Yeah, there are countless wise men with much wisdom to share, but this is not about Steve, Sun Tzu or Pieter. Their wisdom, with the exception of Pieter’s, are bundled and published to smithereens. For you, I want to highlight two lesser knowns…

Both were brought into the world ages ago and both addressed the different kind of people there are within any environment. All with their own personality and motivational drive and not always in favour of what you want to achieve.

The first one was brought into the world by a guy called Machiavelli. 

An Italian diplomat, political philosopher, military strategist, historian, poet, playwright, and humanist based in Florence during the Italian Renaissance around 1500. He is considered the founder of modern political science. He said many things, but one was so applicable during my first two jobs…

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. For the innovator has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries … and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.”

YEP… Machiavelli could have said those words while observing you in your first two jobs. But somehow you managed and achieved your objectives. 

You, more by accident than applied knowledge, also used the principles, or written observations, of a second 16th/17th century person, being Christopher Wren.

Wren was the world’s most famous architect, who was commissioned to rebuild St Paul’s Cathedral after the great fire of 1666 that levelled most of London. He came with the parable of the three bricklayers and that goes like this:

One day in 1671, Christopher Wren observed three bricklayers on a scaffold, one crouched, one half-standing and one standing tall, working very hard and fast. To the first bricklayer, Christopher Wren asked the question, “What are you doing?” to which the bricklayer replied, “I’m a bricklayer. I’m working hard laying bricks to feed my family.” The second bricklayer, responded, “I’m a builder. I’m building a wall.” But the third brick layer, the most productive of the three and the future leader of the group, when asked the question, “What are you doing?” replied with a gleam in his eye, “I’m a cathedral builder. I’m building a great cathedral to The Almighty.”

You quickly learned that, as in normal life, in the working environment there are many different people, with different personalities, and different set of skills. All working to satisfy their own motivational characteristics. The only difference with life is, that on work you better learn to work with them… No escaping reality.

Use them according to their strength and help them to grow into their new role, using their own strength and efforts. But don’t be afraid to have dead wood chopped… from the top and the bottom.

Don’t exclude those opposing the change, but get them involved during the design and implementation of the change. Some need to actively taste the benefits of the new way of working while changing their mindset from opposer towards promoter… and some simply need to be chopped.

Later, while you were running your own company, your brother introduced you to a concept called NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming. Trying to understand what motivates a person and how that motivation fits the job at hand. What makes a brick layer a cathedral builder? Both are required within any organisation… just not in the same seat.

You applied the basic concept of NLP during most of your career and enjoyed helping others to understand their best fit.