Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness

When things go well, people use and put forward their career as a tool and try to leverage it for their benefit. However, when the going gets tough, it is your character that you will need the most and that will make a difference. 

Some 15 years ago, one of my managers shared with me a document titled: ‘’13 ways to get lucky’’. This paper gave me the inspiration to start my own list of ‘’Principles that I live by’’. Every January, I pause to identify the learning that stood out the most, in the previous year for me. I try to summarize these learnings in a couple of sentences, often getting help from famous quotes of intelligent and inspirational individuals. I currently have a list of 25 learnings and counting. 

I will try to share each of these learnings from this platform regularly from now on without following a certain order. Let’s start with learning number 24. 

'' Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness'' 

These wise words belong to Yousuf Karsh. A famous photographer who was born in Mardin, Turkey in 1908. As a prominent portrait artist, he has photographed many celebrities. Naming a few: Picasso, Mandela, Mohammed Ali, Churchill, Hemingway, Audrey Hepburn, Einstein, Miro, Bogart, Martin Luther King. In the link below, you can review his work. You will be surprised to see that you already have seen many of his work. 

So how can we link these words to work life? 

Things always do not go very rosy at work. There are good times and bad time. During times of crisis, the most popular advice that one gets is to work harder. Whilst this is a necessary condition, it is not sufficient. You need to couple hard work with showing character. In the below link (sorry it is in Turkish. Hope it will make more sense with on line translation in case you are interested), the head coach of Fenerbahçe Basketball Team, Zeljko Obradovic is praising his players at the end of an away game in the court of a team with highly passionate fans - Crvena Zvezda of Belgrade: ‘’It was very tough to play in this atmosphere, however we demonstrated our character very strongly’’ 

What do you think he meant here? How can we again link it to everyday work life? It is apparent that playing an away game in a tough court is a crisis itself. One of the key considerations in crisis management is the ''trust'' factor. The team members should trust one another on top of working really hard. Character is the ingredient that creates this trust. It includes traits like selflessness, collaboration, solidarity that are easy to demonstrate when things are going well and business is booming. That is why showing and developing character requires tough and dark times just as Yousuf Karsh has put it. When you are in a business crisis, showing character is a choice, because it requires effort. If it is a choice, then what are the other possible counter choices? My observation is that, generally these choices are between your character and your career. People sometimes put their character aside for the sake of their careers, or they spend less time in planning their character than planning their careers as mentioned in the below link. (Again in Turkish. Hope on line translation will pay justice to the great thinking)  

In a seminar I was invited as a guest speaker, one of the participants asked me what do we look for when we are recruiting senior managers. My answer was that character of the candidate is what we question and try to understand the most. Because character even more than mastery is a key success driver for an high performing team. 

In short, the learning I noted down in my 24th year as a corporate citizen was: 

When things go well, people use and put forward their career as a tool and try to leverage it for their benefit. However, when the going gets tough, it is your character that you will need the most and that will make a difference.