Sunday, 14 June 2009
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Confidence and Initiative
Things would be easier if I wasn't always a hopeless, neurotic mess of contradictions. Nonetheless, while it's obvious that you need sufficient knowledge, competence and overall substance in your field to make it somewhere in life, I find confidence is a much trickier thing.
The number of self-help books and other bullshit publications in this arena are disgusting. I think it's awful that we encourage people to have misplaced perceptions of themselves, to believe that anything is possible if they just try, to believe that their lives will one day be an inspiration for some fucking feel-good movie. Sometimes I know I'm a cocky motherfucker who has no qualms putting idiots in their place, but that's because I'm putting idiots, in their place. Usually that means I know what I'm talking about, and they don't. Confidence is easy when you know what you're talking about. Facts don't need arguing, and if they do, some people need to get fired.
Opinions however do require substantial debate. And while I have some fairly strong opinions about my own business, I find my own confidence in them to be lacking. I think I've been focused on getting all the functional aspects of my plan in place without thinking about the psychology behind my initiatives.
Over the weekend a buddy was telling me about how, when playing basketball, he would use taunts and various psychological attacks to weaken the resolve of his competition. I realized that, by nature, I tend to focus solely on the logical areas of corporate strategy and tactics. I've been so swamped trying to figure out all the analytics and metrics I'd need to piece my plan together that I hadn't considered that increasing my investment in marketing my ideas might at-least make the sell a bit easier.
The sell is certainly going to be tricky. While my plan has worked out far more brilliantly than even I would have suspected so far, the lack of resistance I was getting was starting to feel disarming. Figured I'd better stay on my toes...and it's a good thing I did, because next Monday I just found out I am to have lunch with the president to discuss my career plans. Certainly not an outcome that I had anticipated.
4.0GPA, full football scholarship, top-tier MBA, consultant at top management consulting company, years of m&a experience at one of the world's most admired companies...this guy is everything I am not.
My insiders have numerous theories about how this might have come about, and while there's a good spread, there's a general consensus that this is overwhelmingly a good thing for me.
At some of my other companies, having lunch with the president wouldn't be a big deal. At this company, it certainly is. Power-distance here is huge. The grapevine is buzzing, and my ears are constantly burning. I've accepted the possibility that now, and throughout the rest of my career, I'll likely experience animosity and alienation whenever I get shifted up the ladder. Now let's just see if that actually happens.
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