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"As a general rule, the most successful man/woman in life is the one who has the best information." - Benjamin Diraeli - "Keep your head up and you can see what's coming!" my dad often said to me as I was growing up. I'm not sure that I understood the full ramifications of that simple thought back then or maybe not even now. I'm quite sure that in attempting to convey to you his meaning and how it applies to Life, I will come up short however, here goes! Knowing him I am sure that he did not mean that if you saw something coming which you did not like you could run from it. It is my memory that he was not the type to run from anything. I think at the root of what he was trying to teach me was that if I saw what was coming I could be aware, not beware. If I was aware I could marshal my forces to address the situation, what ever it may be. "Do not cow tail" he would say, "look it straight in the eye". I think that somewhere about now he would also throw in "Keep your chin up" and "Watch Out!". Boy did he use "watch out" a lot to drive the thought home. How often, when things go wrong have we used such terms as "Boy did that sneak up on me" or "I didn't see that one coming!". Other such terms as sandbagged, ambushed, waylaid or blindsided which are all are synonyms of surprised. I guess the one which finally got the message across was the one he used when confronting me after I had done something stupid and he wanted to be sure that he had my full attention. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" More often when that occurred, and I did look at him, looked straight into his eyes, what I saw was not anger but disappointment. You see I had not lived up to his expectations. Keeping in mind that I am attempting to convey life lessons in this rambling .... How often have you approached the Front Desk of a lodging establishment, be it a hotel, motel, or timeshare resort, and found the Clerk with their head down doing busy work. Did you feel welcome, did you get the feeling that they were glad you came? When they finally realized that you were there, did the look on their face indicate "you had better have a good reason for disturbing me"? When the Clerk finally acknowledged you with a look, and you said: "I would like to check-in please." did they ask that all important question "Do you have a reservation?". When I was a Front Desk Clerk I must have remembered what Pop had said. Even when required to do busy work I kept my head up and maintained an alert eye on the front door. I anticipated someone walking into the lobby and attempted to make immediate eye contact. When I follow up with a smile and a greeting such as: "Good Morning or Good Afternoon, welcome to the Pick, how may I be of service to you today?" they knew they had my full attention, that I was eager and prepared to serve them, and would most likely exceeded their expectations. Richard Rankin was the Assistant Manager at the Pick Congress Hotel in Chicago where I began my career in the early 60s and he became my first mentor. Among the first counsel he gave me was what he called reality lessons. Some times these lessons were hard, some times they were fun, and always they were meaningful. For me these reality lessons would always remind me of some of the things my dad attempted to teach me. "Radiate compentence" Dick would say "No one wants to place their affairs in the hands of someone who looks like they don't know what they are doing." Dick always looked the part of his position and conducted himself in a professional manner. He was always able to solve all our problems and our guests issues because he commanded respect. We and our guests knew that these things were in good hands and that effective outcomes would occur. "Relish the opportunities to learn" he was fond of saying "and realize that education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know." He taught me the hard lesson that the world did not owe me a living. That my rewards would be equal to the effort I put in and even the most successful of individuals fail more often than they succeed. Being a big fan of the Chicago White Sox he would point out that their best player only batted .333 which meant that they failed to get a hit most of the time. Roaming around the expansive lobby of the Pick and all of it's other public space was one of his favorite things. Dick would get me by my arm and off we'd would go. He would point out little things which were not as they should be. A match stick there, a chair slightly moved from its intended space, a lamp shade with the connecting strip not in the exact back, a guest who looked in need of something, a picture just off center. "Remember take care of the little things and the big ones will take care of themselves" he would say. Years later while reading Tom Peters book In Search of Excellence, I realized that Dick's roaming around with me in tow in the 60s was the same thing as the MBWA principal which Mr. Peters expounded (Management by Wandering Around). Final thoughts Over time those jewels of wisdom from my Pop and the council from my early mentor Dick Rankin began to set a pattern for my life's conduct. Opportunities came and their life lessons made me better prepared to face them head on. I have always tried my best to look after the small things and believe me, that's no small thing. A life lesson well learned was when you get caught with your head down it's some small thing that usually trips you up. I have always relished the opportunity to learn and if I have learned anything it is that life's lessons continue to occur every day and that the hard ones are to be prized and savored. That all of life's lessons can be applied to our work, our occupation, our profession in small ways like eye contact and in reaching those decisions of magnitude. I would like to think that if Pop and Dick had the opportunity to look down to determine how their life lessons had affected mine, Dick's eyes would have that special Irish twinkle and Pop's would be full of pride because both once told me: "Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.", and so far I have. |
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