Richard Adams (Organisational Studies with Industrial Relations, 1991, Lonsdale) identified how the key to his success lay in his ability to complete tasks.

"Finding your edge can take time.

I have extremely fond memories of my time at Lancaster, the three years were very defining for me. I had arrived post gap year, still probably a bit of a spoilt private school brat, having met an ‘entangling’ girlfriend in the antipodes as my father referred to her. I studied Organisational Behaviour in the Management School, perhaps a bit by accident as my 'A' level grades ended up a little better than I had hoped for. I immensely enjoyed my time in the Management School and the subject matter; it was genuinely insightful, pragmatic and I was for the first time in my life academically engaged. Unfortunately, I also enjoyed cricket, rugby and the Lonsdale and Furness bars perhaps a little too much so I came out three years later with a 2:2, a few moderately interesting job offers in London, but nothing that really got me going.

The ‘entangling’ girlfriend had become a little more serious, so we decided to move back to her home in Australia upon my graduation in 1991. Landing here in the middle of a recession and unable to find a job I wondered if I should have stayed in London. I took a recruitment job in Sydney and was distinctly average for a year before joining a new firm, which I ended up running a few years later. The difference between the two companies was that I was actually trained / bullied to succeed in the second. I then set up on my own and we did an IPO two years later. I then set up another firm and we sold out to Private Equity three years later. And for some reason I then did it again and sold out to management in a buyout in 2020.

What I have learnt along the way is that you don’t have to be that brilliant or that bright to succeed; clearly success has many translations and definitions. For me to succeed I found that you fundamentally need to find 'your edge', ie. what you are marginally or significantly better at than most people around you. Lots of people have wonderful dreams about careers, but are they actually going to be able to compete, succeed or even survive let alone thrive in a particular vocation?

Whilst at Lancaster and perhaps later on, I found that my edge was being persistent and reasonably resilient. Through my persistence I began to deliberately make things happen, while others around me were letting things happen. And all the way through I tended to demonstrate how, what, why, and where to do something rather than simply commentate about it. In brief, I completed things….weird really, but most people complete very little. None of this took many brain cells, but they all became habits and depending on definition these habits have led to reasonable success. I’m still not sure why some people are more resilient or persistent than others. Perhaps Napoleon Hill was right about successful people needing ‘fervid expectations.' I’m not so sure, but I still think back to my Lancaster days and even the tutorials very fondly; they were extraordinarily formative.

The ‘entangling’ girlfriend and I decided to marry and we have now been together 33 years having met during my gap year. Two of our three kids have attended UK universities….The youngest might still get to Lancaster next year! And there are plenty of Lancaster alumni out here….I play O45’s football twice a week with Aaron who was in my year. It’s a small world; it's important we give it a nudge."