English Columns

Many years ago I was a young insurance salesman in Tucson, Arizona. I had just started my own benefits consulting business and I was in search of clients to build my practice. I already had several small to mid-size clients, but what I really wanted was a large, highly visible marquee account—one that would put my firm “on the map”. This was at a time of consolidation in the banking industry in the United States and one of the big players was First Interstate Bank.

Since childhood I have been fascinated by observing people and their behavior. More specifically, I have been fascinated by observing the behavior of those who truly set themselves apart from the ordinary in their achievements. The field in which they excelled didn’t matter to me, it could be aviation, sports, parenting, academics, business, the arts, wood carving, being married, painting, engraving, farming, I didn’t care. What captivated me, and still does, was the achievement of excellence.

There is a wonderful story about an ancient king and his son which may well be the first account of an effort at career development. Archeologists have found evidence dating back to 4,000 BCE of the beginnings of the civilization of Sumer. By the third millennium Sumer became an advanced and flourishing civilization in Southern Mesopotamia, which we know today as Southern Iraq. The most fabled ruler of this region at that time was Sargon I. One day Sargon assembled all the wise men of his council to discuss something of great importance to the king—his son.

The idea for this column came from a conversation I was having several years ago with Jim Amos, the CEO of what was then the world’s largest non-food franchiser, Mail Boxes, Etc.

I am told that the all-time best selling book on finding a job (more than 8 million copies sold) was written 37 years ago by an Episcopalian clergyman who lost his job as a pastor in San Francisco in what we today call a downsizing. Richard Nelson Bolles’s experience in losing his job, successfully finding another, and his subsequent book, What Color is Your Parachute?, changed the way people looked at the job market and transition in their lives and, I’m told by my friends at Big Ben Bookstore here in Prague, that the book has been published in Czech.

I have been fascinated with the concept of emotional intelligence since childhood. I would observe the impact certain people would have on others—their mood, their efforts in what they did whether it was doing a daily chore at home or a job-related task. My mother, Velma de Callier, was a regional sales trainer for a direct sales company in the 1950’s. As a young boy she would take me to some of her training sessions when my older brother or sister couldn’t baby-sit me.

Self-confidence is an interesting topic to discuss, because it’s so hard to define it terms that can be easily understood and applied to our everyday lives. There is no question that in order to succeed in your career you will have to have a certain amount of self confidence, but how do you get it if you don’t have it?

With the number of books, lectures, seminars, articles, and DVD’s that have been produced on leadership in the past generation, it’s clear that there is some interest in the topic of what makes a good leader. At Amazon.com a query for “leadership” yields 16,939 current titles.

Over the years, in working with people who were in a certain type of transition—starting a new job—much of our time, initially, was spent on dealing with the angst of making the transition or change.

Years ago I remember reading an interview in which Peter Drucker, a man considered by many to be the management guru of the 20th century, was discussing his views on career development. His thesis was absolutely counter to everything I had been taught and I found it unsettling. What he had said was that, based upon his research and experience, fulfilling and rewarding careers were rarely planned—they evolved. Evolved! “How ridiculous!”, I thought.