Category: Work

In September1995 when I commenced my banking and finance law firm, we did this one thing that got people talking. We started with one client (Citibank), but quickly grew to over 35 corporate clients within 18 months. Our firm’s meteoric rise attracted the attention of the Law Society of NSW, which asked me to talk at one of their functions. The topic was, how to go from been a great lawyer to being a great entrepreneur.

So I stood up on that stage and talked very passionately about the need to commoditize and corporatize, the need for systems and operational efficiency, the need for transparency and the need to motivate staff. But then, I had a comment from the back of the room from someone who said, “…but that still does not explain how your firm grew so quickly.”

That confronting comment then sparked my honest and impromptu response that went something like this: “There is one thing that we do that gets people talking about us and spreading the word. It’s really very simple. We GO BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY.”

To a room full of lawyers, I thought my response was going to fall on deaf ears. Lawyers are after all obsessed with time costing and billable hours. But I went on to explain that sometimes we need to need to perform our job not solely for the purpose of making money and operational efficiency. Sometimes we need to do more for less. Sometimes we need to make a loss.

I gave them the example of how our firm did not shy away from the difficult customers or the difficult files. I told them the story of how one day I received an urgent set of commercial loan instructions at 5pm. A senior paralegal and I stayed back to prepare some very complicated loan contracts. Then I left the office at 8pm and drove for an hour to deliver the documents personally to the customers home where he and his lawyer were waiting. I received a polite ‘thank you’ and they closed the front door. I was not asked if I wanted a glass of water or to come in and rest a little. I was a little disappointed. But I built a bridge and got over it and went about my business. Two weeks later I received a letter from the CEO of the bank that I was acting for. The letter thanked me for going ‘out of my way’ to help the customer that also happened to be a personal friend of his. Let me tell you that over the ensuing 6 months our volume with that client quadrupled! Simply because we went beyond the call of duty.

That was my message in 1997. Today there are many businesses that live by this mantra. There is a company in the USA that is famous for going beyond the call of duty. Zappos is a company that sells shoes online and back it up with a call centre filled with people that are eager to please the customer. They call it “Delivering Happiness”. There are many stories of how Zappos staff go beyond the call of duty. There is the story of how one employee spent over 5 hours on the phone with a bride-to-be looking for a pair of shoes she remembered seeing in a bridal magazine. Now do you think Zappos made a profit out of that transaction? Definitely not. But it was great marketing dollars! Because that customer talked about her experience.

We have to accept that we live in an age where customers have more power. People are sharing their experiences more than ever. This scares the hell out of a lot of companies. The ones that are focused on operational efficiency but the clever businesses see that as an opportunity. The opportunity is to get people talking about you by going beyond the call of duty.

I am talking about the sort of fearless leadership that sets a business assail toward new frontiers, where the journey lasts years, motivates many and delivers a bounty.

The following is a list of inspirational traits I have witnessed among business leaders whom I have had the pleasure of working with over the past 24 years.

1. Fearless leaders do not try and predict the future. They focus on shaping it. In a fast and ever-changing business environment it is futile to try and predict the future, especially when it comes to consumer trends. Fearless leaders know this. Instead they focus on creating and setting the trend.

2. Fearless Leaders are decisive and act fast. Fearless leaders have a mindset toward making a decision, implementing it quickly, learning, adapting and continuously improving. Fast. It sometimes means accepting risks, forgiving mistakes and learning from everything. Fearless leaders set aggressive deadlines and insist on meeting them. They have no time for protracted analysis, long-winded meetings, and unnecessary reviews and checkpoints. Speed of decision-making. Speed of implementation. They thrive on it.

3. Fearless Leaders are always right – even when they are wrong. I know this is a contentious trait but fearless leaders don’t care if they are wrong sometimes. Conviction is better than tireless collaboration, which inevitably leads to inaction. Sometimes making a mistake and correcting it quickly is much more effective than impotent collaboration – just ask Mr Obama how that’s going.

4. Fearless leaders wear their heart on their sleeve. They are intense, passionate and often the most animated in meetings. They do not try and hide their true personality. What you see is what you get – in the boardroom or at the pub. They do not sugar coat anything. They tell it like it is and spare no one. But they are always constructive and never hysterical to the point of spooking others.

5. Fearless leaders put the business first and ego’s second. Including their own. There is something bigger than all of us in an organisation. And that is the mission. Anyone putting their personal interests ahead of the mission cannot call themselves leaders, let alone fearless ones. Anyone who has seen the movie Braveheart would understand what I mean here.

6. Fearless Leaders build a team of champions around them. Including their suppliers. They do this by recruiting the best, not tolerating mediocrity and demanding innovation, hard work and round the clock intensity. They recognise that nothing great has ever been created with a 9 to 5 mentality.

7. Fearless leaders have one-on-one meetings with the right people to get the ‘real’ picture. People are rarely full and frank in open business meetings. They will NOT say what’s really on their mind. Or worse still, they will not say anything at all. If you want to know what’s going on in people’s hearts and minds, a one-on-one meeting is best. Especially, if you do it out of the office. I usually go for a walk to get some fresh air and gain some perspective.

8. Fearless Leaders zoom in and out of their organisation. This is my personal favourite and one that I try and adhere to. Fearless leaders sweat the small stuff. They know that the smallest of details can sometimes mean the biggest difference in setting you apart from your competitors. They can zoom in on a specific issue and mix it with staff at any level. They can re-engineer, re-design and get technical. They also have the uncanny ability to zoom back out and not miss the big picture.

9. Fearless leaders build a legacy not an exit strategy. Fearless leaders are not satisfied with short-term results. They do not pursue a strategy that grooms their business for sale. They do not distribute dividends and bonuses at the expense of research and development. They stay focused on the future and the positive impact their products and services can make on society.

10. Fearless leaders are fiercely competitive – they hate losing!