Newsletter: Miles ahead?

I used to work with a guy (Miles – not his real name) who was very process-orientated. And that’s putting it lightly.  Miles wasn’t just on the spectrum, he was it.  In likes, taste, attitude to life and just about any other measure, we were diametrically opposed.

Here are some of the areas where we clashed: 

1.  His obsessional attention to detail

2.  My loose approach to keeping records

3.  His desire to correct things to the Nth degree (though he would not have been as vague as to say ‘Nth’) 

4.  My moveable deadlines

So, Miles’s fastidiousness drove me up the wall, just as I annoyed him hugely with my easy-going approach to detail.  (And ironically, with hindsight, Miles was in the right mostly, but there’s no danger I would ever tell him that.)

In many ways, I have to admit, Miles was also a very admirable person.  He had some very interesting rules. He had hundreds of them in fact and would have made a good Ofsted inspector, but that is another story.

One of his rules was he would always try to ensure he was, as he put it, in ’positive credit’ with everyone he met or had contact with.  Miles called it his Equity Rule.  (I think it was Rule number 238).  Now, I never saw it written down in debit and credit columns, but I frequently used to test Miles on people: 

“What have you done for so-and-so?”

“Where do you stand with what’s-her-name?”

And he could always explain what extra he had done for that person. Colleague, supplier, client, friend or neighbour.  I never caught him out and he was too straight to lie. It meant that he was always doing extra little things for people. Spending time with them, offering advice, remembering to copy them in on thoughts, helping them with work.

Miles once told me his experience was that if you do more for others, they will always view you positively, so both parties would gain. He once even tried to explain it to me as an equation, until I threatened him with violence.  And the thing was, it worked. Most people thought he was a really nice guy.  I was often tempted to tell people they were part of a debit and credit spreadsheet, but I knew it was churlish.  And at the end of the day, if Miles was happy and they were too, what does it matter?

So what is the point of this?  Well, two things. Miles went on to be very, very successful. I am not sure if it is all down to Rule 238, but it certainly did not seem to hinder him.  

And at a time of giving, perhaps this is a great and very simple way to think about what we do at work.

I somehow doubt we will want to set up a spreadsheet system to monitor how we interact with people, but if we can think about being ‘in credit’ with others, and default first to what we can give them – time, help, ideas or simply more of our attention it can’t do us any harm.  Some of the quotes on the right support this.

So try it for 2010.  It could be a rule Number 1 for the New Year.  

Happy Christmas from all at Goodfoot. And from Miles.



Mark Miller is Director of Goodfoot., click here for further details