Edward Stobart died on March 31st, aged just 56. Britain’s become used to lauding the attributes of its famous entrepreneurs – from James Dyson to Richard Branson to Peter Jones. Yet Stobart – despite his ubiquitous trucks on the UK’s motorway network – died as something of an unknown. Even the lorries carry his father’s name – Eddie – although it was Edward that turned it into the country’s most famous trucking brand.
From the excellent obituary of him in a recent Economist, I think I’ve worked out why. Unlike his contemporary entrepreneurs – who effuse the confidence and chutzpah and sheer certainty that the image of the entrepreneur (incorrectly) insists is a requirement for success – Edward Stobart, in my view, appeared to suffer from fear of failure.
I’m only going on the obituary – so this could well be wide of the mark – but here’s my evidence that Edward Stobart was, indeed, a High-FF (as I call those with a high fear of failure in What’s Stopping You?):
• He had a stammer, brought about by a traumatic childhood event – in his case a fall through a roof. As I write in What’s Stopping You? and recently on this blog, traumatic childhood events can induce a mild form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that generates a fearful response from tangentially-similar incidents in adulthood. And while a fall through a roof is not the usual public humiliation for triggering fear of failure, the resultant stammer is a classic fear-triggered response.
• No matter how large the business became, the persona of Eddie Stobart Ltd was through the trucks rather than himself. Mostly, he was the man eating egg and chips in the lorry-park café, with his fellow diners oblivious to the fact he was by far the most famous name in UK haulage (non-UK readers may be amazed to learn that “spot the Eddie Stobart truck” is now a more popular children’s travel game than eye-spy, or that there are more than 25,000 registered “spotters”, with many times that number unregistered).
• Stobart was always polite and always smart but he shied away from meeting strangers – a trait which prevented a public flotation of the company until after he sold his majority stake to his brother. My guess (and it is only a guess) was that he distrusted financial advisers and shareholders – perhaps fearing that their intrusion would reveal his personally-perceived (but deeply-held) self-belief in his own inadequacies.
• Trust was certainly an issue. As a child he showed entrepreneurial flair but kept all his savings in his trouser pocket. And he forced upon his drivers a rigid dress and conduct code (including wearing ties – something unheard of in the oil-n-nicotine stained trucking community). In fact his lack of trust in his workforce went as far as washing many of the trucks himself.
• Of course, both the tie wearing and manual truck-washing may suggest – not distrust – but a strong desire to project an upright professional image in a world renowned for sloppiness and poor manners. Such a desire to over-compensate can of course, be based on perceived insecurities regarding how the world might judge him or his brand.
• Indeed, he confessed that a lot of the brand’s power was down to image. He “didn’t hesitate to lie about how many lorries he had,” stated The Economist obituary. Again, this could show chutzpah but could equally reveal deeply-held feelings of inadequacy – as The Economist writes: “With his stammer, it was much easier to say, ‘no problem’ than to start picking difficulties.”
• Stobart’s first job, at 14, was on a JCB – planting roadsigns on the new M6 motorway. Apparently, he preferred spotting these to his own lorries. And he claimed they were both 10-feet high and 10-feet deep, which both The Economist thought and I think an apt analogy for the quiet man of trucking.
No comments:
Post a Comment