The Three As I Never Wanted to Hear

My grandfather had a mantra that never sat quite right with me. The key to success, he told us, was awfully simple. After a pause, waiting for his audience to lean in expectantly even though we had heard it countless times before, he would share the secret of The Three As.

"Be affable, be available, and be able," he would say, "-in that order."

Grampy was larger than life. With a booming voice and a constant twinkle of mischief in his captivating blue eyes, he always commanded the room. If anyone knew anything about being affable, it was he. His extensive network of friends, colleagues and neighbors was intimately intertwined with his professional identity. Clearly, this was a man whose advice I ought to heed, this man who unquestionably marshalled respect from his peers.

Yet his mantra didn't make sense to me. All you have to do is be friendly, and the rest will just sort itself out? Shouldn't you first and foremost seek to excel at what you do? I always prided myself on my competency, and his philosophy seemed to devalue it. Were all of those hours suffering through long reading assignments and practicing calculus problems not what would get me ahead after all? Grampy's deep guffaw, the de-facto symbol of his affability, echoed teasingly in my mind. Certainly it must be most important to know how to actually get a job done, my teenage brain scoffed.

Discussing the Three As with Grampy over muffins many years ago.

After years spent in corporate settings and with a range of clients, I began to appreciate the value of affability and availability in tandem with pure ability. Building trust is crucial to any relationship, whether at work or in our personal lives. When we trust our coworkers, we bring more valuable contributions to the table. We can pitch innovative ideas without fear of judgment, and we can proactively bring up concerns that may save significant workload or cost down the line. Building friendly, trusting relationships directly impacts efficacy, not to mention that it is rewarding to share the occasional guffaw. If we spend so many hours in the workplace each week, we might as well try to enjoy them.

Availability in the 21st century takes on a different flavor than it did for my grandfather's generation. Endless distractions vie for our attention, and we often juggle many hats across our careers and personal lives. The lines separating work from personal life can be blurry. And although we have access to scheduling tools, aligning availability can be tough and can kill the momentum of a valuable project or vision.

To me, availability is two-fold. Primarily, it means committing my attention to a person or project. My bandwidth is finite: can I offer enough of it to complete a project on time? Can I follow up at predictable intervals to see a vision through, and can I genuinely listen to what a client is telling me- both with their words, and with their body language? While workers in my grandfather's era probably felt stifled at times by rigid schedules, consistency is powerful and does compound over time. To be truly available, we must understand our individual bandwidth and manage it proactively.

Surprisingly, when I revisit my Grampy's motto now, the "able" part begins to make sense as an afterthought. It falls into place when the other two qualities are fully realized. When working with affable colleagues, we tend to feel trusted and deliver a higher quality of work. And when we make ourselves truly available, we pick up on nuances that make it easier to work effectively. I still believe firmly in competency. There is no substitute, although curiosity and humility can often make up for some of the gap. If my grandfather were here, he would enjoy a hearty belly laugh and his blue eyes would twinkle with mischief if I told him I suppose he had a point.