I bawled my eyes out last Friday.
Tears of Joy. Relief. Gratitude. They felt good. Very, very good. They lasted a good long while. So long in fact there are a few trying to slip out right now, because I can’t even think about this topic without getting emotional.
Apparently some people are surprised to hear that I would cry. What momentous occasion caused my flood? Did I have a new child? Win the lottery? Or a new piece of business?
Nope. We won a high school football game.
I quit French in Grade 10.
My parents warned me not to. In English, to be clear. I didn’t listen. In any language. Sounds natural for a 14 year old, doesn’t it?
Of course, they were right. I was wrong. Still am. Even more so today than in 1979. As my career has revealed the obvious flaw of not being able to speak French, while attempting to be a marketing thought leader in Canada, I regularly kick myself for being unilingual. Especially given the extent to which Québec embraces activation, promotion, celebrity endorsement, sponsorship, festivals and events.
Lately Reverend Harrison has been monopolizing the pulpit.
With religious fervor, I have been sharing lengthy sermons to whatever congregational victim is within earshot. In some cases the congregation has been made up of my staff, my kids, their friends, my neighbours, my clients, my suppliers, my peers, my twitterverse, my conference audiences and my volunteer charity council colleagues.
Oh, and you.
These collective discourses have covered a wide variety of topics. I like to jump on the bandwagon of various management, marketing and leadership trends. Want to preview my next leap? Clean out my recycling bin and see what magazine I just read. Scroll through my Firefox history and track the sites and discussion groups I have visited. Hijack my iPhone and see the tweets consumed.
Or you can just sit back and listen to the rabble babble that comes out of my mouth. I consider myself a great parrot. I read everything. Distill it into a few
short sounds. Then squawk like mad in a convincing enough manner that perhaps some people feel I’m an expert.
If you followed my flight pattern over the course of this week, you would have heard me encouraging my team to release their entrepreneurial talents on every project they tackle. Then you would have heard me urging a charity I volunteer for to push its brand revitalization project to the utmost limit to be able to play in today’s highly competitive world of cause marketing. You would have witnessed me telling another charity CEO who I support that social media can drive business results. In between, I was providing feedback to a team member about the value of keeping and reviewing a daily and weekly task list. Especially the magic of evaluating yourself and actually grading your own performance. Later with a blue chip client, my pontificating reached a high point as I talked about the need for us to make all program decisions based on the OGSM (email me if you don’t know what that stands for) priorities and strategies. Tomorrow, I will be sharing best practices in developing sponsorship proposals for sport tourism and sports event rights holders.
This is a pretty typical week for me. I’m a talking head.
But lately the shadow of doubt has crept into my head. In my mind, I’ve been tearing apart how our business works and – more importantly – how I work. Faced with a little adversity, I think this is a natural tendency for humans to follow.
I’m not too worried about our business. But I am not sure that I personally always earn a passing grade. For example, I used to be crazy anal about my daily priorities and following a TO DO list.
Then for about three months, I just spent all day reacting to email and phone calls. Candidly, I got nothing done! Nothing of real value anyway.
I’m constantly telling my clients to keep their digital assets up to date. Then I checked out my website. Hello 2009!
If I want you to keep score, I need to keep score.
If I want you to work more effectively, I need to eliminate the goop that gets in the way.
If I am preaching to you that the power of your brand is your highest equity, I better invest in my own brand.
The guilt is slipping away. Quietly replaced by the thrill of a challenge. This shoemaker’s kids are not going to wear worn shoes. I am going to turn my lens inward. Fix me and my brand. Then my work habits. Then my interpersonal habits.
Then, keep striving to improve our company. Our process. Our product. Our performance.
Then I can come see you.
