Lesson 4: Grit

It’s 5:30am at Heathrow airport. I’m waiting for my new project manager to join me for a kick-off meeting with a new banking client in Dublin. It’s an important meeting. We are still a very small business - maybe 3 or 4 employees - and I need this trip to be a success.

My phone buzzes. Text message...

“Sorry about short notice but I've decided not to continue my employment. Hope all goes well in Dublin.”

New client, new project… No project manager. Great.

The phone buzzes a second time. It's him again.

“Think I hurt my back in your office yesterday. Might be serious.”

Enough! I turn my phone off. They are calling my plane.

I have only two options:

1. Get on the plane without him, do the best I can and hope the customer doesn't notice
2. Cancel the trip?

Strangely, at the time, I didn’t even think of option 2.

In my head, there’s only option 1.

I have no choice but to do it.?

And that is not just that it is my business and I can't afford to lose the client, but because I am wired not to quit. Ever.

Among my friends who run businesses, Grit is a very common trait.?

According to Angela Duckworth, author of Grit, it is the number one indicator of success among people in business, in politics, and those who succeed in sports. Not IQ, not talent, not a privileged background or an Oxbridge education, nor being an introvert or an extravert. All this things might help, but the ability to grind out a result, when it’s cold and it’s wet and the game isn’t going your way, is more important.

And this quality often comes from not having an easy ride through your formative years. It is a learned behaviour that comes from continuously overcoming disadvantages.?

By the way, if you want to raise investment for your business, it is something VCs will be looking for - in you and in your leadership team. 110% commitment.?

You will regularly face setbacks... but you won’t quit.

Coupled with Drive, Belief and a different attitude to Risk, if you start a business you are going to need plenty of Grit. The word “Quit” will not be in your dictionary.?

That’s maybe why owners get so frustrated when others throw the towel in. It’s very normal human behaviour, particularly when you are not vested in your job, but it’s something that owners can’t quite relate to. Or they begrudgingly learn to accept.

Anyway, back to the Dublin trip… In spite of my worst fears, it went surprisingly well. I needed the project manager less than I thought, and discovered another project with a different department, and actually came away rather relieved that my man had quit before he got too involved in the project. As so often happens, the person I hired to replace him, was far better anyway.

So now when someone quits at an inconvenient time, I actually take a deep breath, say a small thank you, and get straight onto the plane.?