Timeline

Geoff was an accountant who was highly intelligent, had a good analytical mind and excellent accounting skills. Geoff had two outstanding qualities; firstly, his commitment to accuracy, attention to detail and thoroughness in every accounting task he did was absolute. Secondly, he had a superb capacity to bring intellectual order out of chaos and complexity. He was often given the task of straightening out the accounts of firms or government offices that were a maze of complexity and disorder – and very quickly he had them organised in a logical, systematic and comprehensible way.

These qualities made him an excellent and very successful accountant. This led him to being made partner by age 30 and he was then promoted to lead a practice group within his accounting firm. However, as a personality Geoff tended to be very introverted and lived inside his head. He had rarely interacted with people, had no people skills – and when he did interact with others his intense focus on detail and thoroughness often made him seen fussy and nit picking. Thus, while he was a superb accountant, he was very poorly equipped to lead a practice group.

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Brian was a friend of mine whom I had known quite well about 10 years ago. He was very independent and self reliant, but he was the kind of person you could always rely upon for help if. Or if you simply wanted to talk through a problem he was a good listener and often had good advice.

One of the reasons he often had good advice was that when he considered any problem, issue, idea or potential plan, he was very good at seeing the possible flaws or things that could go wrong. He was equally good at creating contingency strategies for avoiding the things that could go wrong.

This had led him into a career as a consultant in the area of developing corporate strategies for private sector companies and government agencies. He was a very good consultant and, though he had started by working for a very large consultancy firm, by the time I met him he had his own firm. He said that he felt more secure with his own firm because he was his own independent boss. Security in all things was a central tenant for Brian.

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