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April 3rd, 2012
 I recall once racing up the hallway of an office building, flying to meet a deadline.
I arrived at our receptionists’ desk, where three women were clustered, chatting. They appeared as relaxed as if they had all the time in the world.
“I have intestinal problems,” one woman was saying, rubbing her stomach lightly to illustrate.
“I get migraines,” the second offered, massaging her temple and wincing at the thought.
“I have a bad back,” our receptionist announced to the group, placing her hand at the small of her back as though in support of the pain. Keen to involve me in their friendly group, she turned to me and asked solicitously, “What do you have?”
I was struck dumb for just a split second – clearly, everyone here was staking out the ground required for future failures. Having so considerately informed each other ahead of time of their weaknesses and sensitivities, they could then be confident that when circumstances required that they justify a sick day or an undelivered task, their co-workers would be supportive, understanding and non-judgmental. After all, everyone “had something.”
“What do I have?” I asked out loud, wonderingly. “I guess I have robust good health, that’s what I have!” I scooped up the packages I needed from the desk and headed out to the elevator, hoping that I’d clearly staked out my own position – I had no plans to miss work days, deadlines or opportunities as a result of my health. I had no bad back, no intestinal problems, no migraines…no excuses.
“To prevent worry and fatigue, put enthusiasm into your work,” Dale Carnegie wrote in Stop Worrying. He illustrates by describing Alice, “an executive who lives on your street.”
“Alicecame home one night utterly exhausted. She acted fatigued. She was fatigued. She had a headache. She had a backache. She was so exhausted she wanted to go to bed without waiting for dinner…”
Alicewas cured instantly, it turned out, by a phone call from her boyfriend, who invited her dancing. “She danced until three o’clock in the morning; and when she finally did get home, she was not the slightest bit exhausted…was Alice really and honestly tired eight hours earlier, when she looked and acted exhausted? Sure she was. She was exhausted because she was bored with her work, perhaps bored with life.”
Emotional attitude, Carnegie declares, usually has far more to do with producing fatigue than physical exertion.
This chapter always makes me laugh and think of the classic Bill Murray Christmas movie “Scrooged.”Murrayplays Frank Cross, a modern-era Ebeneezer Scrooge; Frank’s father is a butcher who brings his son home a five pound piece of veal as a Christmas present.
“But daddy, I wanted a choo-choo,” little Frank says sadly.
“Then get a job and BUY a choo-choo,” his father snaps gruffly.
“Aw, Al, he’s only four years old,” Frank’s mother defends him.
“All day long, I’m surrounded by whiners…’My back hurts!’ ‘My legs hurt!’ ‘I’m only four!’” the father retorts, before flopping on the couch to fall asleep.
That little exchange is meant to show how heartless and inconsiderate the senior Cross is, and it does that. But around our house, it has also become short hand for “Stop whining and get on with the job!”
“My back hurts! My legs hurt! I’m only four!”
The fact of the matter is, when you choose to put enthusiasm into your work, your back doesn’t hurt; your legs don’t hurt; and even if you were only four, you’d still be doing it because it’s what you love doing.
“Where your interests are, there is energy also,” Carnegie points out. “Walking ten blocks with a nagging wife or husband can be more fatiguing than walking ten miles with an adoring sweetheart…our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration, and resentment.”
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March 30th, 2012
In the annals of communication and miscommunication, my favourite example of fuzzy understanding based on an erroneous premise comes from communications strategist David Small.
David has been working in election campaigns since he was 12 years old – “I remember racing around Barrie balancing lawn signs on the handle bars of my bike,” he laughs – and managing them for almost as long. His true passion in life is cartography, and he has spent decades researching and analyzing maps and creating election strategies based upon demographics and voting patterns. He’s been involved at both the provincial and the federal level with public consultations on the re-drawing of election boundaries and the re-writing of the Elections Act.
Several years ago David was invited to be the guest speaker at a political convention. The topic of his talk was “Voter Demographics and Campaign Planning;” he was speaking to a room full of riding volunteers who would be heading home to actually plan and run campaigns.
“The single largest predictor of Conservative support,” David told the room, in a perfectly clear and concise statement, “is home ownership. The higher the levels of home ownership in a given poll, the greater the chances your team will have to find and secure sufficient numbers of Conservatives votes to win it for your candidate.”
He went on at length over the next hour about many more complicated, obscure or arcane features of demographics and voting patterns, but he felt very confident that even the volunteers who didn’t readily grasp the more complex ideas could still take away the value in his opening statement: “The single largest predictor of Conservative support is home ownership.”
He finished his presentation and packed up his materials. Several audience members were on hand to thank him for his informative talk.
One man, in particular, waited to speak directly to him. “I just want to make sure I’ve got this right,” the man said, referring back though pages of extensive notes. He read from his first hand written page: “The single largest predictor of Conservative support is homo worship…” he continued on busily through the next several points before David interrupted him.
“Not ‘homo worship,’” David, who happens to be gay, spluttered incredulously. “HOME OWNERSHIP!!”
“Oh,” the man frowned, disappointed to have found an error in his notes. He crossed out ‘homo worship’ and wrote, “home ownership.” “And now, about this point,” he blithely resumed his questioning, completely unperturbed by the fact that he had managed to miss on the single most important point of the entire seminar.
“I always wondered,” David laughs to this day, “if it was possible for him to confuse ‘home ownership’ and ‘homo worship’ in the first sentence of that presentation, what else of value could he possibly have taken away from the rest of the talk?”
“Get the facts,” Dale Carnegie wrote. “Without the facts, all we can do is stew around in confusion.”
At the very least, you have to commend the man for taking the time to confirm and correct his work. I love to imagine the discussion that would have taken place in the community meeting, had he gone back to his local riding association and announced that this year, the riding’s entire strategic plan would be based on the principle of ‘homo worship!’
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March 28th, 2012
“It is astonishing how quickly we can accept almost any situation, if we have to,” Dale Carnegie wrote in Stop Worrying , “and adjust ourselves to it, and forget about it.” Chapter 4, Co-operate with the Inevitable, is one of the most effective prescriptions for stress reduction available.
Recently, I was delighted to see an inimitable – and hilarious – example of “Co-operating with the Inevitable.” I still laugh every time I think about it.
My dad Doug Hedemark is 84 years old. He fathered 10 children and has 28 grandchildren, a growing crowd of great-grandchildren, and a giant clan of in-laws. As a blacksmith, a carpenter, and a stone mason, he is the last of a dying breed of craftsmen.
He is an avid reader and writer, an amateur historian, and a music lover. He has travelled North America and Europe. He served in the US Army and had careers as a teacher, a construction worker, and a blacksmith. He retired from this field at the age of 75, when the enormous draft horse he was shoeing fell asleep leaning against him as he pounded nails into the giant shoe. “I started thinking that maybe I was getting too old for this work, and that I should retire before I get hurt,” he pointed out, logically.
One year, as a tribute to his life-long heroine Saint Joan of Arc, he meticulously designed and created a broadsword based upon every historical detail he could locate on what Joan of Arc’s sword might have looked like. Then he got on a plane, flew to France, and left the broadsword with a note on the altar of the church in St. Joan’s hometown of Domrémy. Our whole family was frantically worried that he would get arrested walking around with a giant, sharp, 6-foot long sword (even if it was secured in a hand-crafted wooden carrying case) or while trespassing in a sacred house of worship.
Instead, he got a “thank you” letter from the parish priest, who wrote to tell him they had built a special display for the sword and it is now hanging in a place of honour in St. Joan’s church.
He has lived a full life, full of both joy and sorrow. He has been privileged to watch all 10 of his children grow up to become accomplished builders, teachers, nurses, writers, and artists.
Although he has managed to avoid doctors most of his life, in the last few years he has dealt with some minor health issues. He lost one of his front teeth, meaning he has to wear an insert if he wants to look his best at family functions. The insert makes his mouth sore, though, so he often takes it out and leaves it next to his plate after dinner. You have to be careful when clearing the table not to accidentally scoop Grampa’s tooth up with the crumpled napkins.
His hearing is almost gone – he wears hearing aids in both ears, and the constant fuss over volume control and dead batteries is one of his major sources of stress. One winter he lost an expensive hearing aid while snow-blowing the driveway. This caused a great deal of consternation, especially for my sister Cathie, who pays for them. When the snow thawed in spring, he was ecstatic to find the hearing aid on the pavement. It was flattened and useless, having been run over by my brother’s truck, but at least he knew where it was. “I thought maybe I left it somewhere. Turns out I’m not forgetful, just clumsy.”
His vision is excellent, though: he reads voluminously, and drives his own pick-up truck. His heart health and blood pressure are that of a much younger person. He is trim and muscular, and has a grip that can make you wince when he shakes hands. He drives into town for “a quick steak dinner” every few weeks; no cholesterol-fearing doctor is ever going to deprive him of that ritual.
Still, he is 84, and as he points out, “My body is just giving out on me.”
Faced with the undeniable realities of physical limitations and the relentless march of time, he decided to do the kind of pre-planning that ONLY he could do.
“When I see how much money funeral homes charge for a plain pine box, it makes me sick,” he explained to me. “I couldn’t stand the idea that after I die, my kids are going to spend $10,000 or $20,000 on a box to bury me. So, I made my own.”
Dad being dad, he wouldn’t just bang together some cheap pine and leave it at that. He built and finished a gleaming, polished coffin with hand-hammered hinges and customized brass handles.
“I put nine handles on it,” he told me proudly, “one for each of my sons. I want them all to carry me out of the church together.” Actually he has only six sons, but he is adamant that his three sons-in-law “are some of the finest men on Earth, and I consider them my sons as much as the ones born in our family.”
This is where the story takes a difficult turn. My brother Jim (with whom he lives) and other siblings were aghast at the sight and sound of our dad building his own coffin in Jim’s garage. I gather he received some blunt and negative feedback about the fact that family had to walk past his coffin on a daily basis.
My dad was surprised and dismayed by this unexpected controversy: “I was just trying to save everybody time, and especially money when I die. I’m not planning to die anytime soon. But eventually, I will – and no one will have to spend $10,000 on a cheap pine box.”
Celebrating Thanksgiving at Jim’s house last fall, I went looking for an empty bathroom. I decided to go upstairs to dad’s little “apartment” and use his bathroom, because he always has by far the best reading material – history, or philosophy, or maybe a wood-working journal.
Before I had time to scan the newest books he had stacked next to the toilet, I sat down. Much to my absolute shock and amusement, I found myself staring straight into…dad’s coffin. It was propped up against the wall directly in front of the toilet, open. Inside, he had situated a little shelving unit upon which was neatly placed his razor, shaving cream, comb, and some Q-tips.
I laughed until I cried. My incorrigible father! Evidently he was philosophical about the idea that our family did not want to look at his coffin in the garage, so he found another place – and an interim use – for his beautiful piece of work.
“As you and I march across the decades of time, we are going to meet a lot of unpleasant situations that are so. They cannot be otherwise. We have our choice. We can either accept them as inevitable and adjust ourselves to them, or we can ruin our lives with rebellion and maybe end up with a nervous breakdown,” Carnegie wrote.
My dad is the first to admit that he still has lots to learn, even at age 84; but when it comes to “co-operating with the inevitable,” I think he should be giving lessons.
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March 23rd, 2012
For the past year, I’ve been writing articles about successful business people for Advantage Magazine and Canadian Builders’ Quarterly. http://advantagemagazine.ca/
When I took on the project, I never would have guessed how much I would love having the privilege of interviewing some of the smartest, hardest-working and most optimistic people in Canada. From New Brunswick to British Columbia, from CEOs and executives of giant corporations to owner-operators of family businesses, they have generously shared with me several lifetimes’ wisdom about the experience of building a successful business in Canada.
Here are some of the best quotes and lessons learned:
Chalk and cheese? Same darn thing
“Our core competency is manufacturing. At Cambria, things like the quality of our raw materials, the precision of our processes, and the cleanliness of our plant are all based on the expertise gained over decades of excellence in food manufacturing. The philosophy is the same.”
–Sara Rooney, District Manager for Cambria Manufacturing, which turned 80 years of experience as one of American’s largest cheese manufacturers into becoming hugely successful in manufacturing engineered quartz countertops.
No man is an island
“Learn to delegate! When you are surrounded by talented people who are experts in their field, you need to share information and trust them to get the job done. When choosing a partner, find someone whose skill sets differ from your own. Partner with someone who is not so much like you, but who complements you.”
–Peter Parkin, President, Shephard Ashmore Insurance, which specializes in insuring musical acts on the road in Canada
“It would be hard to imagine better benefits. I was thinking that while I was at the Pearl Jam concert last week…”
–Peter Parkin
Don’t lose sight of the big picture…
“If you’re a junior analyst just starting out, the worst thing you can do is complete an analysis and hand it off. What you need to do is think about how it’s going to be used, what decisions will be driven by the results of your analysis, and how can it be more broadly applied. Technical competence is a given, table stakes, so you have to go beyond. Truly understand what the relevance is of what you’re doing and how it ties into the bigger strategy of the organization. People lose sight of that all the time.”
–Peter Levitt, Executive Vice President and Treasurer, Manulife Financial
…and the people skills!
“Remember the people side is as important as the technical side. You can have a brilliant analysis, but it will go absolutely nowhere if you can’t sell people on your ideas and get them onside.”
–Peter Levitt, Executive Vice President and Treasurer, Manulife Financial
Plan B and burbling ideas
“I believe that when a company pours a large amount of energy into developing a ‘Plan B’ in case ‘Plan A’ fails, they are almost guaranteeing the failure of Plan A by this very process. You need to know what you want, and commit to putting your energies there.”
–Jim Hjartarson, CEO, OneChip Photonics
“In the beginning, taking risks is essential. As you move forward and identify the product you intend to manufacture and need to find the best manufacturing methods, you want people to be focused on completing that process. At the stage we’re at now, we don’t need new ideas burbling around the place – we need people focused on getting our first products to market. It’s one thing to have a great idea and a great technology, but you’ve got to get the details right.”
–Jim Hjartarson
Be careful of the “yes men”
“This may seem counter-intuitive, but I believe you have to run to what you don’t want to hear FIRST. Otherwise, you surround yourself with people who tell you what you want to hear, which will not be helpful.
John Huss, CEO, Theratechnologies
Design outside the box
“We’ve been hired on other projects because we take such a strong process approach to how healthcare is designed – before any design begins. We ask: What do you do? How do you do it? Take the walls away, if you didn’t have to worry about the existing bricks and mortar, how WOULD you do it?”
–Lynne Wilson-Orr, Principle, Parkin Architects
Importance of the work/beer balance
”Work hard, dream big…then go have a beer. There has to be balance.”
–Jim Agius, Principal, Agius Builders, British Columbia
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March 20th, 2012
I think it’s awesome that newspapers still run “Peanuts” cartoons years after Charles Schultz’ death. He drew so many cartoons in his 50+ year career that they could be re-run for decades; by the time they cycle back around to cartoon #1, I’ll be 93 years old or dead. A whole new generation will be reading them for the first time; and because Schultz’ gentle sense of humour and keen observations on human nature were timeless, I think they’ll always ring true.
Here’s a favourite rerun:
Marcie is seated in her school desk behind Peppermint Patty. “I think the teacher is mad at you for not doing your homework,” she whispers to Patty. “She says she may have to resort to castigation.”
Peppermint Patty slides down in her seat, head resting on the back of her chair, eyes closed as for a brief nap. “They can’t do something to you,” she points out, “if you don’t know what it means.”
She’s exactly right. They can’t do something to you if you don’t know what it means; what’s more and even better, as Dale Carnegie would point out, is that they can’t do something to you if you know what it means, but don’t care.
“Do this, and criticism can’t hurt you,” Carnegie wrote in Stop Worrying. “Most of us take the little jibes and javelins that are hurled at us far too seriously…I discovered years ago that although I couldn’t keep people from criticizing me unjustly, I could do something infinitely more important: I could determine whether I would let the unjust condemnation disturb me.”
He quotes a story by Charles Schwab, who said one of the most important lessons he had ever learned was from a German worker in one of his steel mills. The German got into a heated argument with some of his co-workers, who picked him up and tossed him in the river.
“When he came into my office covered with mud and water, I asked him what he had said to the men who had thrown him into the river, and he replied, ‘I just laughed.’”
Schwab adopted that response as his motto in the face of unjust criticism: “Just laugh.”
“You can answer the man who answers you back,” Carnegie points out, “but what can you say to the man who ‘just laughs’?”
This chapter also contains one of the most insightful Carnegie quotes to be found in any book, three sentences that stopped me cold in my tracks the first time I read them and have affected my thinking enormously ever since:
“I realize now,” Carnegie wrote, “that people are not thinking about you and me or caring what is said about us. They are thinking about themselves – before breakfast, after breakfast, and right on until ten minutes past midnight. They would be a thousand times more concerned about a slight headache of their own than they be about the news of your death or mine.”
A THOUSAND time more concerned about a SLIGHT HEADACHE of their own, than they would be about the news of YOUR DEATH.
Their headache; your death. Not even roughly equal – their headache would be a bigger concern!
Painful as it might be on the ego, it certainly does put things into perspective: even if we are being unjustly criticized, who knows or cares? It looms far more largely to us than it does to anyone else.
So, ‘just laugh.’
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March 13th, 2012
Have you done any screensucking today? Got stuck with any doomdarts? Suffered from gigaguilt?
I’m back in Edward Hallowell’s book “CrazyBusy” and love the set of terms he has invented to describe activities and challenges new to this generation:
Screensucking: Wasting time engaging with any screen – computer, video game, television, Blackberry – longer than necessary, pretending to be doing productive work when in fact, we are just screensucking.
Doomdarts: An obligation you have forgotten which suddenly pops into your consciousness “like a poison dart.” These usually pop into my mind just as I’m dozing off at night but it can happen at any time. We are vulnerable to Doomdarts, Hallowell says, because most of us take on more than we can handle, making it especially difficult to keep track of everything.
Gigaguilt: Computer technology and its gigabytes of memory have directly and indirectly so extended the number of items a person must track that the likelihood of missing something has skyrocketed. This brings with it ceaseless guilt, “Gigaguilt.”
Frazzing: Multi-tasking ineffectively. Multi-tasking is exciting, sometimes necessary, but rarely as efficient or effective as devoting your full attention to one task.
The Spray Effect: What can happen to your attention if you are not careful. “There is so much you must do each day, on top of that so much you could do, that your attention can be splayed and head off in many directions at once, like water sprayed from a garden hose whose nozzle has been set on a wide spray. Instead, it is best to set your nozzle on jet stream,” Hallowell points out.
In “Stop Worrying,” Dale Carnegie devoted an entire section to “Six Ways to Prevent Fatigue and Worry and Keep Your Energy and Spirits High.”
“To prevent fatigue and worry,” Carnegie advises, “Rest often. Rest before you get tired.” I read these words for the first time almost 30 years ago, and I’m embarrassed to say I really only grasped their meaning a few months ago. For two months now, I’ve been going to bed earlier. I dusted off and re-organized my relaxation CDs, so I have something calming to do when I wake up in the night (instead of reading internet media coverage, which definitely works AGAINST getting any sleep at all). A few small steps have transformed my sleep habits and re-engergized my daytime performance.
Between screen-sucking, frazzing, and gigaguilt, today’s generation of workers has a very rough road to traverse, every day. FIGHT for your relaxation time! Put a boundary around it, and stop all e-mails, internet searches and Twitter feeds at that boundary. You will, as Carnegie promised, “Add years to your waking life.”
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March 6th, 2012
We perform a serious “but-ectomy” during the course of a Dale Carnegie project.
Removing the words “but” and “however” from a person’s vocabulary is one of the most difficult things to do that I’ve ever found. It’s quite comical, actually, to watch people try to state an idea with which they know people will disagree and then support their opinion with evidence without somewhere, at least once, using “but” or “however,” if not both several times in a single sentence.
One of our coaches delivers the best sample conversation to demonstrate how using the word “but” completely negates all the positive words that came before it: “I met your wife in the mall today,” he addresses one of the men in the room. “She seems like a really nice lady, bright and engaging and pleasant – but…”
He allows the “but” to hang out there in the air for a couple of seconds; the whole room holds its breath, waiting to hear what kind of slam could possibly follow the “but.” (There is no slam – he just cuts it off at “but” for effect.)
I met your wife in the mall today. She seems like a really nice lady, bright and engaging and pleasant – BUT…
But what? Is she fat, ugly, rude, stupid, what? That tiny three-letter “but” blots out everything nice that was just said, and immediately has the listener putting his guard up, ready to argue with the words they expect to come after the “but.” Or “however.” Or, “that being said…”
“Many people begin their criticism with sincere praise followed by the word ‘but’ and ending with a critical statement,” Dale Carnegie wrote in Win Friends. “For example, in trying to change a child’s careless attitude toward studies, we might say, ‘We’re really proud of you Johnnie, for raising your grades this term. But if you had worked harder on your algebra, the results would have been better.’
“In this case Johnnie might feel encouraged until he heard the word ‘but.’ He might then question the sincerity of the original praise. To him the praise seemed only to be a contrived lead-in to a critical inference of failure. Credibility would be strained, and we probably would not achieve our objective of changing Johnnie’s attitude toward his studies.
“This could be easily overcome by changing the word ‘but’ to ‘and.’ ‘We’re really proud of you Johnnie, for raising your grades this term, and by continuing the same conscientious efforts next term, you algebra grade can be up with the others.”
Principle #23, Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly, is much easier to apply once you’ve done a “but-ectomy” and changed every possible “but” or “however” to “and.”
Listen to the difference: “I met your wife in the mall today. She seems like a really nice lady, bright and engaging and pleasant, and…”
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March 2nd, 2012
“Are you too busy? Are you always running behind? Is your calendar loaded with more than you can possibly accomplish? Is it driving you crazy? You’re not alone.”
These words are the gist of a terrific book I recommend to all my classes. “CrazyBusy,” by Edward M. Hallowell, has done the best job I’ve seen in pinpointing and proposing solutions to the insane working conditions to which humans are now subjected.
Hallowell, who has worked with children suffering Attention Deficit Disorder since 1981, believes that our entire society is suffering from culturally-induced Attention Deficit Disorder.
“Without intending for it to happen, we’ve plunged ourselves into a mad rush of activity, expecting our brains to keep track of more than they comfortably or effectively can…CrazyBusy is not just a by-product of high-speed, globalized modern life. It has become its defining feature – Blackberries, cell phones, and e-mail 24/7; longer workdays, escalating demands, and higher expectations at home. It all adds up to a state of constant frenzy that is sapping us of creativity, humanity, mental well-being, and the ability to focus on what truly matters.”
Too true!
In my classes, I hear a constant refrain from men and women who are being buried under what Hallowell refers to as “the gush, the rush and the blather” of endless information with no time to think or process. Bosses email employees at home at 10pm; employees check their Blackberries on the way to the bathroom at 5am. It’s crazy. It’s not productive. And it’s killing people.
Hallowell does a terrific job of outlining the downside of losing one’s ability to focus and concentrate. He also describes why being CrazyBusy is so addictive (it’s fun and makes us feel important, mostly) and offers numerous tools to combat the problem.
I suggest to my classes that they get back to setting boundaries: boundaries between work and home, boundaries around the time they need to actually think, boundaries around the space in which they need to work, boundaries between what they believe they need to get done and what others want them to do.
Those of us over 40 are lucky. We remember a time when business was conducted with such boundaries in place. Younger people, who have come of age in business post-email and post-Blackberry, don’t even remember the golden age way back when employees we expected to be available 8 or 9 hours five days per week, not 24/7.
Now I believe it is not only acceptable to set limits on what we’ll do and when; I believe it is incumbent upon us to do so. If we don’t take control of our own time, we have no prayer of being efficient, effective or productive. It is seductive to submit to the gush, the rush and the blather: it’s interesting and it makes us temporarily very popular with the folks making demands. But all too often at the end of the day, we’ve likely accomplished very little of what we set out to do.
Dale Carnegie identified these phenomena half a century ago in Stop Worrying, when he pointed out that that the first listed cause of functional neuroses was “the sense of must or obligation; the unending stretch of things ahead that simply have to be done.”
He quotes Charles Evans Hughes who said, “’Men do not die of overwork. They die from dissipation and worry.’ Yes, from dissipation of their energies – and worry because they never seem to get their work done.”
Fast forward to today: get a copy of CrazyBusy by Edward M. Hallowell. Just one more item to add to your “To Do” list…
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February 28th, 2012
For the past year, I’ve been writing articles about successful business people for Advantage Magazine and Canadian Builders’ Quarterly. http://advantagemagazine.ca/
When I took on the project, I never would have guessed how much I would love having the privilege of interviewing some of the smartest, hardest-working and most optimistic people in Canada. From New Brunswick to British Columbia, from CEOs and executives of giant corporations to owner-operators of family businesses, they have generously shared with me several lifetimes’ wisdom about the experience of building a successful business in Canada.
Here are some of the best quotes and lessons learned in 2011:
Location, location, and location
“We are more than just cars: every rental company has cars. They are all new, and they are all clean. WE know Prince Edward Island.”
–Ken Lawrence, President of Discount Car and Truck Rentals PEI, on why local expertise makes the difference
“Find something that you love to do and which is fun for you. The fun will make up for the long days and the tough times.”
–Ken Lawrence, on being prepared for long work days.
Quality, price…and also location
“The first time anyone builds anything, they are almost completely fixated on the bottom line. The second time around, they have realized the importance of quality. We like to work with clients who have gotten their first job behind them; then, we are all more focused on doing the best job possible, with no shortcuts. It makes clients so happy when people come in later and congratulate them on a beautiful job.”
–Larry Gullison, Al Gullison Restoration, New Brunswick
“People still build houses where they shouldn’t build houses.”
–Larry Gullison on cleaning up after the annual floods in New Brunswick.
New concept: a location you might actually want to visit
“About 15 years ago, we were asked to design our first retirement building. At the time, retirement homes had a very negative connotation: they were not places anybody wanted to go, or to which anyone would want to deliver a family member….most were cramped, institutional style buildings. We set out to make them places you’d WANT to go. We designed them like fine hotels with spacious two-storey lobbies with luxurious dining rooms and spacious amenity areas. We believe residents and visiting family members should enjoy their time in the building.”
–Shawn Lawrence, Architect, Ottawa
Women in business
“When I took over Beck Taxi after my father’s death in 1985, the other brokerage owners circled like vultures. My own uncle said he would have to leave because he didn’t want to be part of a ‘sinking ship’.
—Gail Beck-Souter, GM, Beck Taxi – the only woman at the top of the industry, running Toronto’s largest taxicab brokerage
“The politicians say they support riders, not drivers. Well, six million riders called us last year. No one is more interested in serving them than us.”
–Gail Beck-Souter on political hypocrisy
She’s a negotiator, not a fighter
“At law school, most of my peers were ‘fighters;’ they were interested in more adversarial situations. At that time, I didn’t want to spend my time fighting; I had no plans to go to court, hence I chose to master in notarial law. Today I have evolved in being a fighter in a different way.”
–Josiane-Melanie Langlois, VP Legal Affairs, TransForce, which has averaged one new corporate acquisition per month for over a decade
And of course, the last word goes to Dale:
“Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you are in business …I realized that as sorely as these adults needed training in effective speaking, they needed still more training in the fine art of getting along with people in everyday business and social contacts.”
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Tags: Advice from the smartest Canadian business people – Part One, Advice from the smartest Canadian business people – Part One by Rita Smith, Rita Smith
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February 24th, 2012
One dark, cold Ottawa morning I awoke to the sound of a horrifying, blood-curdling scream.
Disturbing as it was to be awoken by such screaming, it was infinitely more distressing to realize that the sounds were coming from my own throat – I had literally woken up screaming.
I struggled to consciousness. Aw, geez, I’d had that dream again: I was wandering lost in a dark, menacing alleyway populated by empty-eyed zombies. Mostly they ignored me, but occasionally one would turn to stare straight at me and an electric, primeval fear would paralyze my mind and body. No wonder I woke up screaming.
That morning my brilliant friend Hugh Macphie called me on business. “How are you?” he asked, as more of a pleasantry than a quest for information.
“It’s been a hard week,” I sighed. “The anti-drug file is really starting to affect my spirit. Tuesday I woke up with a nightmare; Wednesday I woke up crying. This morning, I woke up screaming.” I gave a little laugh, as if to signal that this was no big deal.
Hugh was having none of my nonchalance.
“I don’t like this!” he interrupted my chatter anxiously. “I don’t like this AT ALL!!! This is not the Rita Smith I know. You have to promise me RIGHT NOW that you will do something about this. RIGHT NOW.”
The way he leapt on my comments and refused to take “no” for an answer was like having someone throw a bucket of cold water in my face. Suddenly, I saw reality the way he was seeing it.
“OhMyGod, you’re right!” I gasped. “I am losing it!”
We finished our call and I acted immediately, as promised. I located the phone number for Health Canada’s Employee Assistance Program and called from my Blackberry.
“Hello, my name is Rita Smith, and I need to talk to someone about the stress of my job.”
“Rita, we will be happy to help you,” the operator answered cheerfully. “What is your department code?”
“I have no idea,” I replied. “I didn’t even know we had a code.”
“Are you with the Public Health Agency? Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety? Physical Activity and Nutrition?”
“I am with the Minister’s Office,” I suggested. “Just put “MO.”
“I don’t have a code for ‘MO ,’” the cheerful operator explained. “I can’t process your request without a Department Code.”
“Well then, look it up,” I replied curtly. “We must have a code.”
“No, I’m sorry, I have the whole list of department codes here and there is no code for ‘Minister’s Office.’”
Exhausted and irritable, I felt my blood pressure rising.
“You know,” I snapped into the phone, “It’s situations like this one that REALLY STRESS ME OUT.”
Fortunately one of our administrative assistants happened to walk past my door.
“Collette!” I called. “Talk to this woman and please figure out what she wants. When you two have it sorted out, come back and let me know.” I handed her my blackberry.
Shocked by my unusually blunt tone, Collette grabbed the blackberry and scurried away. A few minutes later she returned with my blackberry and a page of notes.
“It’s all worked out,” Collette explained proudly. “Call this number and someone will return your call within the hour to find a councillor in a location convenient to you.”
As fate would have it, I was assigned a talented, outstanding councillor named Joanna Nolan. For several Fridays, I would leave work at 3:30 and race to my appointment with Joanna.
I clung to the idea of those appointments all week – for one hour, I would get to talk to someone warm and kind and full of such wisdom as I had never encountered in a human being. Joanna Nolan is something of a miracle.
“Rita, you can’t do everything, even though I know you would like to,” she pointed out repeatedly. “What can you do to add some balance to your life? What are you doing for YOU?” Joanna was shocked when she learned I had a daily check-in call with my depressed brother.
“You talk to a depressed person EVERY DAY?” she asked urgently. “Who do YOU talk to? You are at risk of depression yourself.”
Every week Joanna wrote out a page of homework for me: “Buy something small for yourself.” “Go to church.” “Visit with friends.” After the crisis passed, our visits became only occasional, and when I moved back to Toronto, not at all.
Until the next round of high-stress events hit – and I discovered, happily, that we could continue our professional relationship over the phone.
Last winter I was working on a giant, demanding contract. My son, a Captain in Canada’s infantry, was home in Toronto to take a gruelling training course. He and I were involved in a horrible spin-out accident on an ice-covered 401; the same weekend, he and his fiancée had an awful, dramatic, late-night argument.
“Rita,” Joanna pointed out logically. “You are a MILITARY family. You will endure stresses only military families endure. The Department of Defence has a dozen programs designed just for families like yours. Have you checked into any of them? Have you attended any workshops? Are you learning from other military families what to expect?”
“Oh My God, you are right!” I gasped. Once again, Joanna’s patience and penetrating insight rescued me from myself. I headed straight out to the Toronto Military Family Resource Centre, to get advice and assistance in dealing with the unique stressors on a military family.
“Many years ago, a neighbour rang my doorbell one evening and urged me and my family to be vaccinated against smallpox. He was only one of thousands of volunteers who were ringing doorbells all over New York City,” Dale Carnegie wrote in Stop Worrying. “More than two thousand doctors and nurses worked feverishly day and night, vaccinating crowds. The cause of all this excitement? Eight people in New York City had smallpox – and two had died. Two deaths out of a population of almost eight million.
“Now, I had lived in New York for many, many years; and no one had ever yet rung my doorbell to warn me against the emotional sickness of worry – an illness that, during the same period, had caused ten thousand times more damage than smallpox.
“No doorbell ringer had ever warned me that one person out of ten now living in these United States will have a nervous breakdown – induced in the vast majority of cases by worry and emotional conflicts. So I am writing this chapter to ring your doorbell and warn you…
“Those who do not know how to fight worry, die young.”
Carnegie instinctively knew in 1948 what everyone needs desperately to know in 2012: you have to FIGHT worry, and fight for your mental health – using every tool at your disposal. His book, “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” is the biggest cannon in my arsenal, and I use every other tool at my disposal too.
May I encourage you to do the same?
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