Maybe this is a slightly embarrassing admission, but I like Sitcoms, I don’t watch them as much anymore, but what I like about them is that I can sit there and not think. As someone whose mind is constantly running, I find watching them gives me a chance to turn it off.
I grew up on all sorts of shows including “Happy Days”. Some of you might be too young to remember the show but I am sure a bunch of you will. It has probably aged now but there was one scene that I never forgot and still has some relevance.
The main character in Happy Days was Richie Cunningham, the slightly nerdy, wholesome 1950s type of American character. Alongside him was Arthur Fonzarelli (The Fonz) who was a leather jacket wearing cool guy.
In a particular show Richie was getting bullied by a couple of tough guys and the Fonz encouraged him to challenge them to a fight. This was based on the assumption that like a lot of bullies they would back down when faced with someone who would fight back.
The fight was organised and unfortunately for Richie the bullies turned up, ready to go and even when Richie put on a tough guy performance the bullies didn’t back down. When he panicked and asked The Fonz why they hadn't backed down, The Fonz responded that he had forgotten Richie didn't have a reputation, and without it, he wasn't coming from a position of strength.
The reason why I share this story is because without a reputation you are going to find it harder in business. This can come in the form of your business brand and of course your own personal one. It is not to say you can’t be successful, but it is significantly more difficult.
That is a hard one to stomach if you are just starting out in your business career, but you will have to use your other strengths to get traction early on. This is the same for whether you have a new business or a new career. There is a great quote that I recently heard which was “trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback”. In other words, your reputation takes a long time to build but one wrong step and it will leave you quickly.
I remember having dinner a long time ago with a lady who was the CEO of a $1 billion dollar revenue steel company in Canada and she told me something that I never forgot. She said I have 3 main competitors, and we are all similar, same product, similar prices but she said the reason why we often outperform them is based on how we respond to our mistakes. We all make them, but when we do, we go overboard on trying to fix them and it works. This is when our reputation grows.
I have faced this at least twice in my career. In both cases, I made mistakes that felt massive at the time, the kind that seemed career limiting. But we stepped up, took ownership, and not only contained the damage but came out stronger on the other side. Looking back, I am genuinely proud of how we handled them.
On the other side, I can also recall a time when we made a mistake and tried to ignore it and to this day, I still cringe.
Here are some critical areas that I think are worth thinking about with your own reputation: