It is May.
The Easter holidays are forgotten. The trees having been flowering beautifully and are now turning green and my wisteria is out. Bluebells are running riot. One of the best discoveries of my life was when I went to a meeting at the Ashridge Estate outside Berkhamsted and first saw the carpets of bluebells that grow in its grounds. It is spectacular. If you are ever near there at the right time drive through and experience it.
Whilst May is a wonderful month it is a confusing business month because of two bank holidays and consequent four day weeks. It can be extra difficult at home if you have people about to take exams – be patient you will all get through it.
So what am I thinking about?
True clarity.
About five weeks ago I turned on the TV and by complete chance caught the end of Extraordinary Portraits. It happened to be the first programme of Series 5 and was about Darryn Frost. You may not recognise the name. He is one of the brave people who took on the attacker at Fishmongers’ Hall/London Bridge. He is the one who grabbed a narwhal tusk and helped to stop the slaughter. If you do not know the story look it up or better still watch the programme.
This series selects ordinary people who have done extraordinary things. They are then teamed with an artist who creates a work to portray them and commemorate what they did. This is over a much shorter timescale than the artist normally works with. Their challenge is to find the essence of the person and then depict it.
In a thirty minute programme we watch an artist grapple with all this getting to know their subject, their story, their motivation, and finding a way to put it all across to a wider audience.
For me this has become compulsory viewing. It is fascinating in so many ways:
- The person does not think of themselves as someone would ever be a subject so they struggle with that.
- The artists are scared and challenged.
- There is huge time pressure.
- There is huge pressure to produce something that will be meaningful to a wider audience but mostly a piece of work in which the sitter can see themselves and their story.
- It is intimate in that the sitter has to open up about themselves and discover things they might not have known before and then trust those very personal insights to the artist.
- Artists share themselves; not just their working processes but their very personal fears about whether the decisions they have made will work.
I recognise so much about this in my process of working. The key to success is whether I can get to the very essence of a client. Stripping aside all the layers of the onion to what is at the core. Has the person ever delved this deeply? Does the picture need to be clarified and refined? Does the person recognise themselves or is this something they have chosen to hide from themselves? Once it is recognised then there is nowhere to go but acknowledge it and build it into the plan.
In Extraordinary Portraits how the artist finds clarity is an amazing process to watch. Then the creation of the piece and the artist’s reveal to the person and their tribe. What an enormous challenge and such a privilege.
I also have a process but it does change depending on the client and how they want to work. They usually set the agenda even though we are working towards a deep dive. I also collect all types of information mainly through questioning. Often the facts are irrelevant it is how the person sees them and reacts to them. I have to bring the client with me so I have huge empathy for the artists.
Of course there are differences. I am not working towards a scheduled reveal I can take this slowly; in my world both the client and I have choices, we decide whether we want to walk this path together and we can explore how that will be until we are both comfortable. We do it in privacy, not in front of cameras.
My favourite feedback is You get me or It’s hard to describe exactly what you do, but you are totally focused on my business and my life when we meet.
So you can understand why I am mesmerised by this series. Everything I love about people is here. It helps us understand what clarity is. Often we have no understanding of what drives us; our values, our upbringing, our sense of justice. These things kick in instantaneously when a situation occurs, we react and then we say, “where did that come from”. Sometimes we deliberately look at something from the corner of our eyes as we cannot face it straight on. Sometimes not only is it too hard to look at but we fear what we may have to do once we acknowledge it.
My arena is with businesspeople who want to achieve real clarity about where to lead their businesses. I have to find ways to skin each person’s onion to get to the very core of what they are and what they want. Sometimes this is very deeply submerged so hidden that the person cannot find it by themselves. Once they have found it they do not necessarily want to face it head on as it seems too hard. Until they do this and we can examine what they really want for their business we can make no progress. Often the easiest step of all is how to craft the plan to get there.
Your job is to make money and grow your business and I never lose sight of that and neither must you. The more clear and vivid your understanding of what you want the easier and more quickly we can craft the plan that will make it real.
One of my beliefs is that very few businesses have a USP. What they have is a founder/ owner/ board of directors who bring all that they are to deliver something in a unique way. If you really want to let your business develop to its fullest extent then try this holistic approach to finding your essence then let’s talk. We can find ways for you to move forward with the minimum of hiccups and maximum success. I love speaking with people so why don’t we have an off the meter conversation? We might want to work together in this exciting business world we both inhabit or we might not. Just to meet each other would be good and if I can help you explore possibilities for making your aspirations a reality that would be great.
Now I have the treat of watching Series 1 to 4 of Extraordinary Portraits – how fortunate am I?