Emotional Intelligence

Thank you (I think!!) to my friend and partner Tom Kaminsky , for nominating me to continue the #defiantoriginstory initiative, and of course to Bryan Pe?a for starting this insightful journey.

My journey began with a happy but unremarkable childhood, where my parents worked hard to provide the best for my brothers and I in all regards. I was reasonably academic, but not exceptional, I was OK at sports, but not exceptional. However, it will not surprise those that know me that I once held the school record for the fastest Rubik's Cube solve!! Yes, as you can probably tell from the pictures above and description so far, I was a bit of a dork, and many would argue I still am. However, I'm proud to still count amongst my closest friends several folks I grew up with.

School for me was a mixed bag. I achieved decent results at 'O' level without having to work too hard. I then tried the same trick with my 'A' levels, and it would be generous to describe my results as underwhelming, which ruled out University.

I have nothing against university, and it has and still does create fantastic opportunities for many. However, I've been lucky enough to have been reasonably successful without a degree and know many similar people. Companies place too much importance in degrees for some roles and there are better ways of assessing ability and potential. Sidebar, a few years ago a leading investment bank was looking for a project lead for an ATS implementation here in the UK, with having a degree as a pre-requisite for the role. I'm lucky enough to know most of the freelance talent with a track record of successful recruitment technology implementations, and none of us have degrees. I'm sure the project ended up being a success, but in arbitrarily excluding the most qualified people from that role they will have made it a harder task than they could have.

My early career was a story of several jobs and not finding roles I either enjoyed or excelled at. The highlight was running the collections department for a small finance company. So many adventures and funny stories from this job that outweighed the tedium of endless collection phone calls.

Like many people in our industry, I fell into recruitment. I went to register with an agency looking for a new role and was asked to join them. My first recruitment job achieved three things for me,

• It taught me the power of hard work. Not going home until 150 new business calls had been made each day was a baptism of fire.
• I finished my first year as top consultant in a company of fifty, which gave a fantastic foundation upon which to build a career.
• It instilled in me a passion for recruitment that I still have today.

My second job in recruitment wasn't nearly so successful. Shame on my employers, and shame on me, for thinking that commuting 70 miles each way every day with a new baby at home, was a recipe for success. Fortunately, my first recruitment branch manager had a new role at a recruitment software company and hired me again. My passion for recruitment and my passion for technology (told you I was a dork!), and now I really had found my lane.

My career progressed well over the next few years, learning a great deal about many aspects of the industry and technology and ultimately growing into a director role for an up-and-coming software provider. Year 2000, new millennium, buoyed with my successes, a new mortgage, and another new baby at home, of course the time was right to start my own technology consultancy and co-found one of the early VMS providers!!! Naivety is a blessing....

Two days short of 24 years later and our VMS business is consigned to the annals of history, and I'm still delivering technology consulting services. This is a lesson in choosing one's business partners wisely. Let's just say the chairman of expressHR and I did not see eye to eye. However, in Tom Kaminsky I could not ask for a better business partner.

The past 24 years has not been without its detours, but long-term success as a freelancer is in no small way down to people seeing something in me and giving me the chance to deliver the value of my experience and knowledge. These people are far too numerous to mention, but there are a few worthy of special mention,

Bruce Henderson was the aforementioned recruitment branch manager that gave me my first break in our industry, coached me to becoming the company's top consultant and then hired me again into the software sector. On neither occasion did I have the CV that would make me an obvious fit for either role. However, Bruce was brave enough to take chances and without him I may not be who I am today.

During one of those early software roles I met Jon Holden. We have developed our careers together over the last 30 years. Sometimes he's brought me into projects he's working on, sometimes I've brought him into projects I'm working on. He is without doubt one of the best salespeople in our industry and our skills complement each other well. A dear friend to whom I owe a great deal.

Ten years into consulting and I was doing some project work for Randstad Sourceright, Randstad Managed Services as it was at the time, when Kelly Reynolds FAICD offered me the opportunity to join their senior leadership team. A mixed blessing as it was this role that taught me I'm not cut out for corporate life! However, what I learned about RPO and MSP during that role has been invaluable in being able to provide a balanced perspective to clients, understanding not just the clients motivations and challenges, but the providers as well. Again I was perhaps not an obvious fit for the role, but Kelly saw the value I could bring, and I am so grateful for the opportunity.

Whilst working at Randstad Jon Holden introduced me to Steve Knapp . Another few years of freelancing on consulting projects and Steve introduced me to Jason Ezratty , who surely has to win the award for the sharpest mind in our industry. Having been part of the Brightfield journey for a few years was a gift that gave me so many great experiences and a completely different perspective on many aspects of our work. I was lucky to work with so many great people at Brightfield and learned so much from most of them.

It was one of the fantastic Brightfield alumni in Ben Walker that introduced me to the final person on my list, Tom Kaminsky . Given the parallel's between TKs career and mine, I'll never know how we managed to not meet till Ben introduced us. Tom and I just seem to get each other. Yes, our skills sets, experiences, networks and locations complement each other, but that's not the real secret. The real secret is our trust in each other and that we have found both a friendship and a way of working that feels very natural.

The point of the shameless name checking is that my journey is defined by the people I've worked with, and thanks to those people who have looked beyond my qualifications and my CV and have seen things in me that complement their own journeys. I believe in the adage that successful people surround themselves with people smarter themselves. I have a variation on this approach in that I try to surround myself with people with high emotional intelligence, who recognise my strengths and my weaknesses, and facilitate and enable me to deliver the best outcomes for clients and partners alike, whilst I try and do the same for them.

I nominate Jon Holden and Jason Ezratty to continue this trend and share their #defiantoriginstory