Hi everyone,

It's great to be back again for another year.  I am sure most of you, like me, have spent the last few weeks in frantic preparation - arranging meetings, preparing presentations, briefings, speeches, press announcements and all the other things regarded as essential for a successful SIBOS.

SIBOS is about communication and -- as every good communicator knows -- the art of good communication is to listen.  But do we prepare ourselves to listen?  The answer is no.  This seems to me to be something we are either very good at instinctively or, in most cases, very bad. 

But listening gives us information that we need to be successful.  And you can listen with your eyes as well as your ears.  How many times have I sat in meetings where someone plays with their BlackBerry, listens with folded arms, looks bored or seems more intent on saying their peace than listening to what you or others have to say.  These are all signs of poor communication.

Let this SIBOS be different for you.  If you truly listen to the people you are meeting, to the sessions and to what is being said around you it is amazing what you can learn.

And, of course, the true art is to piece together all these messages and interpretate them successfully.  I am sure that in Europe if we had done more listening 5-10 years ago we would have been further down the road to successful harmonisation and the business rewards.  

So listening can be financially rewarding too.

Enjoy yourselves.  I am off to my first breakfast meeting to listen intently.