16 OPINION: LIFE LESSONS August 2014
Chris Fulton Are they talking sense?
Understanding people and working with integrity will serve you well I
’ve spent my working life doing it for myself according to my own rules, abilities and foibles. However, even after 30 years doing this I’ve found that there are still things to learn and changes to make to the rules. In my early years a short career gigging as a guitarist, closely followed by one as a roadie, taught me that live music was a young man’s game. The late nights, long journeys, interesting food and other excesses required a particular ability; while it wasn’t for me, I understood what the roadies had to go through. Influenced, among other things, by my aching back and by my father, who understood business, I made up my mind to move career. The key here was to listen and take advice from lots of sources and fortunately I found something I was good at: computer programming. My experiences early on shaped how I look at people – not just on the surface, but to understand their world, the problems they live with and how they express themselves. Today I look past people’s origins, dress style, tattoos or money; when I talk to them, I ask myself: “Are they talking sense? Can I work with them with the least amount of hassle?” As Albert Einstein said: “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” I’ve made mistakes, some of them serious, but thankfully I have learned from them. Once I met a project manager who I was about to start working with. He said: “This is the first project we have worked on, I’ve never had a project go wrong.” My better judgement failed and I said nothing to him, even though my inner self was in complete turmoil as I already knew that, given its size and scope, the project was going to have challenges.
‘One thing that continues to surprise me is the ‘shopping basket’ approach to buying AV products and services’
Working for myself gave me the freedom to choose what jobs I did and didn’t take on. For each of these I always took away some extra bit of information – not only how to solve problems technically, but how to deal with people during the process. Integrity was a key ingredient: be truthful with
facts and figures, as either they will come back to bite you or you can use them to bite back! You don’t know what other people’s agendas are; they may be very good at hiding their dark side. I was always clear on the technical background when products, pricing and configurations were put forward. Time and time again, I would have people start by saying something was too expensive without being able to tell me what product or configuration they were comparing it against. So how did they know the price was too high? If they said there was no budget that meant no one would get paid, so why were they wasting time? What did this say about their credibility?
However, if they could name a budget then we had a common ground to continue talking, and in most cases the experience moved from supplier and client, to a more open partnership, to building lasting solutions and business relationships that extended beyond the initial project. One thing that continues to surprise me is the ‘shopping basket’ approach to buying AV products and services. Many projects and tenders require a breakdown of the components used; these are then compared using a quick Google search or a call to an alternate supplier. Who then takes the responsibility to make the solution work? In my circus, I’m the ringmaster and I control my monkeys. If you give me someone else’s monkeys, I have no idea what will happen to the show.
Chris Fulton is CEO & founder of FUTURE Software.
If you would like to share your life lessons, please email
paddy.baker@
intentmedia.co.uk
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