Why I Gave Away My Gold. Two years ago a young girl in her twenties walked into my office for an interview to become our new receptionist. She got the job. On her first day I walked her to my desk, just like I do for all our new employees, and told her, This leather chair and wide desk belong to you if you can earn them. I normally say these things in faith that God can make anyone the boss, even a receptionist. But humanly speaking, I couldnt see how this young girl, barely out of college, could rise from her receptionist desk to the executive directors table. The months that followed surprised all of us. My team kept mentioning this girls name. She was hard working. She came to work early and left late. She wanted to learn everything. When I mentioned things like cash-flow projections etc, in our staff meetings, she wanted to know what it meant and if she could use her lunch time to learn how to do it. I wasnt going to say NO to a receptionist who wanted to waste her lunch time learning boring things. Little did I know that I was training my replacement. Two months ago we decided to move to Africa, and this girl received the gold-colored key to my private office as the new boss of our USA office. It was one of those moments where you weigh someones age and their work ethic and decide, I will reward work ethic before age. We all have our reasons why we think we should be promoted or given privileges. I am older than him, we reason. I have been here longer than she has been, we complain. This executive team needs a minority member, we lecture. I am more educated. And the list goes on. Then when a hardworking, respectful, caring, positive attitude person gets promoted, we feel cheated. But should we? The Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes 9:10 that Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. Would you agree or disagree that a person who puts in everything theyve got will eventually be found and rewarded? If not by their boss, at least by their own sense of accomplishment? In my 21 years of working with teams, I have rarely seen a hard working person who was not rewarded in one way or another. If this person consistently gets passed over, for all the bad reasons people get passed over, a new company comes around. Do you know people who dont put in everything? Do you know people who treat their job like an accessory? Do you know some entitlement seekers? Do they make you want to demote them instead of promote them? I have some bad news: someone else might be saying the same thing about you. What if we put 100% into everything our hands find to do? How would our life, our careers, our communities be changed? Happy putting in everything youve got! Amon
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 03:00:44 +0000
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