Bob Savage joins the Smarter Egg Club

You have to hand it to him – Aodan Enright from Smarter Egg did a great job!

Not only did he do a great job with his really interesting and enjoyable event this week, at the White Horse in Cork but he has done so well with his Smarter Egg concept of learning, which has evolved gradually since he began a number of years back.

I was one of the early converts – I was immediately intrigued by what Aodan described to me when I met him at a networking event years ago and he didn’t disappoint with a very unique (I hate that word now) business and personal learning experience.

Aodan even had me speaking at one of his first events, which I was thrilled to do.

(I recommend you have a peep at his website and consider trying one of his programmes – it won’t disappoint)

This week at his event he had a number of guest speakers and the high point of the evening was his one to one, up close and personal interview with Bob Savage, CEO of the highly successful EMC in Cork.

I’m not sure if it was the intimate atmosphere of the venue, the fact that Aodan worked for Bob before or if it was just his interrogation skills but it led to a really superb interview and one that gave us a rare insight into a modern, successful business leader.

At times  when asked a question Bob was a little unsure about answering and even stopped to mention that the event was being recorded. Good job Aodan!

However he did open up and gave us some gems:

• He is big on teamwork and creating a great place to work
• He loves genuine, enthusiastic people and hates the opposite
• Passion for what you do is essential
• He views what he does as a vocation and does acknowledge that he has made personal sacrifices with other parts of his life to reach and maintain the position he holds
• One of his strengths is that he is accessible and he achieves that by ‘walking around’ interacting with the team and learning from them
• He takes time out to introduce the EMC recruits because be believes they are the future of the company
• His secret sauce of success is quite simply ‘people‘
• Walking the walk is essential
• He acknowledges the mentoring and support he received along his journey and admits that at times maybe he didn’t deserve it
• He has his bad days the same as the rest of us and admits that things have not always been without problems but it is how you react and deal with them that’s vital
• He loves the excitement of indigenous industry and sees huge potential in Ireland
• He values his role on the board of Enterprise Ireland
• In the future he could see himself consulting, assisting businesses and even life coaching “while my stock is still high”
• Company politics is knowing when to open your mouth and when to shut it!
• He would have advised his younger self to be more patient, more respectful and mannerly

The particular gem that I loved and took from the session was when he spoke about working hours.

“At times you need to do 75 hours in a week but you clearly can’t do that all of the time. The trick is to know when to do it!“

That’s one I definitely need to take notice of …way too many 75’s!

Aodan…keep up the great work and Bob…thanks for the refreshing openness and the gems, and welcome to the Smarter Egg club

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

Tags: Aodan Enright, Bob Savage, Cork, Dublin, EMC, Fuzion PR, Greg Canty, Smarter Egg