The story is told that on the first day of practice, John Wooden, legendary basketball coach at the University of California at Los Angeles, had all players take off their shoes and socks and put them on again while he and the coaching staff watched. If any player failed to put the sock heel on his own heel or to properly tighten and tie the laces, that player had to do once more.. And, it is said, he even had players drop off the team rather than conform to what they considered trivial and/or demeaning.
But Coach Wooden's point was simple: The Devil really is in the details.
Remembering to carry the tray one hand under is a detail, but one which can avert the disaster of a spilled or broken load, just as a poorly mounted sock can wear a blister or a poorly tied shoe can lead to a stumble at a critical moment.
I am not enamored of details. My handwriting is sufficient proof to those forced to live through it, and it has taken me years to learn what my father seemed to know from his gut. Now he also knew that it meant that he couldn't try to achieve as many things. Of course, when you work 60+ hours/week in the back of a bakery, it limits what other achievements you can expect. So he tried to do each of the tasks systematically and to learn and apply the basics well.
Almost every Sunday morning before church he would be doing his "book work," that is, bringing the accounts for home and the shop up to date, paying bills, and trying to keep things running. By doing it in those early morning hours when no one else was around, he could concentrate on the details and be sure of the accuracy of the outcome.
Life is always a compromise. And while I have not been as good as he was at paying attention to the details, my life benefits from those times when I pull back, ask what I really need to achieve, and then putting in the detailed work it takes to bring about a transformation.
There are many things I would like to learn and to do, but my father's example tells me that unless I can put in the ante of careful participation, I really need to think about whether playing that particular game is worth it.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Daddism #2:Carry it one hand under!
At church a couple of weeks ago my wife and I were preparing for the noon coffee hour. Two women were setting up for a celebration in conjunction with the event and they had bought a full iced sheet cake. (Boy, would Dad be surprised at how much those cost now!)
I cringed as I watched it carried the thirty feet from the kitchen to the serving table. She had one hand under each end of the cake's cardboard tray and was walking across the room in confidence.
That was the context in which I recall Dad's saying: "Put one hand under!" The reason: the cardboard can (and occasionally does) buckle, thereby destroying the cake. In college I took a free course from the student in table waiting from the head of food service at the Boston Hilton, and we were also taught similar methods for securely transporting trays of food and of tableware between kitchen and table.
Every profession has its tricks of the trade. Minor but important rules (how do the uses of a ball peen hammer differ from a roofer's hammer, and what makes a hammer right for a given job?) that make all the difference in productivity.
But so does life itself.
Relationships are more important and more difficult than carrying cakes, but unless you can find the special ways in each relationship that support it, you will find it will break and lose its value.
Of course, most of the rules we learn unconsciously growing up. Dad was very introverted and Mom was the opposite. Thus, we three sons had a suite of choices for how to interact and even how to modulate for context; I feel sorry sometimes for children raised by one parent, because they do not have the same conflict/synergy of relational notions that come about with two parents. I can barely imagine what it must be like to have other adult family members in the home as well!
Fortunately, though, Dad was an experimenter, too. So I learned that the rules could change, be created, and even be destroyed. [Am I the only one left who knows how to check multiplication problems by casting out nines?]
And, my all to frequent mistakes in life and work have given me plenty of opportunity to change, create, and destroy rules of life and work. I have learned that a screw-up should be rare, so it is always worth the time to figure out how to avoid it in the future.
So, while you are considering New Year's resolutions, here's a suggestion: Create at least one new rule for life and work in the coming month (and feel free to tell me and others about it through the comments).
And don't forget to keep a supportive hand under all life's fragile things.
I cringed as I watched it carried the thirty feet from the kitchen to the serving table. She had one hand under each end of the cake's cardboard tray and was walking across the room in confidence.
That was the context in which I recall Dad's saying: "Put one hand under!" The reason: the cardboard can (and occasionally does) buckle, thereby destroying the cake. In college I took a free course from the student in table waiting from the head of food service at the Boston Hilton, and we were also taught similar methods for securely transporting trays of food and of tableware between kitchen and table.
Every profession has its tricks of the trade. Minor but important rules (how do the uses of a ball peen hammer differ from a roofer's hammer, and what makes a hammer right for a given job?) that make all the difference in productivity.
But so does life itself.
Relationships are more important and more difficult than carrying cakes, but unless you can find the special ways in each relationship that support it, you will find it will break and lose its value.
Of course, most of the rules we learn unconsciously growing up. Dad was very introverted and Mom was the opposite. Thus, we three sons had a suite of choices for how to interact and even how to modulate for context; I feel sorry sometimes for children raised by one parent, because they do not have the same conflict/synergy of relational notions that come about with two parents. I can barely imagine what it must be like to have other adult family members in the home as well!
Fortunately, though, Dad was an experimenter, too. So I learned that the rules could change, be created, and even be destroyed. [Am I the only one left who knows how to check multiplication problems by casting out nines?]
And, my all to frequent mistakes in life and work have given me plenty of opportunity to change, create, and destroy rules of life and work. I have learned that a screw-up should be rare, so it is always worth the time to figure out how to avoid it in the future.
So, while you are considering New Year's resolutions, here's a suggestion: Create at least one new rule for life and work in the coming month (and feel free to tell me and others about it through the comments).
And don't forget to keep a supportive hand under all life's fragile things.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Daddism #1: If You Haven’t Got Time to Do It Right, When Do You Have Time to Do It Over? Part II
Dad used to leave the house early, usually before 5 a.m., to begin the morning baking. He came home for lunch and took a nap, and then he went back to work until 6 p.m. when he locked up the shop for the night. And the shop was open six days a week. His staff was small (usually about three people with Mom pitching in on Saturdays). Time was important to him because baked goods are best fresh.
In all the hours I spent in the bake shop, I never saw Dad mess up a baking and have to toss it. He was careful, he was regular, he ran a clean shop and he expected the same from others.
Needless to say, it seemed oppressive to his growing boys. High expectations can bring high frustrations. Indeed, during his high school years my younger brother got expert at doing just enough to get by.
But it seems surprising that all three of us realized the message when we became adults. As someone chronically short on time, Dad had effectively modeled that knowing and achieving the goal on the first attempt isn't the only smart way to work: nothing else may work at all.
But it is a remarkably hard objective to achieve. Because it is often hard to know what is right. Running my own business, I understand how hard it was for Dad to do it for twenty years, even as retail bakers were disappearing everywhere in America. It is relatively easy to get the donuts right: use the right ingredients, measure carefully (including the dough mix and the temperature of the fryer), and know when the donut is properlyy cooked. But it is a whole lot harder to know how many donuts to make on this day and which donuts will sell. Each evening Dad would end his day with the 10:20 p.m. WKY-TV weather report, knowing that rain, snow, or hot weather would cut the demand for baked goods. Often Mom would have to wake him so he could watch before turning in for the evening. But it was his fundamental daily planning tool.
Dad was an introvert, so he deliberately decided to get more connected. He joined the Rotary Club (his dad was a Kiwanian) and took the Dale Carnegie Public Speaking course to increase his skills. A few years later he became President of the Oklahoma Retail Bakery Association, a position that led several years on to his being selected as bakery manager at Motorola Corporation. Motorola?!! Yes. At that time Motorola had over 19,000 employees at five Phoenix area plants, and they ran a three-shift cafeteria and a two-shift bakery. One year his staff turned out over 1200 pies for the annual Thanksgiving dinner.
"Doing it right" he taught us is not just about doing the routine work correctly. It is also about planning right and preparing for what is needed in the future. If you have a 60-hour workweek, why else would you ever think of enrolling for a night class?
Life is not something you get a do-over on. If you can’t do it right the first time . . . ?
In all the hours I spent in the bake shop, I never saw Dad mess up a baking and have to toss it. He was careful, he was regular, he ran a clean shop and he expected the same from others.
Needless to say, it seemed oppressive to his growing boys. High expectations can bring high frustrations. Indeed, during his high school years my younger brother got expert at doing just enough to get by.
But it seems surprising that all three of us realized the message when we became adults. As someone chronically short on time, Dad had effectively modeled that knowing and achieving the goal on the first attempt isn't the only smart way to work: nothing else may work at all.
But it is a remarkably hard objective to achieve. Because it is often hard to know what is right. Running my own business, I understand how hard it was for Dad to do it for twenty years, even as retail bakers were disappearing everywhere in America. It is relatively easy to get the donuts right: use the right ingredients, measure carefully (including the dough mix and the temperature of the fryer), and know when the donut is properlyy cooked. But it is a whole lot harder to know how many donuts to make on this day and which donuts will sell. Each evening Dad would end his day with the 10:20 p.m. WKY-TV weather report, knowing that rain, snow, or hot weather would cut the demand for baked goods. Often Mom would have to wake him so he could watch before turning in for the evening. But it was his fundamental daily planning tool.
Dad was an introvert, so he deliberately decided to get more connected. He joined the Rotary Club (his dad was a Kiwanian) and took the Dale Carnegie Public Speaking course to increase his skills. A few years later he became President of the Oklahoma Retail Bakery Association, a position that led several years on to his being selected as bakery manager at Motorola Corporation. Motorola?!! Yes. At that time Motorola had over 19,000 employees at five Phoenix area plants, and they ran a three-shift cafeteria and a two-shift bakery. One year his staff turned out over 1200 pies for the annual Thanksgiving dinner.
"Doing it right" he taught us is not just about doing the routine work correctly. It is also about planning right and preparing for what is needed in the future. If you have a 60-hour workweek, why else would you ever think of enrolling for a night class?
Life is not something you get a do-over on. If you can’t do it right the first time . . . ?
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