Friday Reflections

A Desk Is a Dangerous Place to Manage The World

Point to Ponder:

Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. -Martin Luther King Jr.

 

STORY LINE:  by George Samuel

How many times have you asked yourself if your boss knows the challenges you face when accomplishing your job? A new reality show caught my attention after the Super Bowl this year that sought to answer that question. My interest was piqued. The premise of the show was simple: take a high level company executive and stick them in a front line job for a week. See how they respond, what they learn, and how they react in the working environment that they themselves often manage. Their goal was also simple: find effective methods to improve company operations over the course of the week. What comes out of that week is not only just a lesson in management but also in empathy by being in another person's shoes. The show had me hooked and over the course of the season I took notes on the observations I found to be the most beneficial in motivating others to work to their highest potential.

• Employees can inspire management and vice versa: Igor, an immigrant from Kazakhstan (please refrain from making Borat jokes), drove a distribution truck for 7-Eleven. Joseph DePinto, 7-Eleven's CEO, was assigned to work with Igor. Through observations and conversations with Igor, Mr. DePinto was actually inspired to become a better executive for his employees.
• The story of young hardworking employee inspiring Dave Rife (before he was owner of White Castle) to enroll culinary school and then start his own restaurant. 
• People & relationships is the “secret sauce” for successful franchises: Both 7-Eleven and 1800 flowers.com executives saw that their most successful stores had wonderful people providing exceptional customer service to their patrons, in particular a woman named Dolores who went above and beyond while working for 7-Eleven. “That’s why we’re selling 2500 cups of coffee a day,” said DePinto to the cameras when asked about 7-Eleven's success. DePinto also added, “Not because we have great coffee, but because we have people like Dolores”. 

Recently, senior managers at Southwest Airlines spend a “Day in the Field” once each quarter on the front lines with their employees. This tradition was started by Herb Kelleher (founder and CEO) himself by working on the day prior to Thanksgiving, typically the busiest travel day in the year. What has emerged is that Southwest Airlines has won numerous awards for exceptional customer service. This happened because their executives take time to experience their company first-hand as an employee and as a customer.
 

Reflection: Is this concept only suited for reality TV or can it be used in the real world? One possible idea could be for management to record their experiences in short videos as they travel across the various operations identifying passionate employees that they meet and then share those experiences with the whole company.
 
 
 

He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How

POINT TO PONDER

He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.  ~Nietzsche

 

STORYLINE - by Rajiv Shah

Please refer to Bobby Moresco's story from the reflection last week.

REFLECTION

Last week I wrote about never giving up and told the story of Bobby Moresco. I received a very good question from one of our readers that I'd like to address. The question is below:

Bobby Moresco's story is indeed inspirational. The question I wonder is if this type of ending can happen to every life story with passion and persistence? That is my dilemma...

What strikes me about the question, and it is a good one, is that it is focused on the ending – on Moresco winning the Oscar after thirty years of poverty and struggle. The question treats passion and persistence as the means to an end rather than the meaning of Mr. Moresco's journey itself. And the point is not the Oscar but rather, the ability to pursue what he was passionate about. I propose that the Oscar is a result of the courage to pursue his passion. 

Our obsession with results is not new. We are bred to separate ourselves as winners or losers and it got me thinking about where we place our values. Often the method is just a means to an end. But if that is true then why are there so many people who seem to have everything and are still unhappy?

I propose that it is not the results that count and neither is the struggle. What is important is the meaning we assign to each. We can take two people and put them in the same job, give them the same salary, and require them to work the same hours. One is miserable, the other is happy – motivated even. Now what separates the two when the conditions appear to be equal?

I believe the answers can be found in Viktor Frankel's bestselling book, “Man's Search for Meaning,” which chronicles his time in the Auschwitz death camps. He endured beatings, humiliation, and starvation. Many times he was close to death. What allowed him to survive when others abandoned hope was that he gave his life a specific meaning – he thought about being reunited with his wife. He would not give up on seeing her again no matter how dire his circumstances. Others gave up as they believed no one could make it out of such a brutal place. Frankel observed his peers reduced to the lowest levels of human existence and noted that when people lost hope and their purpose, they often lost their lives soon after.

So returning to the readers question about Bobby Moresco's life, I hypothesize that every life filled with passion and purpose doesn't always end with the Oscar or an article in the New York Times. Sometimes when you pursue your passion there isn't monetary wealth, accolades, or adoration involved. And sometimes a man like Mr. Moresco will pursue a life just for the simple fact that he/she finds a deep sense of meaning in the things that they are most passionate.   

When life knocks you down you have two choices - stay down or get up

POINT TO PONDER

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
- Nelson Mandela
 
 

STORYLINE - by Rajiv Shah

As a screenwriter I often scan biographies of writers that I admire. Writers have a difficult time in Hollywood as they work excruciatingly hard to give life to stories whose successes are often credited to directors and actors.

One such writer is a man named Bobby Moresco. Bobby comes from a the tough New York neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen. Growing up Bobby watched as his friends and peers grow into cops, blue collar workers, and felons. Bobby had different aspirations – he wanted to become an actor. “I wasn't a good actor, but I had a driving need to do something different with my life,” he would later say. It wasn't easy and during the 1970's Bobby made a total of $2,000. During that time he had married and had a baby daughter. Times were tough but he persevered and moved out to Hollywood.

The move would not last and in 1983 his younger brother Thomas was murdered. Bobby moved back to New York to be close to his family and to deal with his heartbreak. With his options feeling limited he began to write; about his brother, about his pain, about coming back to the old neighborhood. What would come out of him was a play titled, “Half-Deserted Streets,” which opened Off-Broadway in 1988.

He would eventually make it back to Hollywood but as the years passed the prospect of doing what he loved continued to elude him. In 2003, he was out of work and broke. A fateful call from a friend named Paul Haggis would change his fortune. He wanted Bobby to help write a screenplay about the racial tensions and simmering hatred in Los Angeles. The script would be turned down by every studio in town. No one wanted to touch a script about racial dynamics and frustrations so soon after September 11th.

Bobby Moresco's latest blow didn't deter him. He had already been through so much. So he took out a loan and sold his house. Bobby and Haggis found an independent producer who took a chance on the two. Bobby would even defer his salary on the film in order to get it made.

The little film that no one wanted was eventually released into theaters in 2005 with the simple title, “Crash.” It would later be nominated for six Academy Awards. It would win three – including one for best original screenplay for Paul Haggis and a struggling 54 year old writer named Bobby Moresco.

 

REFLECTION

Bobby Moresco would say this about his journey to the Oscars and I feel it sums up this reflection appropriately, "If you have something you want to do in life, don't think about the problems," he says, "think about the ways to get it done."