Category Archives: Purpose and Service

Posts relating to the Third Resolution: “To overcome the restraining forces of unbridled aspiration and ambition, I resolve to dedicate my talents and resources to noble purposes and to provide service to others.”

Are you just a By-Line?

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Is your LinkedIn ‘blurb’ the whole extent of your existence? Is your quirky, deeply-considered and often trademarked tagline the result of deep introspection, or just a marketing tool for making you special? I’ll be blunt – I suspect for many it is the latter. It has a genuine purpose, and you’ve put a lot of thought into it. But the motivation may not be ‘right’.

We are not a job title, quirky or otherwise. We are far more than any professional trademark can ever describe with any accuracy. What is more, what we are we are all The time, whereas the registered trademark (is it really, or have you just popped an ® by it?) is, at best, nothing more than who we are at work.

We are whole human beings, and our senses of being, purpose and relating should be reflected in a set of self-defined guidelines that, if we are to be seen as having true integrity, must be executed with consistency.

That is why I wrote The Way – Integrity on Purpose. It is a deep-diving guide to identifying, defining, designing and executing on a personal credo that is about as comprehensive as I could make it. It is a book that provides counsel on self-analysis to the point at which you – yes YOU, not me or anyone else – decides what your are for in your personal, interpersonal and professional lives to the point at which you are congruent in the way you ‘are’ at all times, instead of different people in different situations.

It is also the route I took to deciding to write and (try to) live by the contents of my magnum opus The Three Resolutions. It is also the foundation to my ability to roll with the several punches I have suffered over the years in terms of cancer, professional challenges and occasional failures.

To be frank, and some psychologists would agree, material and counsel of this type is what can turn someone from feeling ‘meaningless’ to ‘purposeful’ – and we know the devastation that can occur when that gap isn’t addressed, don’t we.

If you have any sense of self-doubt – any at all – then reading this book will, I firmly believe, at least point you towards a bespoke solution for rediscovering a sense of purpose and inner peace.

It’s not about having a registered trademark to hide behind. It’s about having a set of standards to which you hold yourself, all the time and everywhere.

Go and explore the index. See if there’s something there for you – or for someone you care about.

Don’t just be a By-Line. Seek a “Be Line.”

You’ve Fallen – What Now?

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“You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down.” Mary Pickford

Every now and then, even the best have a poor day. An actor fluffs a line, a singer misses a note, Tiger Woods misses a road. These days of woke, a slip of the tongue causes offence and you are the one in the wrong, undermining hundreds of years of basic law about intent being the important element of a crime, not the ‘feelings’ of the other party. People are losing jobs because of momentary lapses of judgment that have nothing to do with their actual job performance – and often because the ‘offendee’ has an agenda (newspaper sales, TV ratings, they want your job, etc.), and not because they were genuinely offended.

And you’re cast down. Do you stay there?

It’s entirely up to you.

Here’s some advice for those who fall. Get up and start again from the First Resolution. Re-establish the disciplines that made you the success you were until only moments ago. Address the mistake by deciding either to never repeat it or to stand by it. Depending on your perspective and the nature of the event – you decide. If you were guilty, in part or in full, accept your tort and never do it again. If you weren’t, be steadfast and step away from the situation before it worsens.

Then look at the Second Resolution: revisit your sense of character, a massive element of which is Integrity. What does your conscience say about your ‘offence’? Was it wrong – if so, decide never to do it again. If not, conclude others were in the wrong and move forward. Examine your professional competencies: which ones weren’t what they could have been – if personalities were involved, what did you miss? Who did you fail to judge accurately? What nagging doubts (‘yellow alerts’) did you ignore? What action did you fear to take? It is rarely your professional competency that fails – it is almost always relationship-related – people, in other words.

Finally, consider the Third Resolution: can you still follow through on your sense of purpose, even if it is in a different way? Who can you serve, instead? What skills do you have that haven’t been compromised or lessened by your fall, that can be put to good, or even better use?

This* happens. But only death can really stop you doing something meaningful with your life. Anything else is a temporary distraction if you decide that to be so. The world is full of recovery stories – write your own if you need to. Use the philosophies available through the many books on purpose, discipline, and so on. Discover an alternative route to the end that what you lost was intended to provide.  

Apply The Three Resolutions.

Get Better. BE Better.

Starting the moment you get over what happened.

*An anagram

Vietnam and The Three Resolutions

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For the past 8 days I have been dutifully watching a PBS documentary series on the Vietnam War, covering the 1961-1973 American involvement in what had hitherto been a French problem. And the overarching message that I have received has been – if they’d just applied the Second and Third Resolutions, maybe the lives of 282,000 US/South Vietnamese and other allies’ service personnel, 444,000 North Vietnamese/Viet Cong soldiers, and  627,000 civilians, would have been saved. Not all, I suspect – if North Vietnam had simply been handed control there would no doubt have been the kind of casualties usually associated with a communist takeover.*

Why would the Second Resolution have saved them? Character.

You see, the recurring message of the testimony and evidence produced showed (a) how often the US authorities admitted, in secret, that they were fighting a losing battle from when Kennedy was still alive and (b) that the self-interest of Presidential re-election was the focus of some of their decision-making. They even produced evidence that Nixon sabotaged peace talks as a way of supporting his efforts to replace Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 elections. How many of his citizens dies because of self-interest – because of a lack of character?

Which also brings up the Third Resolution. The other factors that killed countless people was unbridled ambition on the part of the leaders of both sides. The North could argue that they wanted to unite their country under one flag, albeit a communist one. The American evidence was clearly that, rather than acknowledge a huge error and step back from it with careful consideration as to how, they just threw people at it to avoid having to admit to a mistake – even someone else’s! Just to maintain power 6,000 miles away.

When I saw how many soldiers died taking ‘strategically important’ hills, only for the victors – survivors – to leave them once they got to the top, I was grateful that my children never volunteered to join the Forces, and simultaneously even more respectful of those who do.

I have always been willing to acknowledge and apologise for my mistakes. Even when my efforts have been rebuffed, and lies told about my errors, my disappointment has been more about another’s unwillingness to accept my apology out of self-interest, than it has been about the negative personal consequences.

Saying sorry often takes courage. It means acknowledging imperfection, it means risking a reputation – it means being vulnerable. Acknowledgement of a genuine effort to apologise is the least one can ask for.

But as Vietnam shows, stubborn insistence on ‘being right’ when patently ‘doing wrong’ in an effort to hide being even more wrongis dangerous to everyone involved.

Particularly for those who didn’t realise they were being misused by the players in the game.

Tell the truth. Live the truth, Acknowledge the truth.

Whatever happens.

*Turns out there weren’t any massacres. Just big re-education camps. Honest.

Handforth and the Third Resolution

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As I write this blog, the Handforth Council Planning Committee video is viral, the major press has got wind of it, and it has apparently chosen sides. Having been party to many a committee meeting myself, I thought I’d explore the concept from a Third Resolution (service) perspective. The question so obviously arising from this amusing event is – why do people choose to serve?

The most attractive and most frequently given answer will be ‘I want to serve the association, public, country, community’ (delete as applicable). For many, that is true. I know I wanted to serve my own Institute when I volunteered. Which was not necessarily my only motive, and therein lay the crunch.

In my opinion, when volunteering there is also the ego-driven desire to be/do something of importance. Don’t judge – there is an element of ‘What’s In It For Me’ in everything we do. That is a psychological truth. If there was nothing at all in it for you – what possible reason would you have for doing it? My evidence? ‘I want to be a nurse’ is a worthy vocational ambition, but years later ‘emptying Gladys’ colostomy bag’ loses its edge. You still do it because it serves your greater vision, but you’d be equally happy if you didn’t have to. We want the good stuff of the service we provide, and we endure the bad. Which is why there is no such job as ‘colostomy bag emptier’. No-one wants it. But they will do it as part of work they do want. You wanted the overall job, and to serve. You do the bad because it serves something else that IS in it for you.

The problems arise when instead of serving in order to get ‘something’, you start to serve with a view to making that service – serve you. Instead of giving to the cause, you start to demand that the cause gives to you – not just emotional contentment and a sense of purpose (which is why you started), but everything. The cause/organisation you serve now belongs to you, and you demand to direct it.

When I watched the Handforth video I found myself asking questions the press seemed to have ignored. Why was this ‘volunteer’ running the Zoom meeting and deciding who was in charge? Was she there because she wanted to serve – or because she didn’t like what she (or someone else) was hearing and wanted to stop it despite really having no business doing so? Watching the earlier part of the meeting suggests at least some internal politics at play.

If someone turned up in your meeting and declared she was running it because a third party ‘asked her’, what would your response be? If s/he rejigged the agreed agenda, added bits in and threw the Chair out because he wasn’t content to allow the hijack – would you go, ‘Fine, no problem’? And what if it was clear that half the attendees seemed to be either in on the hijack or willing to endorse it? (Which, if that was the case, would explain the anger displayed by the Chair/Vice-Chair particularly if it was happening ‘again’ and they’d had enough of it. Half a story is not a whole story.)

The Third Resolution is intended to counter the Restraining Force (possibly) demonstrated in Handforth. (And I emphasise – none of us knows the whole story, so that’s a big ‘possible’.)

That RF is UNBRIDLED Aspiration and Ambition. Note the importance of the adjective ‘Unbridled’ – aspiration and ambition in an individual is laudable until it becomes self-serving, and serves the individual at the very expense of the body being served. My observation of the meeting – which is admittedly subjective and may be misinformed – was that someone appeared to be interfering in someone else’s game, as modest and (in fairness) emotionally cool as she appears in the video, and perhaps shouldn’t have. I have done some research and have some questions but – not here. 🙂

So was she there to serve? And if so, serve whom? Only the parties involved know the whole truth. But if I wanted to serve the local authority I’d seek election or employment. And I’d only do it because I wanted to serve, even if I wanted to progress and serve from the top. Ambition good, unbridled ambition, bad.

 In the interests of balance, I might do a blog on emotionally-controlled addressing of interference and trespassers…….

Seven Habits Review: Day 0. Introduction.

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

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I have written before about how many people confuse The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People with being a business book. It isn’t, never was. What it is, is a book about living effectively as an individual and as part of any relationship. It is not about fame or success, per se, but about living a principled life, which in turn can lead to those things – if they are what you want. But let’s be frank – most of us don’t want them or don’t see them as important as being a good person doing good work for the people they care about, while enjoying life – which this book promotes in spades.

I recall once attending a meeting of personal development teachers preparing to deliver the Seven Habits material to schools with the overall aim of teaching ‘leadership’, and I opined that what we would be teaching was  self-leadership, and this was even more important because while everyone has the potential to be ‘a success’ and a ‘boss’ the vast majority of young people would be the staff, the workers, the led – and they should be trained to be the best they could be at those things, too. Leaders – self-leaders – make great followers.

The Seven Habits are (and I quote) A principle-centred, character-based, inside-out approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness.

Let’s break that down a bit.

Principle-Centred. We like to think we can control events, but while we can control what we do, principles (sciences, incontrovertible truths, systems) decide the results. I’ll get deeper into that in future articles but for now I’ll explain that it means that instead of letting fame, wealth, family, church, peers, friends, pleasure, friends, enemies or work dictate how we think and behave, we let principles lead our decisions and resulting actions.

Character-Based. Our personality is what we show other people deliberately, but our character is what we really are. Personality tends to make us follow fashions and popular thought and ‘the latest thing’ so that we can fit in and benefit from that fitting in. Character, on the other hand, requires sacrifice, work and effort. But it lasts well beyond fashion, fame and money.

Inside-Out Approach. There is a tendency for folks to wait for their external world to change so that it suits them, instead of either changing it for the better themselves by changing their approach towards the changes needed. In 2020 we see protest after protest of people demanding other people change to suit their agenda – then they go home and wait for it to happen instead of engaging those in power in an effort to persuade and influence the change they want. The Inside-Out Approach is about looking into yourself and deciding what you need to change in yourself and how you need to change your approach, in order to achieve what you seek. Waiting for ‘them’ to change is ineffective.

Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness. Effectiveness is not ‘just ‘success. Effectiveness is getting the results you want in such a way as to get them consistently – not once, but as long as they are needed. And it is not just about ‘you’ – it’s about effectiveness with and through other people, too. I have often said ‘Everything we do, we do with, for or because of other people – everything.’ So relationships are important enough to pursue with diligence. Including those we have with ourselves.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, then, are about taking responsibility for making things happen for the benefit of all those you love or serve, including yourself, while acting with good character and respecting the realities of the world.

Over the next 17 days (long story*) I intend to expand upon Stephen Covey’s work with a view to encouraging any reader to take up their own study of The Seven Habits so that they can benefit, as I have, from a better self-understanding and an improved recognition of what is going on around them, how they can respond to the challenges of the modern world – and do so without offending or being offended.

A word of warning, though – as you understand the lessons Covey taught you will start to recognise how many people are trying to tell you how to live. Covey’s main lesson is that you have that choice and it need not be imposed upon you. Reading the book will make you aware of how the world is trying to condition you – not necessarily out of malice but out of a desire to make you agree with ‘them’. After reading it, you may still agree with ‘them’. But it will be a conscious rather than popular agreement.

In the end, a major tenet of this book is this.

You can live your life or your life can be lived for you.

I hope you enjoy the work to follow.

 

(* Michael Heppell, personal development coach, has proposed a 17 day project for his Facebook Group and this is mine. That wasn’t as long a story as I thought.)

What the 7 Habits Did For Me.

01 Monday Jun 2020

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I came to the Seven Habits later than I’d have liked, but since they weren’t published until 1989 and I was already 37 years old that’s not really surprising. I discovered the book in 1995 after I’d read Stephen Covey’s time management epic First Things First and realised that I enjoyed his writing style and presentation as much as I did the content.

In retrospect the book changed me in many positive ways, ways I wish to put on record and ways that I would encourage others to explore, if not adopt. I won’t look at the Habits themselves, as that would lengthen this article too much. I’ll just focus on their effect.

In reading The Seven Habits (and Covey’s other works):

  • I discovered that people allow themselves to be influenced, even created by their surroundings, and that I could decide that my surroundings would not affect me. We are all Pavlov’s Dogs, if we allow that to happen.
  • I discovered that the best way to achieve anything is to put myself forward rather than rely on things to happen in a way that suits me.
  • I realised that now and then it is better to just say nothing rather than express an opinion that will upset someone else, especially when there was no perceivable positive outcome to such expression.
  • I discovered that what was being presented to me by others is frequently coloured, flowered with opinion rather than objectivity, and designed to tell me what they want me to think, rather than what is actually unbiased and true. It made me question everything rather than just accept. Professionally, it made me a better investigator.
  • I noticed just how much time and effort is wasted on ‘things done the way they’ve always been done’ and without proper, considered thought. It made me challenge demands on my time – some I won, some I lost, but all taught me new ways to approach people whose demands challenged me.
  • I stopped challenging processes until I truly understood their objective, thus recognising what worked and what didn’t, so that I could influence effective change.
  • I started to think about my future and started developing and executing a plan that made my desired outcomes come into being.
  • I found that reading the book, with its considered prose, well-argued observations and incredible wisdom, made me more intelligent. It made me want to seek more knowledge, higher-level qualifications and challenging opportunities.
  • I decided that I wanted to teach this to others, and so I sought out the experiences, training and opportunities to do so. I even funded its availability in my local comprehensive.
  • I recognised that I have made many, many mistakes, but that they do not define me.
  • And many mooooorrrreeeee.

In conclusion, reading that book arguably made me a more productive employee, parent, husband and trainer. Yes, I still make mistakes but it is usually despite my knowledge rather than because of it. The principles apply – it’s my failure to apply the principles (on occasion) that influenced my personal errors. And given Covey’s confession that even he had trouble with them, I can live with it.

The book has sold 40 million copies, has just been re-issued as a 30th anniversary edition, and still surprises me with my recognition of bits of information that tweak my knowledge of the material and how it applies to my life.

I really, emphatically and enthusiastically recommend it. If nothing else, reading it led to some truly impactive self-discovery and personal growth. The hardback costs less than 10 pints and has a longer-term effect.

Or you can choose beer. Make the better choice.

This isn’t worki…… WOW!

07 Tuesday Apr 2020

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I had an experience this morning. I can’t say I haven’t had one like it before but it was the first for a wee while.

Jack Canfield wrote a book about 15 years ago called The Success Principles. It is good. This year he (finally!) brought out a workbook as a parallel. I like workbooks, they make me think. The trouble is that over the years I find them hard to complete because I’ve had the same thoughts over and over again.

There was a set of exercises about finding your Life Purpose. Done it before. One question was ‘define your Joy’. Ick. It was to finish the sentence “I feel joy when ……….” I don’t do joy. I define joy as being almost ecstasy, which means 5 minutes after the miracle of birth I’m all “What’s next?”

Then a few more exercises and finally one I’ve actually done before but ….. well, “Meh!” anyway, in the interests of science I went ahead, anyway. The questions were pretty much ‘Describe 2 characteristics you possess’, ‘Name 2 things you like to do’ and ‘What would your perfect world be like?’

Now, I cannot for the life of me recall what happened in terms of the order of thinking, but I came up with “I use my integrity, intellect and productivity to create, master and promote an inspiring philosophy so that all can live congruent, organised and purposeful lives.”

Pretentious? Moi?

I know I cheated – 3 words instead of 2 – but I realised as I drafted, edited and finalised it that (apart from the mastery part!) I am wholly focused on doing exactly that. Now, you may not be reading this (at all) and thinking, “Yeah, that’s Dave,” but that is what Dave does and that is what Dave aspires to.

It’s not a goal statement. That’s the next bit. But now everything I do and all the goals I seek will reflect more accurately, and more consistently, that Purpose. I’ve written four books, two specifically on my philosophy and productivity, and I have two more on the go. I teach people Advanced Driving and enjoy the requirement that I master it myself. And above all, in a sense, I aspire to mastering myself, too. There is a need for discipline, character, competence and service implied within that sentence, too. Three Resolutions compliant, so it is.

And the best thing of all is – and don’t take this personally – that whether or not people read, accept and implement the counsel that I advocate is not important. Their interest is outside my control. What is within my control is whether my daily activities reflect that sentence. Anything else is a bonus.

The AHA! that came with the realisation that this reflected what I was already doing, allied to having finally been able to put it into as short a sentence as that, boggled my mind. It may not boggle yours, but is there a similar sentence that accurately reflects your purpose and personal aspiration to live by some personal philosophy that you know makes perfect sense but you aren’t quite up to speed in terms of congruent performance?

Go on, I DOUBLE dare you.

Purpose

New job title – what’s that about?

31 Tuesday Mar 2020

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You may not care 😊, or you may be intrigued about the new the job title I’ve used on my profile  – Mission Controller.

What is a Mission Controller? In NASA terminology it is a person sat in Mission Control at Cape Canaveral who sits at a computer screen monitoring information, interpreting its meaning and transmitting the data and conclusions up the chain of command to whoever needs it, including the astronauts themselves, if necessary. What a Mission Controller does not do is decide what the Mission is. Nor does the Mission Controller (necessarily) tell the operative what to do. That is for the operative themselves to decide. The Operator takes the given information and, using training, experience and set protocols, does whatever is needed to continue the Mission.

That is the perspective I have used when choosing my new ‘title’. As Mission Controller I will not:

  • Tell people what their Mission should be.
  • Tell them how to carry it out (unless a set, principled protocol already exists).

Those two elements are strictly within a client’s remit.

We tend, to varying degrees, to have a way of life dictated for us by others.  Everything we do, we do for, because of or with other people. That’s the interdependent reality. But how we deal with that is usually systematic rather than self-directed. Society demands that we deal with people in a certain fashion, but how we deal with ourselves should be entirely our own principled choice. We should decide as much as we can, for ourselves, what we are for.

My new purpose as Mission Controller will be to help people identify their sense of personal mission. It is to help them discover and commit to a vision that they will discover and design for themselves,  after which my purpose will be to provide advice and the occasional protocol for them to complete their mission. Unfortunately, geography and logistical difficulties will mean that I will not be able to monitor their commitment to your mission. That will be entirely down to their own self-discipline.

The mission they select, should they wish to complete it*, will have two specific elements – firstly, what they want to achieve (the Vision), and secondly, how they are going to achieve it (the Practices). I will not set out either of them for people.

I will provide advice on finding out what their mission is, learning how to achieve it, how to teach others about it (if they wish) and the potential pitfalls that may cause them to lose their way.

And once we have finished, success will be entirely down to them.

Good luck

An easy way to Leave a Legacy.

16 Monday Mar 2020

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First of all a quick correction. Last week I implied that Ernest Hemingway was the source of a quote leading me to write that I’m not all used up yet, so I refuse to die. It was in fact George Bernard Shaw’s quote I was vandalising. Doh!

He said, “This is the true joy in life, being recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake; Life is no brief candle to me, it is a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up for a moment. I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

That seems to be a great mantra for life, particularly now as the better of us watch as the lesser of us hoard toilet rolls, pasta and hand-sanitiser – the latter reflecting an unwillingness to routinely wash hands, if my experience of seeing empty sanitiser shelves by full soap shelves is anything to go by.

Life is one chance to leave a lasting legacy. For some it need only mean raising healthy, good children so as to pass on the family line. For others it means making sure they are remembered for doing something memorable and lasting – which can be done with good or bad intent. Some of us will never know what we did that lasted in the memory.

There is an old tenet that suggests that we all remember a teacher that meant something to us in terms of how they made us better. And for most of us who had such a teacher we never got to tell them.

I was lucky. A couple of months ago a new school was opened and elder statesmen from the old buildings assembled, along with ex-pupils. Sat in front of me was the maths teacher and deputy Head who took me, with his teaching method, from a 50% maths examinee to an A grade at O Level (the old GCSEs). I can’t even remember specifically what else he did or said – I know there was something that made me change my attitude slightly but it was really subtle. But at the end of the proceedings that night I was able to tell him, “You know everyone had that one teacher -well, you were mine.”

He had no idea who I was, but that’s the beauty of teaching – so many unremembered souls that can be affected by what you do.

Anyway, here’s today’s suggestion. You may not be a teacher in the formal sense, but everything you do is seen by someone. Everything you say is heard.

So say good things and do good things and be a good example.

Someone is watching. Including your kids.

Put the extra ten packs of toilet rolls back on the shelf.

Leadership, schmeadership.

10 Tuesday Mar 2020

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In 2013 I was honoured to be approached – I was going to say headhunted but perhaps that’s a bit self-indulgent – to provide a service to schools via a homelessness charity whereby I would train teenagers in (essentially) the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. It was a Win-Win-Win for trainers, the charity and the schools involved and it was through them I enjoyed teaching a hall of 106 13-year-olds in one go.

I no longer fear crowds.

Anyhow, despite the headhuntedness, there was a selection process in which prospective trainers would give a lesson (tick), be interviewed (tick) and socialise with other people (tick). But the source of this article was the result of a round-table exercise the applicants underwent, where we discussed how we would focus on teaching the children leadership. So me being em, I took a tangential view.

I said (and I paraphrase) “It’s laudable that we teach children how to lead themselves and other people, but what about the less able kids who may never be in charge of anything? Why don’t we also teach them how to be great followers?”

I got the gig.

Leadership has become a buzzword for hierarchical management. One LinkedIn correspondent said it all when he described how administration became management became ‘leadership’ – all while teaching exactly the same ‘stuff’. It was only a slight exaggeration. Today I read about ‘leadership in a remote environment’ as an opportunistic (?) take on the magic word, but it essentially meant ‘how do we manage the production of what we produce, remotely?’ Management.

But there are books on another, related subject – Followership. They are rare and, oddly, can be very expensive.

But that’s missing a trick because once you strip away the layers of leadership, everyone else is a Follower to varying degrees. And that subject doesn’t get the level of attention it deserves.

In my training of the 106 kids from a relatively poor area of Wales, some of them expressed what ‘we professionals’ might mis-interpret as a lack of ambition. They wanted to be mechanics, taxi-drivers, and the like. Albeit their ambisions may change up a gear as they aged, instead of planting in them some long-distant dream, I just said this.

“Whatever you want to be and do, just be or do the best that you can while you’re doing it. Work hard for your bosses and enjoy what you do.” Followership, in a nutshell.

Of course, when new employees are trained they are often given the pep talk and the warning chat. I think it would be better if they were educated about what they were doing in the context of those they served, with imagination used to identify stakeholders outside the organisation as well as within. We’ve all heard the story about the bricklayer ‘building the cathedral’, but how often is that translated into the average workplace?

Incidentally, why is the Labour Party having a dig at the expression ‘low-skilled worker’? What is wrong with having a low level of skill if what you are doing has a noble purpose and provides value to others beyond your activity? A streetsweeper is ‘low-skilled’ but imagine if he wasn’t there doing his best for us? A low-skilled care worker changing your Nan’s bed – valuable and noble work. Noble service does not necessarily require high pay. And high-paid people are not necessarily providing noble service.

It’s about time we showed as much appreciation those who follow rather than just those who lead – because without followers, what would the leaders actually be for?

 

For more on the subject of Followership, I write about that very subject in my book, The Three Resolutions, available at Amazon now.

Book Cover Front