Voices of the Dead and Not So Dead

There was a death in the family last week and I guess that has caused me to think a little more about life and death than I would normally. I got to wondering in particular about what you take from a relationship. Not in the material sense but in the sense of wisdom and knowledge.

You see my stepfather who died last week was a successful business man who had travelled extensively, married, divorced, remarried, survived several recessions and generally someone who had lived a full life. And, being an intelligent and educated man, he learnt from the experiences that he had lived and that made his opinion one that was worth listening to.

And I wonder now whether I fully tapped into that wisdom that he had and that wondering has gotten me thinking about the other people that I know and whether I speak to them enough. It is easy to not ask a question and to have shallow conversations that skirt over complex issues but I am now of the opinion that the real wealth in our relations can come from putting our pride or our expectations aside and asking questions of those we know.

So whilst I didn’t ask enough questions of my stepfather let me share something he did say recently. A piece of business wisdom that is so simple that it often gets overlooked and yet ignoring it has brought down many a company.

“Get the cash.”

There it is. Simple yet fundamentally right. Whether you are a large or small company; whether you are international or local; get the cash. Because if you don’t your business has failed. It doesn’t matter about your sales pipeline, or even the number of sales you’ve made if you aren’t getting paid.

Now my stepfather was an accountant so I guess that was a natural thing to expect him to say but I’d challenge anyone to tell me he was wrong.

So always remember two things from this blog – talk to those who are wiser than you whilst you have the chance – whether a family member or business connection; and get the cash.

Do those two things and I guarantee success.

And Roger; you will be missed and I truly wish I had asked more questions.

Stephen

Perfection is Flawed

As a business coach I am going to recommend that you don’t strive for perfection. That in fact the quest for perfection is a fool’s quest and should be abandoned immediately!

Now the reason behind my thinking is very simple…perfection itself doesn’t exist.

It’s an illusion, a concept that can not be given actual form in the real world.

In the world of mathematics you might be able to have the perfect answer to a question but in the arena of human endeavours perfection ceases to be a real possibility. After all however good someone becomes someone else can always improve on it.

And worse than that very often how well someone has done something or how good something is literally no more than a matter of opinion.

So if perfection isn’t the goal what should be? Try excellence.

Now yes, excellent is another concept, another idea that within the field of human endeavours is hard to positively identify. However, and it is an important however, this time it is possible to more accurately measure it.

I can, for example, recognise an excellent sales pitch when I hear it. And I can even write down what would constitute an excellent sales pitch and train someone else to recognise it. I couldn’t however describe a perfect sales pitch. There is always something that could have been changed or altered.

So, assuming you want to excel in your career, whatever field of business that might be in, may I recommend you focus on being excellent. This is something that can be reached, a solid goal that is worth pursuing.

I could end this blog on that note but I would rather give you something in addition to theory. Something that you can put into action. So in brief let me outline your first three steps on the road of career excellence:

1. Commit to the task – commit to the challenge of being excellent at what you do for a living. It might sound obvious but that psychological commitment is the first real step – just as proposing is the first real step of commitment prior to a lifetime of marriage!
2. Identify the first action -here I can’t be more specific as it depends on what you want to excel at – you need to identify the first definitive piece of action that you need to take – it might be asking to work with a particular person, or purchasing a ‘how to’ manual, or subscribing to a blog or newsletter…whatever it is you need to identify the first action
3. Take action - this is where most people fail – they go through the theoretical steps listed above but then fail to take real action – they fail to do anything real…so take action by doing the action you identified at point 2 above!

A quick warning for those of you who heed the above advice…please realise that excellence is a long journey and it requires determination, persistency and a constant desire to excel. You do not become excellent at anything by only doing something once!

To balance of my warning the good news is that whilst excellence is a journey  many of the rewards you will receive will come from the journey itself even before you become truly excellent!

So take that first step and commence the journey.

Good luck.

Until next time;

Stephen

Stephen Hart

Career Polish

Career Polish

I rather like it when advice you get from your parents turns out to be true. It gives me a warm feeling to know that it was from my dad or from my mother. It puts a smile on my face and it makes the sharing of the advice that much sweeter.

And today I would like to share some career advice that I received many moons ago from my dad…

When I was growing up my dad, who worked in pensions and investments, would always tell me how important it was in business to polish your shoes.

He would recount stories of eager young sales people who would come in for interviews with expensive suits and firm handshakes. He would tell in great detail the exact moment when those people failed to make the right impression. The moment that the interviewer looked down and saw their shoes…

When I think back to when my dad first told me those tales I remember being inspired to polish my school shoes and more than that I believed that he had given me an advantage over my peers and that I must remember the lesson for the years ahead.

Well the years passed and as a typically cynical teenager I rebelled against a lot of good advice yet somehow I could never quite shake my faith in the polishing advice. Not that I did it all the time of course but rather the feeling that it was good advice was always in me, even when I failed to act on that feeling!

Towards the end of my teenage years I did wonder if the advice was a little old school. Whether in this modern age something like polished shoes would really be taken into account when considering the suitability of a talented young person.

That was quite a few years ago now and the millennium has come and gone and now I’m a business professional in my own right with, amongst other experience, almost a decade in the recruitment and headhunting world. And you know what…my dad was right.

I’ve heard from countless CEO’s and MD’s of multi million pound international companies over the last decade who tell me that one of the signs of a true business person is a pair of well polished shoes.

And it’s not only the ’silver haired’ brigade who thinks this. I know several wealthy entrepreneurs aged under 35 for whom polished shoes indicates an individual who is both serious about business and has an eye for detail.

It has also been said to me by several managing directors that polished shoes in a candidate is a mark of respect towards the interviewing company, a way of saying ‘I respect you and your business enough to make an effort to look my best.’ and the message the interviewers read into this is ‘if they can make an effort like that about their appearance probably they will make a great effort about their jobs.’

I think the reason that my faith in my dad’s advice never truly wavered during my teenage years was that it always felt so good, so diligent and just so right when I did actually pick up the polish and a cloth and shine my shoes. The proof was in the pudding as they say.

So if you are not moved by my retelling of my dad’s advice let me set you a challenge. Tonight go home from work and polish your shoes.

Polish them really well and leave them out by the door that you will leave your home from tomorrow. In the morning see how it feels when you go to put them on and then, even more importantly, see how great you feel once you have put them on.

You see what I have learnt is that people notice when you have polished your shoes and people react positively to the signals that effort sends out. And one of the most important people to notice will be you.

Until next time

Stephen

Stephen Hart