I recently received some very unfortunate news about an old boss of mine. Quite simply, he was the best boss I ever had: instructive, incisive, loyal, encouraging and also incredibly demanding. He also created some of the most side-splittingly funny moments of my working life – anything could happen when he was around and it usually did!
"Bring me every cold bottle of Pils that you’ve got, on the terrace, now!" springs to mind as one of the more memorable moments, around midnight after a particularly heavy meeting. The night porter duly wheeled a sack trolley of crates in and proceeded to open them, as we watched; I seem to remember that we gave it our best shot but between about six people it was a battle we were never going to win!
We worked together during the early 1990s and while the current economic climate is tough, that was not an easy time either, especially if you were a volume door and window manufacturer, trying to run up the down escalator. Each day was a battle and we lost more than we ever won, but we never, ever gave up and even on a bad day he had the ability to somehow find the words or the comment that could get you to go back the next day and start all over again.
As I sat at his service, it gave me time to think about some of those moments and also the things that stand the test of time; what’s worth holding onto through thick and thin? Service: in everything that you do, that has to be the primary goal. Attention to detail: he was ferociously strict about how things looked and sounded, which inevitably meant that quality followed through.
Loyalty: from start to finish and that means those behind you as well as in front; you’re only as good as the foot soldiers and your support team.
Belief: if you know you’ve done all the right things, stand your ground and tell anyone who needs to know that you’ve done everything that you can, so there’s no doubt in their minds.
Funnily enough, price wasn’t ever a primary point. Obviously price always comes into the equation, but it was worth nothing to him, unless the fundamentals were in place. Yes, so many of these things sound like well-worn clichés, but if you’re really passionate about what you do, they’re also true. Perhaps the way to get out of the office and see the family is to spend less time on the peripherals and concentrate on the basics?
