What is success? Is it about control—or letting go?

By Catherine Morgan, PEO Executive Advisor

It’s a question business leaders often struggle to define: what really is success? The great humanitarian Albert Schweitzer defined it best by saying that success is not “the key to happiness.”

“Happiness is the key to success,” Schweitzer added. “If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”

But for business leaders, especially those who seek enhanced mutual growth and success in a safe environment such as PEO, this question takes many different formats. One of the most prominent ones is addressed as follows:

“Am I where I want to be?”

When this is considered, the next question often is: “Am I excited any more? Where’s my passion?”

Sometimes, for those in a peer environment, success is about control—with ambitious people constantly moving up and up from a position with little responsibility to one with more ability to direct others.

Sally Thompson, a PEO member and VP with the engineering firm Halsall Associates Ltd., says that in the first part of a career, even future leaders must spend time “obtaining other people’s approval.”

“Your success is based on carrying out those tasks successfully, according to someone else’s guidelines,” Thompson said. “Sometimes they have ill defined boundaries but they still have to be completed in a way that the senior person sees as successful.”

Changed mid-life picture…character building

Thompson added that this picture changes in mid-life, with enhanced responsibility and with what some might describe as success. “A lack of clarity develops as you move forward in your career. All of a sudden there is no one to turn to for confirmation that you’ve done a good job.”

Success is really about “character building,” Thompson told me. “First you build your reputation, then your character. After that, success is about how you relate to people with that character.”

For Steve Ewing, VP, tgo consulting, the peer environment process produced remarkable changes in his outlook. “I used to have a one- to six-month view of life and now it’s more strategic, with a two- to 10-year focus.”

Now I am more productive

“I was a workaholic, with no time to myself. Now I am more productive, with much more balance. I’m able to participate in things. I invest in myself weekly, monthly, yearly. I coach my sons’ hockey. That’s what I call success.”

“PEO is a proven model and it made me realize how to help our best people—and myself –reach our potential.  I used to be the busiest man on earth. Others didn’t have the same anxiety and stress. I didn’t know any better. But now in a long-term planning environment, I have realized my potential.”

As we often say in our peer groups, it is lonely at the top. PEO (as it did with Sally and Steve) provides objective peers — someone in your corner — providing an unbiased push in the right direction.

From my interactions within PEO groups, Steve and Sally’s comments are a microcosm of the protracted struggle to enhance and sustain professional success. It’s also a moving target, a changed concept. What once was clear—title, position, compensation—no longer defines individuality—it’s individuality that defines success and not vice versa. When you are giving accolades instead of getting them, finding your footing is much more difficult. No matter how sure-footed you may be, you still need a guide and the best one available is right here in Toronto and it’s called PEO.