Respect for People

To move forward in life you have to find mentors to teach you. They often don’t even know they have taught you about life. It is not a formal job title. You find mentors everywhere.

Two men who mentored me were both named Robbie Robinson, many years apart. Both men helped a much younger man grow despite my being white.

Mawthorne “Robbie” Robinson trained me as a material handler, a summer replacement worker of 19. Be on time, be organized, work hard, and help your coworkers be productive. Eastman Kodak paid well, his son was also a summer replacement and decided to stay. He celebrated my going back to college, and wished his son did. His words and example helped me persist when I struggled to graduate college, and when work was hard.

Robbie Robertson was the husband of our engineering secretary. He carried himself well in any situation at work and in public, and always took care of people. Robbie was use to fame, a retired negro league baseball player. Being married to a white woman had to expose them both to some awkward situations, but you never knew it around them. Learned from Robbie both working with people and gracefully handling the inevitable aches and pains of aging. Useful now in my 60s.

In trying times, respect people with different views than our own. Mentors are family members, people you know, commentators, humorists, religious leaders, and writers who challenge our thinking. Find more mentors today for your tomorrows.

“If you never venture beyond what you know... You’ve spawned your own limitations.” - Sumner Redstone

Mentoring Teaching How to Think

Most of us will take a new job, and we depend on people to teach us. They become our mentors. Then comes the day we have to teach the newbie. We are their mentors.

So how do you train someone well? First remember some failures of other people to orient you before. Hours, breaks, bathrooms, and general rules of the office are helpful along with introducing coworkers.

The story of a new hire on a manual zinc die cast machine comes to mind. He just had to pull the lever to close the door, then push the lever open to get the part. New guy works through break, then thru lunch. Finally his manager asks him how he is doing? Sweating profusely the new guys says, “How do you stop this machine?” When told just don’t close the door. He picks up his things and walks out the door quitting on the spot. Training failure.

You need to show someone more than what steps to do. You need to teach them how to think. The steps are okay if everything goes right. What do you do if something is wrong? Mentors must teach how to think. How to handle unsatisfied customers. Who to call for problems. Safety rules and processes. Warning signs looking out for potential problems.

Here is a list of mentoring steps by a curmudgeon:

·   Read the draft manual & procedures.

·   Complete my required training.

·   Giddily using a red pencil to redline the hell out of my engineering drawings.

·   Go leave the comfort of our cubicle area to go to the labs and to walk the production line.

·   Forced me to talk with the mechanics and technicians.

·   No clue what to say, so he would politely say something in just the right way for me to rephrase it and ask it myself.

·   Stories shared from his 30+ years with the company on mistakes made & how they were fixed, successes achieved.

·   Important things to remember when running this test or that analysis.

·   Knowing how the organization works and who the key players are.

·   Why it's important to understand things from our customer's perspective.

·   The significance of integration & handoffs between engineering groups and our products.

·   Appreciation of the precision and detail required to generate computer equivalent engineering drawings by hand.

This woman’s career was been forever shaped by the time and effort this man put into her to learn about the craft of engineering.

Mentors are not done unless the trainee also has life skills to go do the job.  The soft skills of working with people have to be taught everyone. 

Especially the transition from schooling to working. Working with 2 interns they thought there would be no issue sitting down and talking with the CEO. My question was don’t you think he has other responsibilities to be working on? Most CEOs are the chief salesperson making decisions daily, that affect many employees. Part of our job is to protect their time so the CEO can focus. However if you have great ideas and necessary information, you need to bring it to the CEO.

Here are some soft skills were taught by my mentors:

·   Encouraged become a problem solver, to take initiative, and to meet deadlines.

·   Stressed 'problem solving'.

·   That things will go wrong, and to focus on prevention as well as recovery.

·   Asking good questions.

·   Help me develop perspective, and to take logical risks.

·   Humility - serious about my work and not so serious about myself. Life is easier.

·   Speak up and overcome my shyness.

·   Engineering should also be interesting and fun (and not to lose that)

Successful in my career and life because many people took their time to teach me life lessons, work skills, computer programs, problem solving, handling people on bad days, and maintain perspective in crisis’s. Am eternally grateful, and passing my learning on.

Who mentored you? Honor them by teaching others.

Secret to a Good Life

CBS News closing story Wednesday was about Florida State University’s Travis Rudolph visiting a school with his teammates. Instead of joining a busy table he saw a young boy by himself and sat with him. They had a wonderful talk, and Bo’s mom shared the story of him sitting with her autistic son.

Travis Rudolph is a good young man with a kind heart. He also knows the secret to a good life. This will follow him throughout his life, his time in football, his parenting, and his career. He demonstrated it with a simple act of kindness.

Get out of your own worries and needs. It is not about you. Help someone else.

Travis did not like bullying and made sure to sit with someone who needed him. Asked about the story by a reporter, Travis stated what great kid Bo was and offered his cell number to Bo’s mom if she wanted it.

Today every kid wanted to sit with Bo at lunch.

This is the second story today heard where you don’t know who you are influencing today. A 23-year-old airman headed home for his father’s wedding. He got stuck with his step mom’s 12-year-old nephew. The last thing a 23 year old wanted to do for a day. He took the boy to the air base, show him around airplanes, and talked about setting goals and working toward them.

5 years later received a videotape of the boy graduating as valedictorian, talking about achieving goals and becoming a pilot.

6 years after that he has graduated the Naval Academy and is a pilot.

Now the picture I saw today wish I could share, but it is not mine. After 17 more years the pilot is commanding officer of the Blue Angels, and he is standing in front of a blue & gold Hornet with the former airman’s two sons (the youngest is 12). You have never seen a happier, prouder smile on anyone than the Lt Ryan Bernacchi returning the favor of influencing the next generation.

Never underestimate the effect of doing the right thing, talking with someone, doing something nice, or just doing your job right. You never know who is watching and learning from you. You may never know the effect, it probably won’t be in the news, but your life will be wonderful.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fsu-player-travis-rudolph-sits-with-sixth-grade-boy-with-autism-eating-lunch-alone/

In Honor of Veterans

Woke up this morning thinking of my late Uncle John and the calm character this Korean Veteran had with his little sister’s kids. He kept living with mom in his house, even after marrying the love of his life. He grew two good kids of his own, was a leader in the state insurance department, affected by trench foot & circulation issues in his feet. Uncle John was a beacon of calm in a family that often did not have it.

My late great uncle Bob who I barely remember was a Green Beret.

Uncle Bill married into the family was a Navy man in the Pacific for WW2. He lived to 88, outlived 2 wives, and refused to buy Japanese cars or products. Just enjoyed spending time with him when visiting my family in Florida.

My first job was with several veterans of the Seabee’s (We Build. We Fight) WW2 vets Charlie, Phil, Stan, and many others in the large office of 100. Their kindness with fresh out of college kids, working hard, telling jokes, and occasionally singing the Seabee’s anthem for no reason at all. They are part of the reason I never feared growing old.

At another company worked with Stan who was a German prisoner of WW2. Mistreated, tortured and starved. Stan came back and his military doctor told him not to hold it in. So instead Stan told everyone the truth and even shared it with school presentations. He always had a smile and truly enjoy life, family and work.

At my age have a lot of Vietnam veteran co-workers and friends over the years. Remember the stories Tom told being an aircraft mechanic. His friends being tunnel rats or taking small boats up the river to bring the fight. Tom was most proud of his kids.

Thinking about the men and women vets have worked with it is not their discipline that stands out. Not their contributions to work. It is the humanity, caring, charity, faith and their confidence if something went wrong, they had been through worse, and had faith all would thrive.

The greatness of this country came from ordinary people who were willing to do the extraordinary, and then come home to raise families, work hard, and enjoy life. They are also the reason I mentor others and believe things will always get better.