done to him, because now he was such a pleasure to work with. And for him, as he was in his late 40’s, we also avoided a painful layoff that might have had severe personal consequences. He was now doing what he liked and what he was best at. And he became very happy at work!

Copyright 2009 The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Ten Signs of a Happy Person

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Just hap-pyHappy people are easy to spot. In no particular order of course, you will notice the following about happy people:

  • They are in good health
  • They smile, laugh often, and look at others in the eyes when talking to them
  • They are assertive, and not aggressive
  • They do not show signs of envy or criticize others; they have a positive attitude
  • They are loved and make other people happy
  • They have no addiction, because they just do not need any
  • They like what they do, personally as well as professionally, and they like who they are
  • They are themselves, and they accept others the way they are.
  • They are not selfish or self-centered
  • Problems do not seem to stick to them; they just deal with them.

It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet, how many people do you know meet the above?

Copyright 2009 – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

How to Be Happy

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Here is the simple truth about happiness: there is no universal or absolute method on how to be happy. However, there are a few truths about the process of becoming happier.

Happiness is being in balance with yourself and your environment

balanceIn order to be happy, you need to know yourself. This sounds obvious. Yet because of lack of self-awareness, many people look for answers in all the wrong places. They can spend their whole lives being unhappy. Then, there is the direct life environment. Who are your friends, your relatives, your colleagues, your neighbors? Do you really want them in your world? Are they bringing you what you are looking for? Are you in the right place or do you need to consider a change? Is the necessary change about your environment or about you?

You must incrementally meet your needs and your values through action and objectives

People have their very own and very specific cocktails of values, needs, desires, goals and dreams. It depends on their personality, their upbringing, their education, and their social circles. This is why what makes one person happy does not necessarily bring any satisfaction to someone else. The first step to increase your level of happiness is to identify the ingredients of your own cocktail. The following steps are about setting targets on how to meet increasingly these values and needs in the future. j0438395[1]Trying to satisfy needs that you do not really have will not work on the long-term. Just look at a child at Christmas: the new toys are exciting the first day, a bit less the next day and soon they become boring. The toys meet a short-term desire, in most cases inspired by outsiders, especially marketers, but they did not answer the child’s true deep wish. There are many similar examples of quick fixes meeting the wrong needs. They might bring short-term satisfaction, because a nice surprise is always nice, but the feeling will not last because it is not the right answer. Having objectives, wishes, desires, dreams, is of utmost importance to be happy. It gives a feeling of purpose to your life, and therefore to you! Objectives are powerful drivers to grow and gain wisdom. If you doubt this, just try to imagine having to spend the rest of your life with no goal at all. How does that idea would make you feel?

This is not a passive process; you must have a plan, practice and train regularly

To do the above, nothing beats making a plan. It has to be a plan shaped around your values, in which you will determine your needs and set up a number of steps as well as set timelines to achieve them.  happyHappiness will not fall upon you per accident. If you want to be happy, you need to want to be happy. Nothing nice will happen to you unless you initiate the process and keep its momentum going.
Happiness will not stay with you, unless you nurture it. You have to work on being happy on an ongoing basis. If you stop your efforts, you will see your level of fulfillment drop over time. Being happy is an active process. Just like sport, your performance will decrease if you become complacent. It takes discipline and persistence. This is where so many people fail at happiness.

Happiness is not about being in a state of permanent bliss. It has its ups and downs. Being happy does not mean that you never experience negative feelings such as disappointment or frustration. This happens, and it happens to everyone. The difference with truly happy people is that they know how to find the resources to overcome such negative feelings. They have the ability to refocus on what will make them feel good. They take the proper action to correct that temporary setback.

There is little need to try to bring any explanation that involves money, religion, spiritualism, love, friendship, meditation, science or any of the so many terms that usually are used when talking about happiness. That is simply because they are all valid, but they are not all valid for all of us. Everyone must choose what works for him/her!

Copyright 2009 – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Just Be Yourself!

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Being oneself a prerequisite for those who want to grow and be happy in life, personally as well as professionally. Although it would sound like an easy thing to achieve, too many people seem to have difficulties getting there. Many internal and external reasons can explain that, but it is always possible to change for the best.

Why is being oneself so important?

Quite obviously, if you are not yourself, then who are you? The question alone makes clear that it will difficult to know who you are. If you think you are some of your role model, realize that he/she probably was him/herself, and that is why they got in that position of role model. Moreover, if you are playing being someone else, you will miss the opportunity to genuinely improve yourself and achieve higher fulfillment in life.

How can you be yourself?

This can take more or less time to find out, but it is possible and not that complicated. It depends on you. All you need is to have people you trust giving you candid feedback. You have to understand that even the most popular people are not perfect. They have their insecurities as well. An easy way of discovering yourself it to find what you like most and what you like less in less. Capitalize on your assets and limit your liabilities! Accept your limitations and enjoy your talents! After all, no one is talented in everything. All you need to be happier is to do what you do best and like doing it. To find out who you are and to be yourself, you are just going to need to determine how much will, dare, capability and knowledge you have.

Deal with other people’s judgment!

Unfortunately, everyone has an opinion about other people. Most of the time, the judgment is based on very partial information. Most disputes are the result of a lack of communication, of not knowing each other well

It is impossible to please everyone. Whatever you may do and whoever you maybe, there always will be someone out there to criticize you. That is human nature. The only feedback that counts is the one from people who really know you well, and that you trust enough to give you their opinion. Asking these trusted people for feedback is not a test. It is not about passing or failing, but it is about self-knowledge and possibilities of improvement. True friends will not turn you down. They will be candid, and they will do their best to avoid hurting your feelings. Be assured that they will tell you how to improve your life.

Also realize that it is better to get some bad feedback on whom you really are than on whom you trying to be, because in that case, the information is useful for you. If you find difficult to accept yourself, you need to consider two things. First, you are not the only person who feels that way. A surprising large of majority of people tends to underestimate themselves. Secondly, most people have much more potential than they think. All they need is to take more chances. You need to show the world what you can!

Finally, always make sure that you are the one deciding for yourself. Peer pressure as well as your social environment, not even to mention marketing campaigns and the media, have a very powerful impact on how many people think they should be. It is not to them to decide about that. Dare to challenge them! Also, realize that people who are themselves always attract compatible people, thus making their lives more interesting and more fulfilling.

Happiness’s Worst Enemy: Fear

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If it is not always easy to find out what makes people happy, it is not difficult to find many reasons why they are unhappy.

In the long list of factors hindering someone from being happy, one reason comes out in particular: fear. In the book “Who moved my cheese?” a quote sums that up: “When you are not afraid, you feel free”. This statement is so true. Fear has a particular ability to make people create their own mental prison, from which it can be difficult to escape. It paralyses us.

There are many causes of fear. Here are just a few, merely because they are rather obvious examples: fear for the own safety, fear of losing a job, fear of losing someone, fear of rejection, fear of failure, etc. Actually, fear produces the opposite of happiness. Happy people expand and radiate. They look for what will come next.

Happiness puts people in motion. It is a very powerful driver to enjoy more of life, since life feels great, and to become more active. When they are afraid, many people tend to undertake less, to isolate themselves, and to become passive. Clearly, such feelings are very negative. With such a mindset, it is difficult to feel happy, and the risks of possible health issues are quite real.

Is the best way to become happy to overcome your fears? To some extent it is, as less fear means fewer inhibitions. The best way to be happy is to be alive. To get there, it is necessary to feel alive first. Of course, this does not mean that ignoring fear is a good solution, as fear has a function of self-preservation, but there are ways of accepting fears and managing them. The best advice is: live! Take chances without putting yourself unnecessarily at risk! Enjoy and be happy about what you have, instead of being unhappy about what you do not have! That latter part will come eventually.

In the End, It Is All About Happiness

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Although we sometimes tend to deny it or to forget about it, all our actions are about happiness.

At work, people want to have a rewarding job. They want to feel appreciated and make the money they think they deserve. The boss wants to see good results. The customer wants to get the proper quality. In our personal lives, we look for the right relationships, we have hobbies, and we like spending time with our friends and loved ones.

Why do we wish for all of the above and for more? The answer is simple. When things go our way, it makes us feel good; it makes us feel happy!

Why do people change jobs? Why do people divorce? For these questions, too, the answer is simple. We change our life when we are not happy about it. Yet, not everyone makes such changes. Some settle with an unsatisfying situation. Does this make sense to anyone?

According to the theory of Henri Laborit, it does. He was a French neurobiologist and writer who studied the behavior of people when they face adverse situations. According to him, people have three ways to deal with unpleasant situations such as conflicts:

  • Running away
  • Fighting back
  • Inhibition

The French movie, Mon Oncle d’Amérique, illustrates his works by means of a comparison with lab experiments. The research background presented in the movie is a set of experiments with lab rats that Laborit carried out.

In the first experiment, the rat is in a cage with two compartments separated with a wall that has an opening allowing the rat to change compartments. Only one compartment has a floor that can be electrified. The rat gets a warning with a buzzer and four seconds later, the current flows in the floor. Very quickly, the rat realizes that when it goes into the other compartment, where the floor is insulated, it escapes the punishment. All the physical tests carried out show that the rat is in perfect health. The rat is fine.

Then, the operator shuts the opening between the two compartments. The rat cannot escape the punishment. Very quickly, we can see the rat being completely stressed, with its hair straight up and breathing quickly. The rat is not doing well at all.

Then, the operator adds a second rat in the cage. Both rats have no other choice than to take the electrical current. Instead of getting stressed and ill, the rats fight with each other, and it appears that this helps the dominant one to be perfectly healthy again.

The message of the movie is that people experience such situations everyday in our societies, and it affects them. Sometimes, they choose to run away from difficult situations to avoid the tension, such as quitting a job because of a bad boss, instead of enduring stress every day. Sometimes, they fight back, even fight literarily, although the laws do not accept violence as a way of resolving conflicts. When people have no possibility to run away or fight, Henri Laborit’s theory is that they choose inhibition and do nothing at all. They simply take the punishment. Some can compensate this by fighting with their spouses at home, but this usually does not bring much good, either. According to Laborit, inhibition is the stage of angst, and angst is the result of the inability to cope with a situation that seems to have no solution. This usually results in ailment and even diseases, be it physical like ulcers or even cancer, or be it psychological leading to neurosis or depression. Turning against the own body becomes the way of fighting back, and the ultimate act of violence that one can commit against oneself is suicide.

On the other hand, he also noticed that when the rat experiences something that brings satisfaction and pleasure, its natural impulse is to get more of it. If it feels good, then it must be good!

This illustrates nicely how important it is to try constantly to look for satisfaction in our lives, at work and at home.

Excerpt rom Mon Oncle d’Amerique (in French)

The Meaning of Life

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Some topics have the ability to keep people busy for a while. The meaning of life is one of these topics because the answer is difficult to find and it never can be verified with certainty. Depending on whether the person pondering about it is a scientist, a theologian, a philosopher or a sports fan, the way they will answer this question will vary quite substantially.

This is why this question remains mostly an intellectual exercise. It can be satisfying, but it lacks practicality. Instead of tormenting oneself with the absolute answer that no one can find, simply because there may not be such an absolute answer, it is better to deal with this topic in a much more stimulating and practical way. All that is needed is to change slightly the question, from “What is the meaning of life?” to “What meaning do I want to give to my life?”. This simple shift of scope can do wonders, and quite rightly so. It now offers you the possibility to become your own Creator, thus shifting the scope of another difficult quest for absolute truth that has kept humanity busy for eons.

There are a few simple steps and simple things can help you creating a very meaningful life.

Firstly, you need to identify which values are truly important to you. Then you need to identify what makes you feel alive.

Instead of letting your environment make the decisions that will shape your life, your life will become easier to manage once you take charge and keep the initiative. Of course, nothing comes easily, and when you meet resistance, you must persevere.

Usually, people tend to focus more on negative events than on the positive ones. It may be a natural reaction, but it is the wrong approach. It is just as easy to spot the positives, but it requires a different mindset. Whatever may happen, force yourself to see the positive signs and remaining enthusiastic.

Nothing is carved in stone. Life is in continuous evolution. If you want to improve your life, you must take any opportunity you find to learn and improve. It will take you out of your comfort zone, but you quickly will reap the rewards and realize the advantage of doing so. Do not be afraid of setbacks. They are part of life anyway. Just see them as an opportunity to beat adversity and explore your real abilities. Most people always tend to underestimate themselves. Usually, they are capable of much more than they think they do. They just need to discover their true potential.

Making decisions is the easiest and fastest way to overcome problems and to keep moving on. Most people feel stuck because they do not make any decision. This is the worst one can do. There cannot be any action and progress by keeping the status quo. Once you decide on something, things happen. Then of course, you need to keep making decision and adapt. One decision does not solve everything at once.

Giving a meaning to your life is all about pursuing fulfillment and finding gratification in your activities, as much in your personal life as well as in your professional life. However, you must build your life for yourself first, because all that counts is that your life means something to you.

The worst thing that can happen to a person is to have a meaningless life. That can happen only by waiting and not taking action. So, live, experience, try and share!