Surround yourself with success to be successful
Success energises you as anything else does in business
Several days ago I interviewed 13 highly engaged employees of a 100-million-turnover company, who shared one trait: determination. Determination in their job, but also for their company, which they wanted to develop along with their personal and professional growth. One of the reasons I like to interview the key people in a company just before starting a project is to fact-check what the business owner or the CEO has told me about the company and its focus. Sometimes, I find flaws in their message, which can be caused by a lack of a common vision.
That was not the issue here. They all shared what seemed to be a culture of true orientation towards people, clients and suppliers, the last being something they all emphasized during the interviews. There was purpose, and that's the key to a company that has doubled their revenues every year since their launch ten years ago.
I tell you this, because working for a company like this helps you realize the importance of success and how we can define it. From the beginning, I felt that the CEO was really running the company from a seriousness and humility that you can only see in companies with, what Angela Duckworth defines as, grit. As Duckworth defines it, grit is passion and sustained persistence applied towards long-term achievement, with no particular concern for rewards or recognition along the way. It combines resilience, ambition, and self-control in the pursuit of goals that take months, years, or even decades.
That's my client, and that's what they transmit to their employees, their clients and their suppliers. They make you feel you're their strategic partner, so you commit to their results as they commit to yours. Just as partners do.
I define success as doing what you love, with whom you love in the way you love. Working for a company like this one is not something common, but when you find it, as happens with love: everything makes sense.
So, business success is a cycle: they value you, so you give it your all, so they get results, and you receive joy. That's the cycle of value.
© Oriol López 2022