I thought about this all day. In every encounter we have in a lifetime, good or bad, we take something from the moment. I agree with Scott. Much of who I am today was shaped by the leadership of that company so many long years ago. I know the way I look at expenses in a business and the relationship between expense and profit is one really solid example. We were all taught early-on how to manage in plentiful times and in times that were not. We didn't succeed in the long run, but I know we kept the company alive a lot longer because of the things those who had come before us taught along the way.
So I ask myself - what am I teaching today? Am I providing good lessons to others that will help them in the future to move lives and businesses along? I hope I am. I know the biggest thing any of us can do is to help the next generation to learn from the past. Not only did Payless do this for me, but my family also believed strongly in this virtue. I remember walking around the cemetery with my grandmother as she talked endlessly about family that had come before and what they had done and how they changed things for the better. Of course I wish I had listened more at the time, but I did absorb a lot of it, and it has helped make me a more fully rounded person today. So again, back to the question - how am I helping the next group to be more ready than I was?
One of the things I have recognized in the last year or so is just how cyclical the world is. I know this is not new information, but sometimes it just takes time to totally get it. When I was in my teens in the late sixties and seventies, I really couldn't understand why my parent's generation didn't understand the way I looked at things. I also remember thinking I was sure I would never be that way. Fast forward three or four decades, and sure enough, I look at the people coming into the workforce and I think their approach is crazy. If I really stop and think about it, this generation's approach to this decade is no different than mine was to my parent's time. It is just different. And, with this, I have probably gotten a little more set in my ways and less likely to be as open to new thoughts and new ways of thinking. There, I said it.
So Scott, here comes the challenge to both of us, and probably a bunch of others too. The next time we find ourselves in a conversation where we want to tell the other person they are "just crazy" in the way they are looking at something, we have to stop. We need to think of all of those people that took time and invested energy into each of us to make us better and more fully rounded, and we need to move that forward. We need to stop and listen and work to understand what is being said and why. Then we need to work to find middle ground and work with this next generation to help them to be more prepared than they are now. We need to do this to honor the time and energy that others spent on us when we were still feeling our way. I know that there were things I did and said in those times that I probably should not have been forgiven for, but I was, so I could move forward. Let's find people that we can help in the same way.
