At the time, I was a newly appointed General Manager for a company in Dubai called MERAC – which stood for Middle East Research & Consultancy. My previous role was on the client side where I had partnered with MERAC on a number of projects – and I experienced great ‘Research’ delivery, but was left searching for the ‘Consultancy’.

Six months into my General Manger role at MERAC I led our first Annual Kick-Off Meeting to align hearts & minds to the strategy and delivery of the upcoming financial year – and the rally call I developed was simple … Putting The ‘C’ Back Into MERAC (the ‘C’ referring to ‘Consultancy’).

It was a DISASTER!  The Rally Call negatively triggered many, especially client facing teams … how dare I suggest that they were not delivering ‘Consultancy’! I learned many lessons that day (and I should have paid more attention of my philosophy class on Plato’s Allegory of The Cave) … and one of the biggest was that WORDS CHANGE WORLDS.

The upside to this disaster is that a series of ‘seek to understand to then be understood’ discussions ensued, especially with the client facing teams. A humbling experience (and I needed it!) and the outcome was a new Rally Call … Putting More of the ‘C’ Into MERAC … and that one word, ‘More’, changed everything!

The words of wisdom from Pearl Strachan Hurd still ring in my ears today … “Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs.”