What Sir Stirling Moss can teach us about fear

Picture credit Peter Brown

I have just listened to an Excellent 5 minute interview with the wonderful Stirling Moss conducted by Chris Evans from radio 2. Love him or hate him he does do a great interview, his 3 minute interviews are superb with no preparation as the guest is a complete surprise, so it flows like a conversation that you may have if you met someone for the first time in a pub!! However this post is not about interview technique (though it gives me an idea) but about fear!

At 81 Sir Stirling Moss is still racing. He is Britain’s most successful fomula 1 racing driver and if you want to know more see wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_Moss

So, I hear you say, why would a racing driver be talking about fear, surely they are among the most fearless of people in the world. I would agree and also add that his generation were the uber fearless as this was a time before health and safety, before fireproof material and modern technology. This was a time of raw steel, cotton overalls and leather helmets.

Stirling has announced his retirement from the racing world as he for the very first time felt frightened going round the race track. He realised on his last race that if he were to get up to the speed he was supposed to that he would for the very first time in his life, be scared. He apparently spoke to his ‘people’ and of course his loyal and supportive wife and made the decision there and then to retire.

From a leadership perspective this is really interesting. He has shown in the past an unfaltering fearlessness which was his driving force for more than 65 years of racing. This shows amongst others the competences of steadfastness and determination. But he also listens to himself. He must have been listening to his intuition for all that time. For every other race it urged him on, but, on this his last race, he listened and it told him to stop.

Fear is a really important emotion. In her book ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’ Susan Jeffers tells us effectively that all we have to do is get over the fear because it’s the fear that is the ‘thing’ we fear not the ‘thing’ that we are doing.

Stirling epitomized this in his career up until his last race. He was fearless of the ‘thing’ which was driving very fast with little protection. Using his positive energy and power to be the biggest and best of his generation. But he also showed his courage in the face of his fear, which I surmise he must have had; which was giving up!.

Motor racing has defined him for 66 years of his life, he is an icon and for him to hang up his steering wheel took a huge amount of courage.

Imagine how scared he must have been as he realised that this was it, the end. That he would never go round the track as a racing driver again. Fini, nada.

To make the final trip to the pits, to tell ‘team moss’ that it was all over. That took courage.

Good luck Sir Stirling. You have given us many years of vicarious danger. May you retire in peace and in the knowledge that you were brave to the very end.

Here is the link to the interview
Stirling moss interview with Chris Evans it starts at 2.06.20

A big KISS from a Yorkshireman

A big KISS from a Yorkshireman

I have worked in Media sales in one form or another since I was 17 years old.

The media presentation was one of the first ‘training courses’ I went on when I became a sales rep. The stand up presentation is when you present the product, the readership, the differentials of the product and show yourself as the person who will be hassling the client for business, sometimes with good news sometimes with bad.

Even though it is the presentation that as media folk we do the most it is the most potentially dangerous.

Why?

The figures are boring, depending on your field you could be looking at NRS, ABC, BPA, JICNARS all sorts. You may be talking up rises, or talking down decreases of either you or your competition.

The more senior you become the more of these you have to do to a more eclectic mix of people; internal and external senior and junior execs, clients, partners, agencies and other stakeholders. All wanting a slightly different twist and all waiting for a slightly different punchline.

It is however the most effective way of getting your capsule offering across and where your employers and peers can really get the measure of you.

When I came across this presentation by Steve Auckland, who was at the time Managing Director of Metro, I really did think it had a lot of class. Having worked at Associated when Metro launched and the wobbles of the launch and elbowing of a new product at a new time. Metro has really come of age. The package is simple, the offering straightforward and the message memorable. If he has taken the KISS pneumonic as his ‘style’ of communicating, Keep it Simple and Straightforward’ then this Yorkshireman’s presentation is a perfect example.

Communication is a key competence for leaders wherever they are in their career. As well as their internal communication style their ‘set piece’ formal communication style sets them apart from managers. It obviously works for Steve as he has recently been promoted to MD of Regional Newspaper group, Northcliffe.

Coaching Question: What is your communication style and how consistent is it?