I attended a client board meeting last week. Also in the room was their accountant (we’ll call him Jim). We meet every month, but this session was slightly different. Jim turned up wearing a suit (rather than his – and the rest of groups – usual attire of jeans, hoodies etc).
Cue the light-hearted comments of “Have you got an interview Jim?”, “Are you going to a wedding after this?”.
After the mild laughter had died down, I asked Jim why he had decided to come in a suit.
”Well I’ve been thinking Gareth” he said. “It’s not the clothes of course, it’s about standards. I’ve not worn a suit for that long I’ve had to buy 2 new ones. My old suits were in the wardrobe full of dust. But I was reflecting the other day that we might have let standards slip a bit. Wearing a suit again feels good to me. It feels like I’m ready to do my best work. I’m trying to raise the bar of how I operate and what my team and clients expect”.
Jim’s comments really resonated with me. His decision to wear a suit also reminded me of an old saying we had in my agency many years ago; “dress one step up from your client” i.e. If your client is wearing jeans, you wear trousers. If the client is in trousers, you wear a suit.
I’m not advocating wearing suits on Zoom calls of course, but Jim got me thinking about standards and making sure we always look – and are – ready to do our best work.
Sat round the table in his suit amongst the T shirts and jeans, Jim did another thing that day too of course….he definitely stood out.
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