SURGING AHEAD BRILLIANTLY

I want you to have thought starters available so you can use them at will. Neither you nor I can predict where they might come in handy for you. All I’m doing is passing along ideas I got from the twentieth century that have worked for the past 50-75 years and still work.

I’m hoping if I give you enough good ideas I can save you 50 years of gathering them for yourself. Don’t expect them to be miracles or make you fabulously wealthy, although some came from people who themselves became wealthy. I have found these ideas extraordinarily helpful in making life simpler and easier – both in and out of business.

Ideas for Starters

Ideas I’d like you to take from what you’ve read so far are: If you have something you do better than other people do, exploit it for yourself. A lot of people, including you, have skills they don’t even know they have, such as being able to sort quickly, or keeping good track of money, or managing small children or animals. Take your skills and use them because they will be easy for you, and soon you can begin to enjoy your work. They are transferable. I once worked on a curriculum project. After the first evaluation our group was told, "We weren’t expecting all this creativity from you." And worse, they said, we were having too much fun. Apparently, the sponsors of that project couldn’t conceive of working and having fun too. That was too bad for them, but as far as we were concerned our effort had already paid off in enjoyment. Later it was selected as an award-winning curriculum. So have fun.

Ask Questions

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. The most dreaded expression in a business context is, "Oh, I was going to ask you about that." If you see anybody doing something right or well or different from how you do it, ask him how he does it. I once asked a woman how she got so organized. She said, "I never put something down until I’ve done with it what I picked it up for."4 Simple enough, but it’s easier to understand than to practice.

Most people who do something well know how they do it. Ask them. They will be flattered and happy to tell you. Quite often you will get a little clue, too. I once went to a neighbor’s house. She was shucking corn; I come from corn-on-the-cob country. She was putting the husks in the garbage, but the little leaves right next to the ear she put in boiling water. I asked her about that. She said those little leaves are sweet because they’re right next to the sweet corn.

Good Reasons for Asking Questions

An example of the usefulness of asking came to me when I was standing on a curb with my four-year-old who had just finished safety school and I asked, "What do we do now?" He said, "We look both ways." When I asked him why he said, "Because that stops the cars." From that frightening answer a secondary idea crops up immediately: You have to take everyone where you find him and bring him along mentally to where he’s supposed to be. Often people think they understand something but on closer examination they don’t. As a good employee it will always be your job to give things a closer examination.

Here’s a story about Joe, a plant foreman I know who did just that. His company was about to make several hundred thousand flame-retardant suits out of a synthetic fabric. On a whim, he tried one on while the entire line was holding but ready to roll. Within seconds he broke out in a ghastly, itchy rash. He called out to his next-in-command to hold the line until they heard from him. Then he rushed to the phone and called upstairs to the vice president in charge of the project. The upshot of all this: the job was canceled and the company was saved millions of dollars in countless lawsuits. Joe received a $50,000 thank-you bonus when he retired.