Bring Your Brain to Work!

I used to work with a fellow named Rick Tate, who talked about studying people who trained seeing-eye dogs. What they found was that they kick two kinds of dogs out of the program: The first kind were the ones who were completely obedient, who would do anything that the master said. That was really kind of surprising because you would have thought that the only ones they would kick out would be the ones who wouldn’t do anything that the master said. But they kicked out both kinds.  The only dogs they kept in the program were the dogs who would do what the master said unless it didn’t make sense. They kept the dogs that could think for themselves. I think that’s what we as leaders should always try to do—get everybody to think for themselves. Sure, we have some guidelines, here’s what our policy is and all, but use your brains. You can imagine a seeing-eye dog with his master at the street corner, and the master says, “Forward,” and the dog looks up and there’s a car coming at sixty miles an hour. And the dog thinks, “This is gonna be a real bummer,” as he leads his master out into the middle of the street. So we want to empower people to use their brains – train them to do what the boss wants, or what the policies are, unless it doesn’t make sense. That’s really allowing people to bring their brains to work. So don’t get hit by a car! Use your brain today.

Monday Again?!

One day last week, I suddenly realized that I was having a great day at work. I had so many different things going on that I lost track of time. That’s when you know you’re doing what you ought to be doing. Are you losing track of time?  If you’re watching your watch, and you’re thinking, “Thank God it’s Friday,” or, “Oh no, it’s Monday,” then talk to somebody in the company about switching jobs, because you’re probably in the wrong job. Remember, to be the best, you need to be passionate and excited about what you’re doing. That’s the way I was last week – I just lost track of time because I was having a ball. So you have a ball today. Love what you do, because when you do that, your customers are going to love you and you’re going to have a successful company.