Kevin Shea is the kind of guy you would want to be your mentor. Not only would he give you great advice, but he is also the connector, he'd know exactly who to connect you to, to help you get to where you'd like to go. To succeed in today's environment Kevin advocates learning and networking. And he recommends that you share information when you attend conferences. While you are reading the interview, think of ways that you can use he information.
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Kevin Shea: I was born in Montreal, and my family moved to Los Angeles when I was nine months old, and I’d like to say it was because I was having difficulty with two languages. My parents moved back to Canada, to Toronto when I was about 10. I grew up in Toronto and was involved as an actor when I was a kid and was always connected to the broadcasting television business. I knew that was the business that I wanted to get into. I went to York University and studied history, I’m not sure why I did that. After university I started my career in the cable industry.
Many years later I am now running my own company SheaChez Inc., have been for the past five years. I get involved in various start-up companies where I assist them with CRTC licensing applications, which is a role I did with Sirius Satellite Radio. And I sit on a variety of different boards of private companies and I am chairman of what’s called the Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC).
How do you integrate your personal and professional life?
Kevin Shea: On a personal note, the most important thing to me outside of the obvious is my children. I am a big cottager and I love to get away, and nowadays I can work anywhere so that`s a big part of me. I have a wide, wide group of colleagues and I am a connector so I stay in touch with a lot of people, and a lot of people stay in touch with me. In many instances within the era I grew up in, I’m probably one of the first people who gets a call from someone who has either just been laid off, or their company has been closed down. I do a lot of coaching, providing advice and direction to people who have hit a rocky road in their career. And I think I can say this to you because I have four sisters, women are far more willing and probably able to have difficult emotional discussions more quickly, and want to get to the issues quickly, and men are very proud, I see it so often trying to get them to open up and settle down on the anxiety, and get a plan.
In this day and age, they are saying that kids entering the workforce will probably have between 16 and 20 different jobs. And in our era you had maybe three. There is no such thing as a full-time job anymore, it doesn’t exist, we are all contract employees, sometimes the contract is six months, sometimes it’s a year, sometimes it might be 10, but at the end of the day, companies can get rid of us so we are all contractors.
What’s a major regret that you’ve had in life?
Kevin Shea: Maybe not travelling as much, I sort of got to that late in life.
What are five life lessons that you have learned so far?
Kevin Shea:
- Patience is huge
- Work with great teams
- Respect your work mates
- Make change quickly
When you have some down time, how do you spend it?
Kevin Shea: I spend it in cottage country – reading, gardening, fixing and building.
What process do you use to generate great ideas?
Kevin Shea: I don’t think that I have a specific process. Ideas come to me then I bounce them off people. I mean ideas can land at any time, it’s more what you are doing with your ideas opposed to having them. How can you move on them? I just joined the Idea Council for a major ad agency that I can’t name. Big ad agencies are struggling today and they are trying to figure out how to respond to the market. The ad agency has brought together five of us from completely different walks of life. We meet once a month for three hours with the entire management, and we are basically charged with coming up with ideas. Ideas in terms of new kinds of partnerships, things they should be looking at, these are the emerging technologies, how to win particular clients, and it’s kind of fun. We are given nothing in advance, they make a presentation as soon as we get there, and it creates a very interesting environment because the single purpose is to share ideas.
What’s your favourite quotation and why?
Kevin Shea: “If you sit by the river long enough you will see the body of your enemy float by.” Japanese Proverb
How do you define success?
Kevin Shea: Success is so different for different people. It’s meeting your objectives, life and corporate. I see it at companies where they won a big deal, a big award and you look around the room and it’s a bunch of long faces, so clearly that wasn’t success for them. It’s also who owns that success, who is really responsible, so I think it’s different for so many people.
In your opinion what’s the formula for success?
Kevin Shea: Setting reasonable, attainable objectives with the capacity to change those benchmarks as you go along. If your goals are way too lofty you’ll never attain success in your own mind.
What are the steps you took to succeed in your field?
Kevin Shea: I think one thing is to network and make sure that you are out there and know people and not just specific to your sector. I got involved in all sorts of different things, charitable organization work to other boards of directors, even way back just to broaden my network. It’s really funny because at some point in time you may need someone or need an affiliation, so building a series of contacts that are real is necessary.
What advice do you have for someone just starting out in your field?
Kevin Shea: I talk to a lot of graduates and so on, and there are a couple of things that are critical in my view: read everything about your industry so that you are totally fluent and current in what’s going on, attend conferences even if you have to pay for them yourself because you’re going to learn more by listening to others, and by meeting others you are going to broaden your network, so constantly ask your boss if you can go to this, or go to that. And more importantly, bring that learning back, share it, don’t just hold on to it. Even at a young age network and don’t be just 9 to 5, and read as much as you can.
If trusted friends could introduce you to five people that you’ve always wanted to meet, who would you choose? And what would you say to them?
Kevin Shea:
- I’ve always wanted to meet the president of Ireland and I think I’d say, “Thank God you’ve found a way to begin to stop the internal strife between the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland because it’s a ridiculous altercation in this day and age, and I hope and pray that it never surfaces again because it’s an awful, ridiculous conflict in such a modern society.”
- I’d probably want to me meet more world leaders and ask them to try to build better bridges of communication within their own ranks and the world. We are at a time and place when we are really lacking, and I really understand why we are lacking in really strong political leadership because no one wants to run anymore because they are paranoid about what may be in their background and so on and so forth. They are judged on all the wrong things and we are not getting good people to run, even for members of parliament and it’s showing. That's what I think I’d want to do. And I don’t know who those five world leaders would be.
Which one book had a profound impact on your life? What was it about this book that impacted you so deeply? Did you have an emotional or intellectual attachment to this book? Why?
Kevin Shea: Maybe I haven’t read it yet. There are so many because you pick snippets of things and not the entire book may be relevant, only sections.
If you were stranded on a deserted island, what are five books that you would like to have with you and why? Summarize the book in two sentences.
Kevin Shea:
- I’d want to have The Hunt for Red October, I just love that book
- I’d want a bunch of books written about people stuck on deserted islands to give me some clues about what I would be encountering
- I’d want a couple of survival books
I’d want advice and guidance because we’re not good being caught in nature.
What one music CD and movie would you like to have with you (on the deserted island) and why?
Kevin Shea: For the music CD I’d probably want the Beatles. I know most of their songs, they are comforting and I’d like a little bit of Aretha Franklin mixed with that, I love rhythm and blues. For the movie, The Hunt for Red October and all the movies I haven’t seen.
The Beatles YouTube “Get Back” Video. If you cannot view this video click here.
Aretha Franklin YouTube Video “I Say a Little Prayer for You”. If you cannot view the video, click here.
YouTube Video The Hunt for Red October Movie Trailer. If you cannot view this video click here.
What excites you about life?
Kevin Shea: Change, I’m so happy that I’m in the communications sector, as opposed to insurance or banking, or hospital work. I love the communications sector, I really do, and it is a very key cultural instrument for our country, and you know how diverse our country is and I think it has been so adept, more so than any other nation in advancing multicultural and multi-language content. We are quite unique and we are quite diverse, and that’s kind of cool.
How do you nurture your soul?
Kevin Shea: Through family, my mom and pa are still alive, they’re 90 and fabulous. Family is very fundamental and important to me and they are my friends.
If you had a personal genie and she gave you one wish, what would you wish for? Or, if I gave you a magic wand, what would you use it for?
Kevin Shea: World peace.
Complete the following, I am happy when…..
Kevin Shea: I’m busy. I like being busy doing a lot of different things, that’s why I love what I’m doing. I don’t think I’ll ever stop working because that’s when I’m the happiest.
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