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Change Management Blog

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

December 19, 2019

Bill Allam: Guiding Change Management Success

Time to Read: 3 Min

 

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe

 

That quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln continues resounding in my mind. It is a parable about the importance of mindset and preparation. These two concepts had become incredibly important for my progress both in the past and in the present.

Given the success of the largest sale in the world last week, everyone has been asking a reasonable question:

What’s next?

A common (and understandable) mistake made in life and business is to assume that a completion point is always present. I’m all for enjoying the fruits of my labour and savouring the view from the latest summit I just surmounted, but I learned not to linger there too long nor to rest on my recent achievements.

Whenever I look closer from that vantage point, I notice the competition climbing up the mountain to get where I am.  And off in the distance, I see through the atmosphere yet more peaks to reach.

At that point, the key is focus. When I started many businesses in my early twenties, my impulsiveness led me to fail numerous times because I habitually jumped to other enterprises when I noticed progress in my current climb. Then, I formulated a philosophy that would change how I accumulated fortune. I would start another business venture before the current one(s) came to full fruition. While doing so, I always searched for another peak in the distance, scrambling toward it before I reached the pinnacle above me.

Though, I did not always rely on my intuition to correctly commence my own business plans. A millionaire for whom I wrote business proposals properly set me upward on the right path. I trusted his sagacious advice, because he had the credibility of successfully managing several of his own businesses. He coached me to always keep the main objectives front and centre, from start to finish.

I followed this advice devotedly by completely focusing on the four business proposals that I would write shortly after being given that advice. The result? They all succeeded. In a celebration which included numerous people, my millionaire mentor made a point that I had not yet finished my degree. In front of the crowd who were gathered at the summit, he marvelled aloud that my ideas were outcompeting the business proposals submitted by Harvard graduates.

Although I myself earned two postgraduate degrees from top-tier universities, I will admit that I do not believe an expensive university degree is essential to success in the business world. I have seen that specific experience and training and association with the right group of people can be far more valuable than a degree hanging on your wall.

I know truthfully that experience and mindset reign as the king and the queen of the business world. Because of that, mistakes are not decrees of failure. You are still participating as long as you choose to be. I love the opportunity to learn, adjust, and evolve. If I fall, I stand up. And each time the recovery, the rebound is faster.

And returning to the question after the largest sale in the world launched:

What’s next?

Well, I cannot stop simply because I succeeded. What my younger self would have seen as the summit is not so. Experience and wisdom only reveal higher places to reach on this mountain, including many peaks far off in the distance to trudge through.

As a follow-up to that unprecedented sale, I plan to turn my attention to managing the dramatic transformations within the foreseeable future in this field. Part of that role will involve leading a transformational change that includes introducing the new market mechanisms and technologies that will establish solid post-trade processing activities. This is a momentous change that will transform the financial ecosystem of the Saudi Capital Market infrastructure. This will result in investor confidence and the strengthening of the current market infrastructure. Operational efficiency will be optimized for a market newly integrated into global benchmark emerging market indices, such as the MSCI EM Index, FTSE Russell, and S&P Dow Jones.

The photos here were taken of our workshop we recently held in December 2019.  Many attendees at this event included representatives from companies like JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and others. This gathering contained key representatives from banks, brokers and institutional investors.

In the wake of my current success, I look back at the larger lessons of my early experiences in the business world. My biggest takeaway was that advice from my mentor: a relentless focus on goals and the disregard of any distractions that are either minuscule or massive, internal or external. Keep the current summit in sight while overcoming the obstacles before you. Time is especially precious and is as valuable as the financial benefits of your ascension.

That results-oriented mindset was a real game-changer for me. And I attest that it all truly does start inside your own mind and nowhere else. Having an outlook that included personal development, emotional intelligence, and resilience laid the foundation for my vigilance and clear focus in life.

I see my own role as a guide who travels upwards on the steep mountainside, facing challenges and overcoming barriers. Because of my experience, I would be willing to provide tips to any other travelers who, like myself years ago, may not know how to endure or prepare for the climb upwards.

I am keen to hear from any of you if you ever developed a business idea, be it conceptual or already materialized. Please send me a direct message and let us chat, via LinkedIn or virtual chat.

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