Every once in awhile

For those of you who have attended one of my Knocking down Silos talks, you will understand my concept of "the good guy." This is a gender neutral quality that epitomizes knowledge, personality, reliability and altruism. It is my firm conviction that human history is populated by great people (aka "good guys") who inspire others to follow them by their vision and their desire to serve others.

Humans are hard-wired to talk about others and a "good-guy reputation" is invaluable whether finding a job, leading a company, looking for investors or asking others to follow you over the ramparts and into a hail of bullets.

But every once in awhile you meet the opposite. An associate recently related how his company has severed their professional relationship with a client company precisely because of the personality of its leader.

In his words, " this guy's personality is worth a mention in the next KDS as to how to run a company into the ground by ticking off service providers and his own people!!"

Further inquiry reveals a president who is brilliant in his field but arrogant, abrupt and inconsiderate with employees and his service providers. It's an interesting insight that, although bricks and mortar have no personality, a company actually takes on the personality of its leader.

Does his ego allow him to look in the mirror and admit that his personality is affecting his bottom line?

Does he realize that his employees and service providers (bankers, accountants, lawyers, recruiter etc) will slam the book on his company's file at 5pm on a Friday afternoon as they won't go that extra mile when their spouse and kids are asking them to come home?

Does he blame the turnover and low morale in his company on himself or does he look for external factors?

Do the shareholders in his company know that his personality is affecting the bottom line?

Moral of the story: 20% of society is made up of "good guys" 79% are people who have the ability to achieve that persona (especially if they come to Knocking down Silos!) But every once in awhile you meet a psycho. Learn from them, be cautious of them, but don't let them affect how you treat the rest of society.

Or as my dad ( a 30 year veteran of the Canadian military) would say of an inept officer:

The only way anyone would follow that guy...is out of curiosity.