We’re all artists, deep down

Last time we talked (well, I talked) about getting the day-to-day right. All the little things that need to be done that add up to one big, right thing.

But sometimes the big thing comes first and you do the day-to-day just to get there. Take this Caledonian Challenge thing I did last weekend with my daughter, daughter-in-law and one of their friends. It consists of 54 miles in 24 hours, over the highlands of Scotland (the high bits), right through the night, head torches and all. Yup.

I was scared. Properly tight-bum scared. Daughter ran the Milanmarathon in April, the daughter-in-law is fit as a butcher’s dog and an ex-triathlete and the friend is skinny, fit and fast. Which left me and my plan. Which mainly consisted of buying ridiculous quantities of suitable kit. Most of it never used.

To be honest the overall goal just scared me silly. Having never walked more than 20 miles in any given day, 40 tops on two consecutive days, this was beyond my comprehension.

Come to the event all the usual expected stuff caused problems; blisters visible by the light of the moon, endless rain (West of Scotland, ‘Nuff said), midges (oh my God, the midges). But what I hadn’t allowed for, what I hadn’t been able to anticipate was the laughter, the bleak beauty of where we were, a sky so low and luminescent beautiful it was like walking inside a fortuneteller’s globe. It was, to put it plainly, awesome.

It was walking as an art form. Tortured, hard, seemingly endless and ultimately soul souring.

Amongst all the things I don’t like about ‘business speak’ and management geekery is the whole ‘strategic planning piece’.  Because it takes all the passion and art out of business. And business is art.

Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is an art and good business is the best art.

- Andy Warhol

The problem with art is that we business types – and I include me in that but I do have to wonder sometimes – think art is all airy-fairy. Waiting around for the creative muse and all that claptrap. We should be so lucky.

But, talking to artists of various types, they all mainly just rock up for work, start doing something and expect that the inspiration will come. Perspirationfirst and all that. The only thing they have in mind is the outcome they are aiming for. And they’ll know that when it happens.

I seem to be attracting artists just now into my life – a couple of actual paint and/or pencil artists, a photographer or two, a couple of musicians – and once I got past the piss-taking of ‘You call that work?’, I finally saw the similarities to business.

Ultimately they have to be craftsmen. They need to have technique, to understand their tools and medium, to be able to manifest thought and feeling into a visual or audible form.  They have to have a market – starving in a garret is not a career option, even for an artist. They need to have a style recognised as theirs.

Your business, as the owner, is to be that artist. To know what your own style is and how that translates into your business. The very best businesses reflect the people who own them – for good or bad. As they say, a fish rots from the head down.

Knowing what you and your business are about, what you want to say about yourself – and make no mistake, everything your business does speak volumes about you – makes it easier to make decisions about how things should be done and by whom. Get yourself and your people into the flow of your and their own artistry.

We recently held back from appointing a financial controller in one business and gave a junior administrator a shot – under supervision. She had always drifted towards the numbers side and seemed to have that attention to detail and determination you need to keep the cash flow flowing. She is now the Picasso of credit control. Loving it, loving work, exuding energy and excited about where she can go from here in a career now, not just a job. And, yes, it’s numbered but it’s numbers apart.

Do what only you can do. Be a craftsman for sure, but be an artist too. Trust in that magic.