Building a Great Team

One of the biggest complements I have ever received about Certus was from a respected industry Partner of a Tier 1 Management Consultancy I met recently who said “The nicest thing about Certus is that it works like an exclusive members club, to work there you have to be invited to join. Many want to join but very few are accepted”. I remember walking out of the office and into the sunlight of a hot summers day smiling. 

Now this should not be interpreted by any means as arrogance but our mantra at the company is simple we focus upon looking after our employees and ask in return they look after us as a company. We achieve this by being open and honest with them about the state of the company, where we are heading short and long term, the challenges we face, and what we need them to focus on to make us successful. In doing so, we look out for one another and the result is we know that our people will look after our customers. Without our customers we don’t have a business, but it is our people that do this and not the cloud technology we implement. Hence our people are actively involved in the hiring process, their opinion matters and their voice needs to be heard especially as we expand, and most importantly we need to listen! 

We hire people that we feel we like to work with on a day-to-day basis and we have a positive connection with. As a team we make the choices (right or wrong) and we continue to surround ourselves by the people that we feel we can depend upon. (I can hear my Head of HR now rolling her head at this moment as I write this!). But regardless of all the legalese around employment law all businesses ultimately are people businesses and our relationships are the foundation to our success. We can teach anyone with a degree of aptitude the technical skills of the job. What we can’t teach is likeability, positive attitude and how an individual can integrate and work as part of a great team. The ability to do this is what we look for. 

As a consequence we have built a great team at Certus – and before anyone says anything - no we don’t always get it right either! But we try and that’s all we can ask of one another that we continue to give it our best day in and day out in building a great company. We want all our people to be happy and enjoy working for the company. It needs to be fun! 

Teams at Certus win business deals – not individuals, and teams at Certus implement Oracle Cloud solutions successfully, and most importantly teams at Certus focus on ensuring our customers are happy and have a positive experience and become advocates. A bit cliché to finish this blog entry off with a Steve Jobs quote but hey what the hell did he know? “Great things in business are never done by one person they're done by a team of people”. The most successful organisations have this, so go on ask yourself the question “are you one of them?”

The Power of The Dream

A dream encapsulated into a focused vision is the vehicle for making positive change regardless whether it’s in your business or personal life. Fundamentally our dreams contribute to who we are as people and the ability to make a change that positively benefits others, even if it is only one person in any shape or form is truly a wonderful thing. How do we inspire greatness? – through our dreams! However in order to follow your dreams you need to be brave; be prepared to take a risk; and then go make something happen. Worrying about whether you will succeed or not is merely a distraction and an excuse for guaranteed failure. 

As General Colin Powell said “A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work”. So don’t settle for “What if?” or “If only”; don’t look back with regret on missed opportunities whether in your personal or business life. I know I have and continue to do so and I still constantly struggle to come to terms with it despite Certus being a successful business. 

My favorite quote often attributed to Robert F. Kennedy quoting George Bernard Shaw “Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.” 

You only have to look at what people have created through their visions, and continue to do so today big or small for inspiration – At the extreme Nelson Mandela united a fragmented country and built a nation; Steve Jobs back in the 70’s wanted to get a computer in the hands of everyday people and Richard Branson vision for the future “is to turn capitalism upside down – to shift our values, to switch from a just profit focus, to caring for people, communities and the planet”. For most of us mere mortals our dreams can be simpler but just as powerful from having a family; getting into university; following a career of one’s choice and most of all to be happy in life. 

My advice is simple and something I drill into my own children “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something?” I know if I had done that when I was 18 I would still be printing bank statements in a basement somewhere instead of building the leading Oracle Cloud consultancy, positively disrupting the Oracle Partner network, and being a pioneer into the unknown of the cloud and having a lot of fun in the process. Why? All because I had a dream that I could build a great company that could enable organisations to transform their businesses through Oracle technology better than anyone else in the market! and also for the most common reason people climb mountains simply “because it’s there and I could” – don’t ever under estimate the power of a dream.

The Power of A "Can Do" Attitude

Running your own business can be the most exciting and thrilling experience you can ever imagine. It is a roller-coaster ride of emotion from fantastic highs to deepest lows married with the harsh reality that you will lose more than you win. The psychology of how you manage this personally and get yourself mentally prepared quickly to go again is a key element of the makeup of any leader. This is even more critical when you have a great team of people around you that you need to keep motivated and focused on the goal in hand. To be successful they have to believe in you and be willing to follow.

Seeing my vision becoming a reality, bringing together, building and maintaining a great team of people; "winning" new business and turning prospects into customers and then into advocates to me is the ultimate challenge. Achieving and maintaining excellence in customer service and providing a positive customer experience has and still is critical to any successful service industry - digital or face-to-face.

Equally all of this does not come without a lot of hard work and at times significant personal cost. The stresses and strains can take you to breaking point and back, but also you find yourself and the people who have come on the journey with you suddenly capable of things you couldn't previously imagined. You are constantly learning, not just in acquiring new business and commercial knowledge, but more importantly about one’s self. You just never stop learning.

Underpinning all of this is having a “can do” attitude. Your attitude to calculated risk taking becomes highly refined, and your of fear failure becomes immaterial as your outlook and approach to everything is "don't tell me 99 reasons out of a 100 why something cannot be done, but give me the 1 reason out of 100 why something can be done and just do it!". Whilst to be clear I am not advocating being reckless and being a complete maverick is a fast path to bankruptcy, success at all levels is a combination of a focused positive "can do" attitude and being able to look at any type of problem as a challenge and sometimes being highly creative in over-coming it.

So when in your next meeting (business or personal!) and someone says no or something cannot be done just remind them in 1963 President J.F Kennedy laid down the challenge that “before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth”. On 20th July 1969 Apollo 11 (Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins) did just that with less technology and raw computing power that fuels your mobile phone we take for granted today.

You just have to want to do it and then make something positive happen!