On the other hand, this individual is not a loner. If he finds other individuals with good attitudes and leadership skills, he would rather be around such people. He makes friends across the organization and seeks to create a sort of “culture of excellence”, helping those like him and generating positive and value-sharing relationships.
He also knows that the best way to be a good employee is to think like a manager, to understand the logic behind good business practices, why it is important to always be professional and a team player.
I once knew an employee who came to work every day and waited for something to happen. He performed his routine activities and when his work was done, he asked the boss if he could go home. When the company cut back, he was the first one to go. On the other hand, his associate, doing the same work, always asked for more work when he was done. He was talked to in his performance review and told that he was part of the future of the company and his job was secure.
Another aspect of his good attitude was his willingness to listen to feedback and use it to improve his performance. He thought of good results and learning how to create them as more important than defending himself against criticism.
The Hines Story
In 1968, I was hired by UPS as a clerk. During my training, I was presented with a mimeographed sheet of paper and asked to read it. This text was given to every new UPS employee. It was common to hear: “Remember the Hines Story”. No one ever told me the source of the story or the name of the writer. I repeat it here:
“Mr. Hines, the owner of the Hines Lumber Company recently had to fill a top executive position. Two of his managers with equal experience were considered but the choice went to the man who had fewer years with the company. Upon learning of the promotion, the other man asked Mr. Hines why he wasn't the one selected. Instead of answering him Mr. Hines asked him if any lumber had come in that day. The man said he would check and a few minutes later reported that a carload had arrived that morning. Mr. Hines then wanted to know the type of lumber. After again checking, the manager told him it was number 6 pine. Mr. Hines then asked the man how
many board feet were in the order. Again, leaving the room to check he returned shortly with the answer of 3500 board feet. This type of questioning went on for several minutes and then Mr. Hines asked the man to sit in the next room, leaving the door ajar so he could still hear.
“Mr. Hines then called to the manager who had been promoted and asked him if any lumber had arrived that day. The manager said he would check and in a few minutes, he returned with the following answer. A carload of number 6 pine had come in on track three at 9:30 A.M. and totaled 3500 board feet. The lumber was unloaded by 2:00 P.M. and stored in warehouse number 18. It was order number 65-03 for the Williams Company and its total value was $16,352.00.
“Mr. Hines thanked the man and said he could go. After the second man left Mr. Hines called in the first manager who had heard the entire conversation. The first manager said he knows now why the other man had been promoted instead of himself.”
Which employee are you; the one promoted or the one not promoted?
Let me make a few additional observations.
If you have “dead time” during your work day, what should you do? Answer: Ask your boss what you can do to help the company bring in more business. At the very least, ask him/her what you can do to improve your productivity or take on new responsibilities.
The individual who acts when called upon by management will be judged by the quality of that action. As we saw in the Hines Story, the successful individual was more thorough and he gave the manager more than he ostensibly needed. In fact, that information was useful to the manager and saved him the time he would have spent waiting for the employee to come back with the answer to a new question. More is better when it comes to giving your boss value in return for your paycheck.
Most people who have dead time during their day, decide to hide from the boss. They see that dead time as a gift – they are getting paid for doing nothing. But is it a gift or a harbinger of disaster? If you are being paid for doing nothing, how can the company make a profit? If you hide and hope that your boss does not discover your dead time, you will be less valuable to the company simply because you said nothing and continued drawing a pay check. When it comes time to cut out the dead weight, who do you think will keep his job? You or the other employee who offered to work during his dead time?
If you have dead time at work, this means the profits of the company are being wasted. This situation must be fixed before the company goes out of business. So, you should make sure you are the solution (and not the problem) or you will be the one “out of business”.
Don’t argue with the boss – You are not smarter than he is, nor are you more valuable to the company than he is. Arguing with the boss makes you an adversary and that means you are a problem for the company. When the time comes to cut expenses, you’ll be the one getting cut.
This does not mean that you cannot offer your ideas on how to improve things; you should offer your views with good intentions and a desire to be of value to the company. But make sure the boss knows you are not complaining; convince him that you have a positive attitude before you criticize something that you think is wrong. Even if your boss is closed to your suggestions, he will at least see you as an employee seeking to be of value.
What if your boss is a poor manager and you don’t like his leadership style? Answer: Don’t assume that you know more than your boss. Don’t confuse personality conflicts with an inability of your boss to lead and direct you. Don’t criticize the boss.
Don’t be a Marxist
Many of us have been indoctrinated by teachers or parents with an anti-capitalist bias. The father of anti-capitalism is Karl Marx who wrote the seminal works about communism which he held to be the next (inevitable) phase of historical development.
Communism has caused nothing but problems for the world. It has fomented wars and revolutions and introduced force and violence into human relationships. Marxists want to control rather than leave people free. Their claim that capitalism is evil is proven wrong by the fact that life for almost all people is improved by capitalism. Their premise that men should sacrifice for others is the flaw that proves them wrong. It is precisely because capitalism does not demand sacrifice that makes it good and productive.
If you believe in Marxism, there is no way you can be a good employee for a profit-seeking company. Don’t blame it on the company; blame it on yourself. You need an attitude adjustment. If you think your boss is an exploiter you must seek to “expose” the company for the evil it does. You must think that your boss is a thief who needs to be punished for his activities. What would make you want to be productive for any company? Kiss your chances of employment good bye.
In fact, Marxists are wrong about capitalism. Capitalism is not a “system” in the sense that it gives people the power to exploit others. Capitalism merely enables freedom; voluntary cooperation, consensual trade and voluntary labor agreements. Capitalism exploits no one because it has no mechanism for the use of force against individuals. Capitalism is the absence of force in human relationships and this makes it good.
You can go on to study Marxism if you want. You will find that Marxism is based upon historical materialism, the idea that history moves according to a class struggle that developed centuries before capitalism came along. It flies in the face of the fact that capitalism destroyed the class system in every sense. In addition, capitalism enables an individual, born into poor circumstances, to rise to the level of a millionaire and enjoy abundance through hard work and ingenuity.
This last fact is totally ignored by Marxists who have fallen for a false critique of capitalism. Marx saw political power and coercion in everything that capitalism brought to the world. But Marx’s critique of capitalism was based upon false arguments. Capitalism brought no coercion to society. It meant freedom; contracts were not force or slavery but mutual agreements where both p
arties agreed to engage in win/win situations. So, when capitalism kept improving people’s lives, Marxists kept seeing the next tipping point in its destruction. The result is that Marxist manipulation (force), designed to interfere and “fix” capitalism, only served to force and enslave individuals under coercive and dictatorial governments.
Marx posited a historical struggle based upon economic movements which, in fact, cannot happen. Reality does not implement “ideas”; it can only move according to cause and effect as it relates to entities. This means that entities (even human beings) act according to their natures. There is no such thing as a universal or “metaphysical” economic class. There is only reality and it is the purpose of man’s consciousness to identify and understand reality by identifying entities, abstractions and principles. All abstractions are derived from man’s conceptual awareness; they are not universal movements, essences or entities.
You may not think this is an important issue, but I’d like to remind you that Marx posited that his economic determinism was a universal principle. Yet, absolute reality cannot implement economic classes; only a conceptual mentality can do this by understanding principles of reality. Concepts do not exist in a vacuum but within the context of other human knowledge. This means that Marx is wrong about his metaphysical and epistemological principles. Class is not determinative of anything metaphysical. You determine your “status” through your thinking and hard work.
John Paul Getty – the Three Rules to Riches
One of J. Paul Getty’s famous quotes is “Formula for success: rise early, work late, strike oil”. These words are among the most repeated from the venerable billionaire who became rich in the oil industry. It is a simple, but very true, formula for success. If you follow it, you will not fail. Here’s why:
“Rise Early”
Getting up early to go to work gives you a tremendous advantage. While you are thinking, acting, working and producing early in the morning, everyone else is sleeping or drinking their morning coffee. I’ve often noticed, in my own work, that working while others are celebrating, such as weekends or holidays, gave me a tremendous competitive advantage (in spite of the fact that I also had to raise my own daughter). I had used some of my time off to gain new knowledge while they were relaxing and enjoying their time off. I used some of my time to do something or invent something while they were grilling on the barbee. I used some of my time to plan what I would do during the next work day while they used their time watching weekend television shows, going to the movies, dancing, drinking and laughing. I did not envy them because later they would envy me for my success. I was building my skills while their skills were eroding away.
“Work Late”
Other versions of this quote use the term “work hard” instead of “work late”.
I think working hard is all about production as is the term working late; since working late enables more production. In fact, every product on the planet that is offered for sale is based upon a human scale. This means that it is for the benefit of humans and/or of such a size that humans make them and use them. Working hard or working late mean working with all of one’s strength and energy to accomplish a specific task that will benefit customers. Working hard/late means doing one’s best and delivering top quality results.
Another aspect of “working hard” is that some types of work are difficult to accomplish because they require human strength and physical ability to accomplish. Think of the mechanic who must work on heavy parts and engines through his muscle power. He must know how machines operate and what makes them work, as well as how to fix them, but he must also have the physical strength to do the job. Not every individual is able to do this work and those who are able to do it have more value and deserve good salaries. Turning a wrench is certainly working hard and it accomplishes value for the operator of the machine being fixed.
“Strike oil”
This term is a metaphor for producing a product that most people need. This condition of offering needed products implies that many people will buy the product and that means higher profits and riches for the producer. You do not necessarily have to produce oil or oil products; this term refers to anything you can make that is wanted by many people. The more people who want your product, the richer you become. Strategic planning is the work of projecting the number of potential customers and then developing the products and methods that will deliver them to people.
Discovering Concepts and How to Use them in Business
In this chapter, I’m going to provide you with an approach to thinking that will make you a better employee and maximize your professional success. I call it the conceptual approach.
A concept is a mental unit of thought that refers to an idea, principle or thing in the real world. A concept is defined through a verbal description that identifies the defining characteristics of the things or facts to which it refers. Defining characteristics are those that make the referent what it is, that make it different from all other things.
The concept is the tool that humans use when trying to understand and act in the real world. It is expressed both verbally and in written form as a word that implies all of its relevant characteristics.
You cannot advance beyond the level of a primitive human being without the competent use of concepts. Not only do concepts exist for virtually every “thing” you deal with, but they also enable you to think “abstractly” with higher level knowledge such as theories, principles, and the widest abstractions that are not directly connected to the perceptual level of consciousness. In fact, the singular reason that many people do not advance in life beyond lower level jobs is because they are not efficient users of more advanced concepts; they are mired in perceptual concretes and are unable to think the kinds of thoughts that would make them more valuable than those who can only do manual labor.
Creating a new concept is not about creating a new word. It is about defining a new thing or relationship and learning how to use it mentally. If a new concept is valid (properly defined and used), it represents an open door to new knowledge, new actions and a new understanding that benefits life. If a new concept is invalid (which means it is not adequately connected to reality) it leads to ignorance and closes the door to new knowledge and successful action.
For instance, let’s assume you discover a new fact of reality. Let’s say you have discovered a new extract from a plant that makes people with insomnia sleep better. To retain the fact of the existence of this extract in memory you need to create a concept. The defining characteristic about this drug is that it contains a new chemical ingredient that you are going to call “Icosleep”. You name the drug after yourself, let’s say “Roberts”. “Roberts” contains the characteristic which is the extract you have identified as Roberts “Icosleep” which, when ingested by insomniacs, helps them sleep.
You now have a new concept, a new drug, a new benefit and once put into production for sale, a new product. Later, you might find other uses for this product such as anesthesia benefits and possibly the fact that it helps pregnant women handle labor. Each of these represents new benefits and additional medical improvements none of which were possible without your discovery of icosleep.
This process of thinking is called concept formation and it has tremendous benefits for the business professional. Once a new concept is identified, it takes, in a sense, a life of its own. If it is a highly useful concept, it becomes culturally important and opens the possibility of derivative concepts which open the doors for even more concepts and uses. A good example is the concept of electricity which spawned many new inventions and other areas of knowledge. You could not have had the light bulb (and many other concepts) without the concept of electricity.
What is a definition and how can we discover valid definitions? A definition is a description of a specific concept. Definitions can refer to concrete existents as well as abstract relationships that represent principles of thought or action. The study of metaphysics deals with the natu
re of existence and the study of epistemology deals with how man gains knowledge. The answer to this last question is “through concepts”.
How does one verify that a concept is real? One does it by conceptualizing the entity through a valid definition then looking at reality to see if it exists as it is defined. This can be done anecdotally or scientifically (through a specialized process tailored to its validation). Generally, the scientific process is engaged in by experts in the field who are capable of such studies.
Generally, one understands a concept by means of its defining characteristic/s and by investigating its place or function. For abstract concepts, concepts that identify a principle rather than a thing, one does it by going beyond perception into the relationships of previously defined concepts. One ties each concept to verifiable facts and relationships. This process is called reduction.
As a starting point, here are some important rules for understanding and using concepts:
1.Your understanding of reality and your thinking methods must be correct if you want to effectively use concepts to make ethical business decisions. You must clearly define your concepts in order to decide what to do.
How to Be a Great Employee And a Greater Manager Page 3
