Greetings!
One of the buzzwords (buzz-phrases?) that happen to be "in fashion" these days seems to be the notion that "we are preparing our kids (and junior staff under our care) for jobs that don't even exist yet!" The underlying worry then, is whether or not we are preparing them for their careers in the "right" way, or if we are even preparing them adequately at all! I get a little amused when I observe this, because worry is a sign that we are taking on responsibilities that do not rightfully belong to us. If we are in no position to foresee what is down the road, how can we be responsible for what developments occur in the future? As I see it, many of us who are responsible for the development of the children and the people under us worry about this unnecessarily. We DO, however, have a responsibility to prepare them for being successful in life as best we can. Being successful in my book is NOT how high one climbs the corporate ladder, nor how much money one makes. Being highly successful in life is BECOMING someone who provides excellent value regardless of vocation, station in life or other circumstances. So how can we better fulfill our responsibilities with regard to equipping our people for the future?
Well, I believe that the best way to prepare our people for what lies ahead of them is to ground them in rock-solid foundational principles. I will present three of them which will go a long way towards helping them to be successful in meeting future challenges. All definitions are taken from the definitions of character qualities as outlined on the Character First! website. The first is to instill in them the quality of Initiative, which is "Recognizing and doing what needs to be done before I am asked to do it". Sounds pretty obvious, doesn't it? Common sense stuff. Well, I say it again - common sense is not so common! Be honest with me now - do YOU exercise initiative on a regular basis? If we all did, we would not be hearing things like "That's how we have always done things around here", or in its various other permutations which, by the way, are STILL very common even in organizations that routinely conduct human capital development programs, whatever they might be! People who exercise initiative do so out of a desire to explore and implement better ways of doing things. They utilize outsight and properly apply the fresh perspectives and ideas so obtained to the insights they already have about what makes their organizations or their businesses better. One instance is the story of how the management of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel got their chambermaids to experience what it was like being part of an F1 pit crew. The whole idea was to help them get a feel of what it it might be like to "turn a room around" in the shortest possible time! Secondly, having the quality of Discernment, which is "Understanding the deeper reasons why things happen" would certainly put them in a position to "move to where the ball is going to be", as Steve Jobs so aptly put it. Having discernment is absolutely vital if one is to formulate viable strategy for moving one's enterprise or business forward. Contrary to popular notions, strategizing is not solely a C-suite function. It applies to all levels. It may not be as manifestly expressed at lower levels of an organization, but the quality of discernment as applied to the function and process of strategizing ought to be present. The upshot of this is that those in the C-Suite would then be expending energy and resources developing both themselves and the organization at large in order to be worth their salt! This can only spell huge dividends for all the organization's internal and external stakeholders. Finally, we would be doing our people, and indeed ourselves, a huge favour by developing the quality of wisdom in them. Wisdom is "Making practical application of truth in daily decisions". We pride ourselves in being more highly educated, more erudite, perhaps, than our forbears, do we not? How is it then that we see so many instances of people who are supposedly very well educated, impressively certified, and yet being so unqualified when placed in positions of authority and responsibility? My take is that such people have yet to internalize the quality of wisdom. So, here we have it. Three qualities that will prepare our people for what lies ahead. There are many more qualities that are required of course, but I have said that we will talk about three of them here. So now we have initiative, discernment and wisdom. And the one with the highest payoff is, in my view, the quality of wisdom. So, with all that you can, get wisdom. Initiative and discernment will come along much more readily as you do so. Have a great week ahead! |
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