“The most profitable companies are not the most aggressive in chasing profits. The wealthiest men and women are not the most materialistic. And the happiest people do not set out to pursue happiness.”
I was speaking at a conference in London recently and stayed at the Hilton in Islington. I had nothing to do the evening before, so popped out to a nearby bookshop and found a copy of John Kay’s latest book: Obliquity.
I’ve liked Kay’s writing for a while -from his articles in the FT to his excellent book Foundations of Corporate Success which I though was one of the classics in the strategy field in the 90s.
Obliquity challenges a lot of the seemingly common-sense notions we have about achievement – and uses real-world data and examples to do so.
It’s almost a core tenet of the business coaching industry that to succeed you need to set crystal clear goals and objectives and to then break them down into lots of sub goals and milestones.
But Kay shows that that’s rarely how truly successful businesses or individuals do things. Business and life is just too damn complex for a simple approach like this to work.
In fact, he gives some very sobering examples of how when companies like ICI (whose original mission was focused on excellence in chemistry) and Boeing (who focused on aeronautical engineering) switched their focus to maximising shareholder value, they actually destroyed tons of it.
He also shows how people who set out with an objective of being happy rarely achieve this. Whereas people who set goals like climbing a mountain or contributing to a charity end up very happy as a result.
There are lots of good things in the book and I throughly recommend it as a light-ish read that will get you thinking.
But for me the standout “finding” is that in order to succeed in making money as a business or individual, you need to have a higher goal. That might be excellence in engineering, or to help your clients retire wealthy, or help companies improve their impact on the environment.
Focus on that goal, and the wealth will follow.
Focus only on building your wealth and you’ll struggle.
In the Authority Marketing interviews I’ve been doing with leading consultants who’ve become recognised as the authority in their field, this same finding keeps coming up. They didn’t enter their field because a cold, hard calculation told them it would be profitable. They developed a passion for it. And then they followed that passion.
Given my focus on authority, I was more than interested recently to discover Greg Habstritt and a new course he’s putting out called the Authority Formula.
At first I thought “damn, a competitor”. But I’ve been impressed so far.
He’s releasing a series of free training videos, reports and even some free online software related to the course. The first video is on the “Branson Effect” and the core is the exact same point: you need to focus on a passion, not just making money.
I recommend you take a look at the Branson Effect video (you’ll have to sign up to get access) and especially to use the Success DNA Detector software. I used it myself and found it very insightful at helping my prioritise what really made me tick.
You can get access to the video, PDF and software by clicking here.
PS – apparently there’s a free iPad 2 for the best comment received on the video!
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*** Please note – I’ve been so impressed so far I’ve signed up as an “affiliate” for the training course. As this is the launch of a training product, eventually Greg is going to suggest you might want to buy it. And I suspect it’ll be expensive too! If you do buy after clicking my link, I’ll get a commission for “introducing” you.
Now I really like the free videos, PDF and software so far – and Greg’s blog posts. But I haven’t taken the training course or even seen it yet – so I can’t give a recommendation based on my own experience. So please make sure that if you do buy it you’ve fully researched and done your own due diligence.
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- The Authority Formula – A Marketing Case Study
- Robert Craven Interview
- Jane Mason Interview
- Greg Alexander Interview
- Are You Building Your Tribe Yet
Hi Ian – interesting blog. I think the problem with looking at outlying data points like Branson is that they tell us nothing. I always think about Jim Collin’s Good To Great where he analysed what make good companies great. Guess what? Five years later most of them were gone.
Branson and others like him are lucky. Don’t get me wrong – they know how to make a fortune and keep it which is a rare skill, but there is usually a “right time, right place” element to their story at the start.
The fact that Branson does not seem to be goal-led does not mean that the absence of goals is a causative factor in his success. And I will bet my house that Branson’s managers are profoundly goal-driven.
You mention ICI – I used to work there and what you say is correct, but, frankly, choosing a bad goal (shareholder value) does not make goal-setting useless. Goal setting is a tool like any other – it can be misused.
I completely agree with the notion of a higher goal, and one that is value driven. My driving value is that the greatest thing on earth is human potential and to try to help people realise as much of their potential as possible is worth getting out of bed for. That’s why I do what I do.
I am a fundamental believer in goal setting but without the foundation of solid values goal setting is useless, as I discovered (again) recently when I got into a business venture that did not accord with my values and I simply failed to deliver because I just didn’t care.
On a more mundane level, I am now doing 100 miles a week on my bike – without goal-setting I’d still be the “maybe today” occasional cyclists instead of the chiselled athlete I am just about to become
Hi Mark – that’s an essay, not a comment!
Have you read The Halo Effect? It pulls apart Collins’ methodology for highlighting outliers and also for using retrospectively reported data which is biased by current perceptions or what’s been successful. Good book.
So I’d agree about Branson beign an outlier – but he’s a decent examplar of a good principle. You shouldn’t derive the principle from him – but he’s a good person to use to illustrate it as he’s well known.
On the goals front. Kay doesn’t argue against goal setting – I’m oversimplifying his argument. He says a number of things, and he’s certainly not against clear goals for straightforward things like cycling 100 miles. One of his main points is that complex goals can’t necesseraily be achieved directly (hence obliquity). But he doesn’t argue against goals.
Cheers,
Ian
Hello Ian,
None of the suggested links works..
A.
I believe that passion is really needed when pursuing wealth or happiness because without it you wouldn’t be able to last the journey towards it.