20 August 2007

i am back

After a week in Houston it is good to be Home. We were there for our annual Managers Meetings. All in all it was a fun week. Went fishing on Lake Conroe. Didn't catch anything but a buzz. That is what i call a good day of fishing. While sitting in the meetings i began looking at all the other managers sitting there. about 80% of the managers in my division started out together 15 or so years back. We started as Technicians and worked our way through Operations Supervisor and Salesman into Manager. This got me to thinking.

At our location we have been trying to hire people. We always say that the young people today don't want to work and do not have the ethics we have. I believe this is true but i do not believe it is a generation thing. I think it is just youth.

18 years ago when i started i was a beer drinking bar brawling women chasing wild thing that showed up everyday, usually hungover. As i grew older i also grew wiser and my priorities changed. I traded the bars on Saturday night for Church on Sunday Morning. I traded womanizing for marriage. I simply grew up.

Back 20 years ago if you were a hoodlum, you simply hid it. The only people who knew you were a hoodlum was felow hoodlums. In todays open society where you don't hide anything, the young people just do it.

Our young people today aren't doing nothing we didn't do back in our day. They simply don't hide it as well. I think our young people are more coddled today than we were but that is just because their parents want them to succeed. Nothing wrong with that.

It makes me feel better and changes my outlook on what i am looking for when hiring someone. I know someone took a chance on me so i should also be willing to give these young people a chance. With proper leadership you can take your entire organization on to greatness.

Remember this, attitude is a reflection of leadership.

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