Herman: John L. Herman Jr., Author

Who Did That?

Remember when you were a kid and you rolled out of bed and headed downstairs for a pancake breakfast. You didn’t think twice about the fact that food was sitting on the table and you just grabbed some and ate it. How did that food get there?

Sure, Mom made the food…but how did it get in your house in the first place. We learn early in life to take things for granted. We don’t question how television works. We just expect the picture to show up and the sound to blare out as soon as we hit the clicker. But how does it happen? We almost never think about it…until the cable is out and then we just think about how angry we are at the blasted cable company.

Clean shirts show up in your closet or dresser when the last time you saw it you were tossing it in the hamper. At work so many parts of your job are done by others or what you do wouldn’t matter. Imagine showing up and no one else is there. Could you still accomplish your task, and do the parts that everyone else does?

OK, you get the premise. We all seem to work together to make our lives be what they are. You do something and I do something and someone else does something else and before you know it things get done just the way they are supposed to. I think the droning song on one of my Granddaughters favorite show…Dora the Explorer is, “What’s it going to take, TEAMWORK.”

If we are going to change the attitude of our times from “Whoa is me” to “Ain’t we got fun” then we have to do our individual part and count on someone else to do their individual part. Watching a special on Franklin Roosevelt the other night I realized how difficult it must have been to lead the country out of the Depression. People had no jobs, no food and in many cases they were living in small huts or even tents. The New Deal was put into effect and as time passed and people found work and the country started building an infrastructure so commerce could blossom, the Depression disappeared and Prosperity took its place. TEAMWORK.

For the next hundred days I am not going negative. Not that I won’t be realistic and mention negative things. I will continue being honest. But I will expect more of myself to solve the problem and turn the negative around…or I will rely on someone else to do their job and help make things better. In other words I will rely on TEAMWORK.

• Posted: 21 May 2008
• Comments: 0
• Category: Business success

Comments