I Don't Have My Decision Making Trousers On

He stood for a moment before the office door. A tall, gangling and spotty young man dressed in a dust stained warehouse coat. At one end of him black and white baseball boots peeked from beneath the red velvet bell bottom trousers and at the other end a mop of wavy brown hair sprang from a centre parting to cloak his shoulders.

No-one had told him why he was summoned to see the boss. He was at the end of his fifth week at the firm, his probationary week having proved satisfactory he had been told that he was on an eight week trial, but there had been a few, well issues, so was his trial about to end? Only one way to find out, so he straightened his back, took a pace forward and knocked.

Barely two minutes later he walked from the office closing the door behind him. As he walked back to his work area he little knew that those steps were the start of a management journey. Far from being sacked he had been told that, despite not having the required educational qualifications, he was being placed on the management training scheme. They had seen some potential.

That gangling, spotty youth was me, and I look back over the not quite 40 years since that day with a great deal of gratitude. The spark that they saw and tried to fan took a while to burst into flame, but it eventually did so because of their taking the time to invest in me.

Over the years I’ve tried to pay back that debt by helping others. I’ve built some great teams and I’ve had some failures, but I have a huge pride in the people that have come through my teams on gone on to greater things.

In the pages that follow you’ll find out about some of the things that have succeeded and failed for me over time. I hope that these thoughts and stories will help you too. If they do, perhaps you can pass them on to others in turn.