...and we learn, by what we see...

There are a lot of conventions in this town, but there was one that occurred last weekend hat was of particular interest to me. It was the annual gathering of an association of electrical contractors in the unionized electrical construction industry, and for me, their choice to come to the nation’s capital and the  large contingent that attended from Los Angeles meant it was like old-home week.

While the government shutdown probably curtailed their sight-seeing a bit, the idiotic behavior and lack of leadership by some of our fringe elected officials wasn’t going to ruin the trip these self-made business men and women. Most of them went through the same apprenticeship I did before hanging a shingle, and the same qualities that have made them successful in contracting meant they were going to make the most of the trip no matter what.  

They invited me to join them for a get-together downtown on Sunday afternoon, and because I arrived at the event early, I was able to watch as so many people that had a profound influence on my professional and personal life filed through the door. There was one cat I probably hadn’t seen in 15 years named Dan Henrich who ran work for Amelco Electric where I had served my apprenticeship in Los Angeles. He, along with his wife own their own very successful company now, and there are lessons he imparted on me in my late teens and 20s about how to run work and treat people that still stick with me today. Perhaps most importantly of all, he also showed me it's OK to laugh along the way while doing it too.

Stan Lazarian was there too, and though I worked for his great company for only a very short time in my early thirties, I remember the experience well because of the way he treated me over the course of what was a very compressed and high-stress upgrade project. He too taught me a lot about management in that short period (and in the years that followed working in another capacity) that I continue to try to replicate today.

Ralph Woods was also in attendance…and though I didn’t work directly for him, there were lessons to be learned in my association with him working in a labor management capacity through the way he was able to retain his competent and loyal workforce.  He always smiled and seemed to be in a good mood too…and though he was always busy, I never forgot the fact he attended my going away party.

Steve and Cathy O’Bryant, who along with local chapter president Eric Cartier were serving as gracious hosts. I never worked for their company, but I did work a lot with them in a labor/management capacity. They as much as  anybody taught me about how to treat people and about the need to be nimble in a very competitive environment.  I remain forever grateful for the things I observed about their style that I still try to emulate today.

Rick Jarvis  was a superintendent at the time for the last contractor I ever worked for before switching gigs…and he was there too.  I remember standing by the Los Angeles river talking over a host of issues on one of the largest construction projects in Los Angeles in the 90’s. Like all the people above, he taught me lasting lessons about how to run work and treat people that I continue to use every, single day.  

The Local Chapter Manager Jim Willson and my former boss and union business manager Marvin Kropke. It would take three days to read all I could write about these two cats…but in summary, these two folks as much as anybody demonstrated what can be accomplished when labor and management work together for the betterment of the greater good.

I was feeling awfully good after visiting with all these mentors over the course of a couple of days, but other than the normal nostalgia that is common when seeing old friends, I wasn’t exactly sure why. Then yesterday, I was reading a tidbit in the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age.” Somewhere deep in the book, was a paragraph that made it all clear. I’d give it to you word for word, but that would mean I’d have to go upstairs and fetch it…so instead I’ll just paraphrase. In essence, it said that leaders have the single most effective tool available to them when managing people…and that is to demonstrate through their own actions the behavior they are trying to encourage. People learn through what they see…so if you want to get people to behave in a certain manner, you need to lead by example. That’s what sticks with the folks that are listed above and so many others I spent time with this past week…and that is why it was so special. Even after the passage of all this time, these unknowing mentors, along with so many others I've worked with since and now, all demonstrated behavior I still try miserably to emulate every single day.

Have a fabulous weekend, and if you can, see if you can’t remember and then deploy some great lesson someone once taught you. If I had to guess, it’s probably going to have something to do with the way you treat other people. Over time, that is the type of thing that is going to matter more than the stuff we can all get tricked into thinking matters more now.

This morning’s song might be offensive…but if so…I wouldn’t know. Heard it this week on Pandora and thought it had kind of a catchy beat.

I'm more like a dog...a teardrop in a poem...

...and I'm going to try to complain a little less today

There are probably years that go by in between the times I recall the experience, but I do think about it from time and time and it always rushes back every time I climb into the garage attic of my parent’s home in Santa Paula, California. As you ascend the pull-down ladder that provides access to the space above my 84 year-old mom’s light blue full-sized 8 cylinder Mercury Grand Marquis, there’s a well-preserved wooden chest with a white, blue, and yellow Los Angeles Rams bumper sticker on the lid. The large American made wooden box sat in the southwest corner of my room in West Los Angeles when I was a child, and for a good part of my early life it was filled with a bounty of toys.

Sometime in the late 1960’s when I was somewhere about 7 or 8 years old, I’d received a gift from a relative in the days leading up to the Christmas holiday. To be honest I don’t even remember what it was...but I do vaguely recall not expressing near enough appreciation to satisfy my no-nonsense Depression era father. Like many of his hard knocks generational peers, I suspect even my hard-assed dad was content to spoil his child and spare me much of the suffering he’d experienced growing up in rural Washington state (outside Tacoma) with next to nothing, but whatever bellyaching I was doing that conveyed the lack of gratitude for what I’d received had obviously been overdone in my father’s mind…and on this particular morning in mid-December…he’d clearly had enough.

After listening to another round of my complaining, my dad abruptly told me go into my room and empty out my toy chest. He said I could keep three of my favorite things (there had to be at least 30 items in there), but that all of the other less-desirable stuff should be removed. I could tell he was not happy, but didn’t know at all why I was being asked to remove the items. I suspect for a minute I wondered if with Christmas just days away it was to make room for more good stuff, but I remembering having no real clue. My parents almost never argued, but I remember hearing them heatedly discussing something in the den as I sorted through my toys…but I really couldn’t catch the content or pick up the meaning of their spirited exchange.

I remember kneeling down by the chest with the lid open, pulling out bags of little green army men, my red “hot potato” with a timer on the back, a slinky, my Matchbox cars and some games like Operation (I can still picture the face of the guy on the front). There were Hot Wheels, a Wheelo, some Flippy the Frogmen, a couple of GI Joes, cowboy cap guns, a couple of nice footballs and even an “official” plastic blue and white Rams’ helmet like my heroes Deacon Jones and Merlin Olsen wore. There was also this huge read and white metal Texaco gasoline truck that was so big you could actually sit on it. I’m actually not even sure General Motors uses that much real metal in the Cadillacs they build these days.

As I sifted through all my toys, I remember struggling to find the best three…and the truth is this would be a better story if I could recall what I actually chose to keep. As I was working my through my things my father came in with some empty cardboard boxes, and told me to pack the stuff I’d removed. As each box was filled, my father picked them up and carried them down to our black ’65 Pontiac. Then, he told me to put on a coat and that we’d be going for a drive. I still had no clue what was happening, but I knew enough to know that I’d apparently screwed something up and that asking a whole lot of questions probably wasn’t in my best interest.

My dad didn’t say much as we drove away from the house, and I remember vividly how he drove with purpose and having no sense that he needed any directions. As I looked out the window in silence, it become obvious that we were headed into a neighborhood where the homes weren’t near as nice as mine. After what seemed like about a 20 minute drive, my dad pulled off of a main avenue and onto a residential street. As we came up to the first house…there were some young kids (even younger than me) playing out in the front yard of the very old and modest home. My father instructed me to get out of the car, and he jumped out and opened the trunk. Then, to my disbelief, he told me to remove the boxes of my toys from the trunk and give them to the kids playing in the yard. When I hesitated, he picked up the first box and walked over to the disbelieving children.

They were pretty tentative at first…but within seconds, they recognized that Santa had come to town early and began screaming with jubilation at their unplanned good fortune. Within what seemed like seconds, several other kids streamed out of neighboring houses and my father handed them toys as well. I distinctly remember him telling me…  “go get a box…start handing them out.” When we were done several of the parents came outside and with a mix of disbelief, caution and genuine gratitude…offered their bewildered thanks. I remember looking at the mother standing on the rotting wooden steps of the house where we’d distributed the toys…holding her hands over her face with a white handkerchief and crying. She kept mouthing the words…thank you, thank you, thank you.

When we got back to the car my father seemed to be in a better mood. I don’t remember how long we stayed there, but I do recall that he didn’t start the car immediately. He just sat there and watched the elated kids playing with all my old stuff. Then…as he looked out the window….he said something close to the following. “Your mother thought it was cruel to make you give away your toys, and though it’s tough for you to see now…you’ll probably have more stuff soon than you know what to do with before too long. In the meantime, recognize that so much of the things you never had time to play with are like gold to those kids that have less…so when we get back home…see if you can’t be a little more grateful for what you do have. I don’t want to hear any more of your complaining.”

End of story.

It’s Friday, and as we slide into Fall and prepare for the fast-approaching holiday season, make these next few days really count for something.  Most of us want more, but if you're reading this on something that plugs into the wall or is powered by a battery, you're probably living more comfortably than a huge part of the population that lives on less than $1.25 a day or that has never heard a dial tone. Whatever you end up doing these next few days, see if you can’t approach the time away with a sense of gratitude for all that you actually do have.

The Wonder...

...so think twice before you hit the send button.

A colleague much smarter than me (that’s not a stretch…they’re all smarter than me) sent me and another co-worker an email earlier in the week that they were proposing to send to someone else. In essence, they sent it along as a draft…in hopes that the two of us might essentially check it for tone (just by reading this you should know they weren’t seeking my expertise around spelling, grammar or appropriate apostrophe placement).  In typical fashion the overflowing nature of my inbox coupled with my pitiful inability to keep up with the insane email volume conspired to result in my reading the message long after it was sent, and many hours after any input I might provide would be of any benefit.  

I did however send along a late evening reply though…thanking the sender for being confident enough to have others check the message and just a general confession that my best days are probably those when I leave the office with at least three unsent messages in my Drafts folder. It’s always those special three…where I’ve really let it rip…and given the potential recipient everything they deserved and managed to do it in a sarcastic way that would have provided me unmatched temporary satisfaction. Conversely, my worst days, or at least my most regrettable, are often the ones when the Drafts folder is completely empty and I’ve managed to hit the send button on every composed email.  The exchange got me to thinking how the workplace and generally the world would probably be a lot happier place if people periodically had their emails proofed before hitting send. That got me to thinking about how much happier my life might be if I could apply that same practice to the words that come out of my mouth.

A couple of days later I was leaving the house about 6:30 when I realized I’d walked outside and jumped into my crappy old car without my smartphone. It’s not like I’d forgotten my  wallet, driver’s license or heart medication…so I got out of the car and walked up the steps into the house to retrieve my electronic equivalent of crystal meth. When I grabbed my phone I noticed there was a message from a coworker, and when I read it, my blood began to simmer. I actually started driving up the street, but stopped to compose the snarkiest and most acidic yet gratifying response I could muster. I suspect I was smiling as I plucked way…angrily typing everything the potential recipient clearly deserved. Then, after a couple of very satisfying paragraphs, I stopped and thought about the old Dale Carnegie adage. Trust your emotions…listen keenly to what they are telling you…then…put them aside and essentially do the opposite. For me, that has been a lifesaver…and pretty much the only reason I’m still employable. So…I wisely heeded Dale’s sage advice and deleted the email. I responded instead in a professional and kind manner that was the polar opposite of my emotional instinct. Now… if the story only stopped there.

About an hour later I was sitting in the office when the person that sent me the morning email that boiled my blood walked into the office. Initially, I was candidate for the Carnegie hall of fame. I may have actually even forced a smile. That actually worked for about 15 seconds, but before long I was verbally letting it rip and managed to share all my unsent email thoughts and then some. Much of what I said wasn’t even really germane (not really sure what that means…but I’ve always loved that word), but man, it was nice to get it off my chest. It really did feel good…at least it felt that way for about eight seconds. Then, after the glee of letting it all out passed, I wished I’d hadn’t hit the verbal send button.

A long time ago a strange and still unexplained set of circumstances plunged me into a situation where I was serving as a “rater” in a big time interview process for a very large employer. I’d never done it before and was in way over my head. Essentially, me and another rater colleague would sit in a padded room (seriously) and interview a potential job applicant. My rating partner was a much older chap that smacked of wisdom and success. He had graying hair…a crisp ironed white shirt with a red bow tie (I still don’t even know how to tie a two tie) and a blue blazer. To me…he looked like a Supreme Court Justice or someone that would be President of Harvard. The session was recorded, and we’d each ask a prescribed set of question. One of the candidates, ironically the most impressive by far to this point, responded horribly to one of the last questions that was obviously designed to check their ethical inclinations. Amazed…I reworded the question and the respondent stunningly provided the same bad answer. After the candidate left, my much older and wiser colleague turned to me and said something like this… “you know…as I look back on my life, the things I really regret the most are some of the bad things I’ve said…not some of the good things I’ve left unsaid.”

Hopefully you’re not…but in the regrettable case you’re anything like me, think for a minute before you hit the send button. Actually, if you really are anything like me…try to change…but in the meantime, you may even want to apply that same restraint principle to more than your keyboard.  Have a wonderful weekend and do something fun that matters with the people you love. Over the long haul, that will dwarf anything you might be thinking is more important that happens at work.

Sorry for all the errors and the horrific writing. I violated every rule today…and time only allowed for one draft and zero proofing.

 

With rails of steel...that reach the soul...