David Woodle
-Businessman
An individual was walking down the street and saw a gentleman in front of him complaining and chipping away on some stones. He walked up and said, "Hi, what are you doing?" The gentleman grumbled, "What's it look like? I'm building a stone wall." As he walked away, the individual thought to himself, "Boy, he must hate his job." He continued down the street and saw a second gentleman chipping stones. So he thought he would give it another try. And he said, "Hi, what are you doing?" This gentleman looked at him and said, "Well, I'm building a cathedral."
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The first gentleman saw only the small task in front of him, but the second was thinking strategically and understood that he was an important part of a larger master plan. And this is what I hope each of you will do. Take a key role in your organization, think strategically, understand how you fit into the overall master plan, and work hard to help the organizational team achieve its long-term goals.
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I am reminded here of a story of a company that was facing significant challenges and undergoing a lot of changes. As a result, a number of its employees lost touch with reality. The company sent the employees to a support facility to go through some therapy. To determine how effective the therapy sessions were in improving the ability of employees to get in touch with reality, the therapists conducted a simple test. They asked each employee the question: "What is 3X7?" The first employee answered: "3X7 is 485." Oh my, not in touch with reality here! The response of the second employee tested was "3X7 is Wednesday." Oh my goodness, we're getting worse. When the third employee was asked "'What's 3x7?", his answer was "21." Well, the therapists were very happy with themselves, believing that they had really helped this particular employee…that is, until someone said, "We ought to ask him how we helped him to get that right answer." So they queried him, and he said: "It was a simple question to answer. I just divided 485 by Wednesday." Well, you see one person's reality is not always another's, and I think it is important that, as professionals on an organizational team, you are all working toward a common goal, that you take responsibility for the empowerment given to you, and that you make sure you take that responsibility seriously.
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And acting responsively, from an individual point of view, means prioritizing…making sure that you are tackling the high priority tasks first. In a seminar I once attended, a consultant addressing "effective time management" made a powerful point by pulling out a glass and putting about 5 or 6 large-sized rocks in it, asking the audience the question, "Is this glass full?" About half the people in our audience raised their hands, saying yes. He said, "No, it's not," and poured some gravel inside the glass. Again he asked the audience if the glass was full. This time, however, no one wanted to raise his hand. So, he poured some sand into the glass and asked, "Now is it full?" Again, no takers. Finally, he poured water into the glass until it went right to the brim. At that point he did say, "Yes, the glass is full." But when someone from the audience asked, "What is the moral of that story?", the consultant replied "It's simple. Put the big rocks in first." I think that is an excellent illustration of prioritization. Make sure you tackle the big items first, because if you fill up with all those small tasks that aren't quite as critical, you won't have time-or room--to tackle the big ones.
Read the full commencement address »
Penn State University
University Park, PA
May 11, 2001
Sent in by: admin
Posted on: 01.02.2006