Why writing a memoir is good for business

I have been in an all-male book group for nearly twenty years. We have become a club of sorts with a set of rules that evolve whenever a group of middle-aged men want to have the last word in a conversation. We often debate our admissions criteria, how to select a book, how to run the session, where to have the next session and should we serve cheese. It’s a bit like debating around the campfire with the conch in ‘Lord of the Flies’ before descending into a free-for-all with homemade spears.

In fact, the only thing that we agree on is one immutable rule. You don’t have to read the book. We select books which are interesting springboards for a wider discussion and then descend into group therapy as we tackle core themes of religion, relationships, and replacements (hip or knee).

Why is this of interest or relevance?

?Well, last night I moderated a discussion about William Boyd’s magnificent novel “Any Human Heart”. The book is a fictional memoir which tells the story of Logan Mountstuart whose turbulent life unfolds against seismic (and sometimes small) events of the Twentieth Century.? Its main theme is how our personal narratives are directed by random acts of capricious fortune and our ‘hearts’ are often unfathomable to those trying to understand us.

I began the evening by asking the group to participate in that well-known parlour game of giving a title to their own memoir. For mine, I avoided the obvious ‘If only I was taller’ or ‘Well I thought it was funny,” in favour of a more honest assessment of my 58 years on this planet.

‘Needy One’ – the life of a man who needed to be loved and loved to be needed.

?I say this to my LinkedIn universe of several thousand vague business acquaintances because I am sufficiently robust and self-aware to recognise this overarching character trait which evolves from a desire to be liked and to feel useful (and validated) by others.

I wonder, luck and circumstance aside, its impact on my professional life. Indeed, this week 36 years ago, I began my career as an advertising graduate trainee full of optimism and dressed in a highly flammable suit from C&A. (FYI younger readers, it was the shop your mum took you to when M&S was shut.)

?I am now running a boutique Exec Search business, after a career in multinational agencies and running my own agency. Could things have panned out differently? I often felt that whilst I prospered quickly, I lacked the fortitude or resilience to make unpopular decisions as I became more senior even if they were the right ones. Perhaps that is why controlling my own destiny in a smaller business has proved to be the most comfortable environment for me to flourish.

There comes a moment when we realise our actions are rooted firmly in defining behaviours which blossom and bloom rather than disappear over time. And these dispositions inevitably direct our professional journeys.

If you are an eternal optimist, you may not have the antennae to spot problems on the horizon and likewise if you are a grumpy, gloomy, half-empty sort of person, you will most likely not embrace opportunities as they arise. If you are instinctively cautious you won’t take risks, if you are a live-in-the-moment cavalier, you will take too many.

?Prevailing wisdom in management literature and behavioural science, from Jonathan Haidt to Jordan Peterson, suggests society needs to be a balance of contrasting personality typologies to function. Liberals see possibility, conservatives control existing structures. A blend of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism are required for a dynamic business to move forward with the checks and balances to prevent commercial irresponsibility.

?The corollary, therefore, is to not just recognise your defining behaviours but embrace their potential for personal and corporate success. There is no difference for the outcome of a business if it is led by tigerish enthusiasm or the pessimism of Eeyor. What is required is a sufficiency of self-awareness to identify how to compensate a defining behavioural characteristic. This is often uncomfortable because it involves co-existing with personalities that challenge that fabric of our professional DNA. And if you happen a candidate for a significant leadership position, it is perhaps better to articulate who you really are, even if it means an uncomfortably honest answer to the question “What’s your greatest weakness?”

?Which brings me back to my unwritten memoir.

?After all these years, I have learnt to embrace my own idiosyncrasies (about three hundred at last count) and counterbalance them through the contrasting behaviours of my very different business partner. You all need to do the same in whatever environment you work. Think about the tagline for your memoir and celebrate your defining uniqueness. Then surround yourself with people who enhance it through their conflicting but complimentary traits. The key is not to change, but rather to become a more highly functioning version of the optimist/pessimist/risk-taker/caution-embracer that you are.

?Finally, a quick update that I am not currently writing a memoir but mid-way through my third novel. ?A few years ago, I realised that a love of writing was also part of who I am and something on which to build. Whilst it is a quick way to gain popularity if you do it well, I don’t want your social media validation and endorsement by sharing or liking this article. Of course not. I mean what sort of needy, superficial person would that make me?

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