The Wastebroker Blog

Not Just Another Survey

A little over a week ago, I was sitting at my computer and received an e mail that got my attention.  It came with the tag line “Survey”.  Oh no, I thought to myself, not another “Am I satisfied” questionnaire. 

But I was wrong.  This Survey wasn’t anything like what I expected.  I’m not sure why I got this exactly, but I thought that the questions were so good (and challenging) that I would offer my two cents in response.  Both are included below for your enjoyment.  Whether you agree or disagree, I hope that they at least make you think a bit.  Enjoy!

1)       What is the most important trait/characteristic you look for when you are interviewing someone?  (Any position) If I had to identify just one, I would say likeability.  Without that I’m going to have a problem.

2)       Being in the service industry where customer service is essential to the success of your business, what do you look for when filling those positions? Likeability, ability to work autonomously to decide what’s best without asking, someone who is comfortable putting themselves in someone else’s shoes, someone who is not a “not my job” kind of person.

3)       Which motivation do you feel is more effective: the drive or desire to make money or the fact that someone gets personal satisfaction from doing a good job?  Great question.  There’s no doubt that this trips up most people.  In my opinion, the answer is neither. The desire for money first (for example you need it in order to be “motivated”) is almost always the wrong way to think.  It fosters entitlement thinking rather than value creating thinking which is what in fact leads to money.  Likewise, I’m not convinced that “personal satisfaction” alone is enough either.  People can feel satisfied that they are “doing a good job” yet be the only one who actually thinks that.  I believe that the key to motivation is to have an understanding of where you are and where you want to be.  It has to come form inside a person, not outside.  Realizing that where you want to be is possible, but will probably take different behaviors and thinking to get there.  And finally, creating a plan along with goals necessary to start the journey toward what you want.  If a person does this, they accomplish two important things.  First, they realize that the world reacts to value and that they can increase their value with the work they do (not the time they spend).  Second, it entrusts in a person something that too many of us give away to “someone” else; the responsibility for who and what we are.

4)       When you hire someone that you feel has potential and you invest time and money into trying to develop or help that person grow into what you feel they can be, when do you give up?  When they do. Would you keep that person on staff in a different capacity?  If they didn’t give up but simply didn’t have what was being asked (my fault).

5)       What do you think makes a good Manager? A good manager is someone who can get things done without being an ass.  A good leader gets people to think about what’s possible, encourages them to pursue what’s possible, gives them a few of tools they will need and then gets the hell out of the way. 

6)       Do you think companies should have wage incentives or competitions in the “backstage” area of their business? Yes, provided that the incentives support the overall company mission rather than creating divisiveness. If yes, do you think this will improve teamwork or destroy it? If its done right, it can’t possibly destroy teamwork.  The trick is what’s right.  It’s not as easy as it looks.

7)       Are you wondering when I’m going to stop asking questions? Well, you can stop wondering. This was the last one.

Dream Big

Please raise your hand if you are a dreamer.

We all have something very special in common.  We’re dreamers.  We’ve all lain in a field, stared at the stars and dreamed.  We’ve dreamed at our desks, in the shower.  We dream just about everywhere.  And yet, only some of us make our dreams real.  So few, in fact, it makes you wonder – is there a secret to making dreams come true?

I think there is.  I first discovered the secret to making dreams come true when I was in the 8th grade at St. Denis School.  I was 12.  I became fixated on the dream of driving.  I wanted to drive in the worst way.  But I didn’t just want to drive.  I wanted to drive something special, a 1967 Camaro – a hot rod.

I had four years to make my dream come true, and it dawned on me that I could either hope my dream would come true – or I could plan to make it happen.  I decided I should plan.  So the first thing I did was tell all my friends and all my family about my dream – in as much detail I could. I wasn’t sure why I did this – probably just excitement more than anything else – and I wasn’t sure whether they’d share my excitement or not.  But at least they knew how important it was to me.  I figured that couldn’t hurt.

Next I realized I’d need some cash – so a job was in order.  I asked around and found a paper route in my neighborhood that was available.  I took it.  I put a big steel basket on the front of my bike, and every afternoon for the next couple of years I threw my papers, collected my route and saved my earnings.

The other thing I realized was that a dream that takes years to make real can also be easily forgotten.  I needed to keep my dream close to me at all times so I wouldn’t lose focus.  To focus, I drew pictures of my Camaro, my dream.  I drew pictures in my notebooks, in my textbooks., on my book bag – everywhere I could.  I imagine some people thought I was a little weird, but for me it worked.

In the Fall of 1980, three years into my dream, I saw the ad in the paper that read “Camaro, 1967, partly restored, needs work, $100.”  I remember thinking Wow!  There it is – and at a bargain price, I convinced my dad.  My dad and I jumped into the pick-up truck and headed out to inspect my find.  We found the Camaro sitting under a blue plastic tarp in the seller’s driveway.  “Partly restored” and “needs work” may have been understatements.  She looked really dead. Flat tires, rusty quarter panels, interior removed, engine seized, boxes of parts in the trunk.  Not exactly the dream I’d sketched.  But I had a big smile on my face.  I handed over my hard-earned $100, and with the help of a tow truck, brought my Camaro home.  My dream took a giant step toward being real.

Over the next 12 months, my dad and I transformed the Camaro from a metal shell into the coolest ride in town.  We rebuilt the engine, installed the interior, fixed the body, added headers and exhaust system, fat tires and chrome wheels.  Every day we got closer and closer to my sketches.  It got tedious from time to time – and expensive, but when I got behind the wheel for the firs time, there was no doubt it was worth it.  I was, finally, living my dream.

So what did my Camaro teach me about dreams?  Well, for one, I learned that dreams don’t just come true.  Like a farmer’s field, dreams need to be worked and cultivated before they come to life.  And dreams need to be shared with the people who can help you make them real.  Dreams are fleeting and, without some help, they may just disappear.  And achieving a dream takes action, it takes a plan and it has to stay front of mind.

So please, all of you dreamers, keep dreaming!  Dream big!  Big dreams are the best kind.  But don’t just wish for your dreams to come true.  Share them, cultivate them, take action and do what so many will not – make your dreams real!

Retiring Retirement

I’m not against the concept of retirement, but I don’t understand its popularity either.  It strikes me as being something that millions (perhaps billions) of people look forward to, but most have no clear idea why.  Once you’re looking forward to retiring, you can’t possibly be focused any more on what you are still capable of achieving.  Isn’t that a waste?  Especially if you just assume that “retirement” will be such a big improvement.

The biggest problem with retirement as it’s popularly defined is that there’s a presumption you’ll now have a much better life.  But think about that for a moment.  For most of us, the value in our life comes from the impact we have on other people’s lives and, for the vast majority of us, that impact is felt most strongly by the people we affect in our families and in our work.  And what do so many do when they retire?  They stop working and they move, generally, away from their families and closer to a lot of other retired strangers.  Where’s the attraction in that?

I believe that most people do not plan to retire well.  The retirement industry and all of its related propaganda build the ideal retirement lifestyle as being almost exclusively linked to your ability to “save” enough money while you’re working to retire “well.”  All our life, of course, we’re told that money does not buy happiness – except in retirement apparently.  What the propaganda does not address is how you will continue to make a valuable contribution in retirement.  It wants you to take yourself out of the game.  And there’s the catch.  To make a valuable contribution, an energizing contribution, an energetic and sustaining contribution, you have to stay in the game.

So your planning for “retirement” can’t be solely focused on savings (although this surely can’t be ignored).  It must also be focused on your individual sustainability.  Planning for your individual sustainability, in my view, has three components:  money, health and worth, with worth, personal worth, being the most important.  If you focus on worth, money and health will be there ready to support you.  If you focus on either one of the others, alone or together, and disregard worth, you’re rolling the dice and, like at any casino, house odds are better than yours.

I meet, in general, two kinds of people in the world:  The first kind is working with a goal on retiring.  These are the people who can tell you exactly how long it will be until they “can” retire.  They’ll tell you the date, in fact.  Consider what that does to your thinking and to your individual worth.  Can you be effective in your work?  Sure, to a point.  But, more than likely, you’re no longer focused on what you can accomplish rather than what you need to do.  And need without can is not very challenging.  The second kind is usually a business owner or someone who is well paid, but unhappy with what they’re doing.  The only way they can define themselves between now and retirement is by what they do.  They mistakenly feel like where they are is who they are.  If I sold my business now, what would I do?  I’m too young to retire.  Or, if I quit my job, what would I do?  The ambition seems to die with these people, their individual sustainability is used up day by day, rather than banked and grown with daily deposits.

Some might argue that I don’t know what I’m talking about.  “You’re only 41; I’m 60.  I’ve got 20 years of work on you.  Talk to me when you’re 60.”  Fair enough.  But the “work” you may have on me is more than likely time you’ve put in, not time you’ve planned for your individual sustainability.  You’re in the retirement trap, you’ve got a picture of retirement nirvana and retirement fairies dancing in your head.  But I’m pretty sure that you’ll soon wonder why you let it happen to you.  Imagine how prepared you would be to retire with not just a bank full of money, but with the additional worth of your individual sustainability account overflowing as well.  Wouldn’t be any need to retire, would there?  And that’s the point.  Too many of us fall into the trap that retirement is the end.  But retirement should be the reward, not the end.  If it were the reward, we would want to make sure that every day we were retired would be the opportunity to do what we love and what has the biggest impact on others.  Not a day to wonder what to do.