Atedo Peterside’s Seven Keys to Success
“Before you can use the word success, you’ve got to be trying to achieve something a bit aspirational….something that was not obviously within your grasp, but you managed to get to it.”- Atedo Peterside.
As we look at our past, contemplate our present, and try to predict our future, we wonder if we are on the road to success. One of the best ways to figure this out is to look at those that have journeyed down that road and reached their destination.
One such person is Atedo Peterside CON, the founder of Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc. He started the company in 1989 as an investment bank. He established the foundation that allowed it to become a financial holding company with subsidiaries that include a bank, pension management company, and stockbroking company, among others.
Atedo Peterside
In a ‘boys to MEN’ Foundation webinar titled ’The Hard Road to Success.’
Peterside talked extensively about how success can be achieved.
He outlined seven keys to success.
The first key is GOALS. According to Peterside, you have to set the right goals:
“The right goal is number one. It’s key. You’ve got to think in terms of what your own qualities are, where you think you’ve got a chance to succeed and if you define that wrongly you are in trouble from day one. Some people look in the mirror; they lie to themselves, they start imagining they can do something they cannot do”.
Peterside notes that in the Olympic Games for an athlete to succeed, he must pick the right event. “If you are scared of heights, don’t go and attempt diving or pole vault.”
Quoting Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Outliers,’ Peterside states:
“The things you can excel in are defined by a number of things, some of which are out of your control – your parentage, patronage, what you are exposed to, what you have access to, and all that – the idea is, however, that wherever you find yourself find what it is that you can be competitive at.”
The second key is DEFINITION. He says:
“Define what success means to you. Define it carefully because you have to know what exactly you are pursuing. Success is something people define differently. When you talk about success, it is relative to some other yardstick, so it assumes some form of measurement, and it must be aspirational. Sometimes the mistake is made from the onset by defining success wrongly.”
The third key is RESILIENCE. On this Peterside notes:
“You’ve got to be able to plan to cope with all sorts of challenges as they come. What makes people succeed is not because they had brilliant ideas. What makes people succeed is because they overcame every challenge thrown at them, so you’ve got to be resilient. People need to see that you are a bit of a fighter.”
Becoming an expert at what you do will help you build resilience. On how to become an expert, Peterside refers once more to Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Outliers’:
“If you pick any activity, you’ve got to put in ten thousand hours before you actually become an expert. I was an employee first for ten years. It was in those ten years that I put in my ten thousand hours”.
The fourth key is MEASUREMENT. As Peterside points out:
“Whatever you are doing, you’ve got to be able to measure it. If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it. You have to have your own metric to see how you are making progress....that’s what lets you know when you are slacking and when you’ve got to buck up”.
Peterside, however, cautions:
“Success does not mean that you must be number one. You have to make sure you run your own race; the person looking successful may just be someone benefiting from rigging something.”
The fifth key is SUSTAINABILITY. Peterside states:
“You have to have arrangements that are sustainable. It’s no use having an arrangement that’s only good for one time. An arrangement that is based on the fact that you got an import licence because the minister was your friend and you made some money is not a business you can hand over to your children and grandchildren.”
Sustainability is driven by the core values you have. Petersides states that his company’s success was predicated on always doing the right thing. “We were not going to cut corners; it was about integrity.”
For Peterside’s company, being grounded in the value of integrity led to brand loyalty, which led to long-term sustainable success.
The sixth key is FEEDBACK. According to Peterside:
“You have to invest in a feedback mechanism. Without feedback, you are dead in whatever you are doing. I mean internal and external feedback.”
The seventh key is RIGHT CHOICE. His advice is:
“Choose well, choose the right partner, and choose the right people. Choose partners that have strengths or skill sets that can make up for your weaknesses”.
Watch the entire webinar.
Learn more about Atedo Peterside, boys to MEN Foundation, and Malcolm Gladwell.
You may download and read a summary and analysis of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell by clicking on the image of the book
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is available to borrow from our library at 196 Awolowo Road, Ikoyi.
