Remember your first job?

Mine was in a Pizza restaurant. One of my tasks was to wipe down the stainless steel oven doors and keep them gleaming because they were in customer view. The manager told me how he wanted it done, how to mix the cleaning solution and how to clean the doors. After a few days of doing this, I found that I could cut down on the amount of cleaning liquid with an increase of elbow grease and still accomplish the results he wanted: gleaming oven doors with no visible streaks – and I could save the store some money as well. I was excited! The next day he saw me doing it my way, came up to me and said, “I thought I told you how I wanted you to clean these doors.” I replied, “Yes, but I thought . . .” he cut me off and said, “I’m not paying you to think, I’m paying you to do what I tell you to do!”

Many times our jobs don’t require us to think in order to do them. Sometimes, our jobs require us NOT to think in order to do them.

It is my experience that people know more about their jobs than their jobs require of them. They know more than what they do. In getting people to do more of what they know, leaders need to recognize that the people in their organizations are more than what their jobs have permitted them to become.

You’ve no doubt heard that “people know what to do but they don’t always do what they know.” The primary reason why they don’t always do what they know is because they don’t always know that they know. People tend to devalue their knowledge and think that they either don’t know enough to do well or that what they do know isn’t good enough to do well.

Michelangelo was once asked how he was able to transform a cold, inanimate block of stone into a beautiful angel with the appearance of warmth and life. He replied, “I don’t see the block of stone; I see the angel inside and keep chipping away until it is released.”

When you look at others, what do you see? When you look at yourself, what do you see? For what you see in yourself will determine what you’ll look for in others. It’s true that we see the world not as it is, but as we are. Do you see what’s on the outside only – or do you look for what’s on the inside, too? Do you see someone who is more than what they have become – or someone who has become all that they will ever be? Do you see a “captive angel” inside waiting to be released by a simple kindness? Or do you see a person so cold and hard that it’s difficult to imagine any warmth or life within?

A third grade teacher wanted to impress upon her class that each student could become anything they wanted to be. She had the janitor take a picture of her and the entire class. She gathered her pupils around the photograph and said, “imagine that you’re looking at this picture twenty years from now.” She pointed to a boy in the picture and said, “there’s Jimmy – he’s a doctor now; and there’s Suzy – she’s a judge; and, look over here, it’s Johnny – he’s a celebrated association executive.” Johnny piped up and said, “and look, there’s teacher – she’s dead.” Perhaps the lesson was lost on little Johnny that day.

There are several tools you can use to release the angel within, to get people to do what they know: two of them are thinking and language.

Meander, a 4th century BC Greek philosopher, said that the basis of civilization was, “Know Thyself,” and that this meant “. . . to get acquainted with what you know and what you can do.” When you spend time thinking, you afford yourself the opportunity to get acquainted with what you know and what you can do.

To spend time thinking seems like a luxury most of us can’t afford. The emphasis at work is on action and how to do more with less. Getting people to do what they know involves creating an environment that emphasizes not just action, but thought. Andrew Holmes, brother to Oliver Wendell Holmes, said: “Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both.” You can’t just talk about it, but must actively encourage a thinking environment that leads to meaningful and thoughtful action.

How can you do that? You can do this by paying people to think about their jobs, not just to do their jobs. I call it T2 = “Think Time.” Each employee spends a block of twenty to thirty minutes every week or month alone in a room “just” thinking. This session can be either guided or unguided. A guided session is one where the topic is assigned, like a particular problem the organization or department is dealing with at the time; an unguided session is one where individuals think about whatever they want regarding their future contribution to the organization. In both instances, there is a capture sheet that each person is required to complete and turn in to a Continuous Improvement Team for review.

When people think, great things happen: they begin to realize the depth and breadth of their knowledge and start making connections between what they know and better ways of performing their jobs and living their lives. They begin to see more clearly the angels within themselves and others. This kind of thinking creates a synergy that is uncommon in most organizations.

A well-known definition of “Synergy” is “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts;” and this definition is often illustrated by the equation, “1 + 1 = 3.” Synergy, from this understanding, can only happen as an outcome of the interaction between two or more people. This is true, but not the whole truth about synergy. I’ve found that there’s tremendous power in what I call, “the synergy of the solitary soul:” a single soul getting in touch with more of itself in thought.

When you adopt this approach you’ll find the truth of Emerson’s statement that "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

Another tool you have available is language. Words have power to create a reality in the heads and hearts of those to whom we speak.

Have you ever had a child ask you to do something for them? And when they ask you to do something for them, when do they want it done? Right now. And how many of you have put them off with words like, “not now,” “I’m too busy,” “later,” “in a while.” I have to raise my hand the highest because when my children were little, I’d put them off with a single word, “tomorrow.”

I didn’t realize how frequently I was saying this to them until one day when we were standing in a checkout lane in a grocery store. Let me ask you, what’s there in every checkout lane in every grocery store in this country? Candy. And where is it located? That’s right! Down there – where they can see it, grab it, unwrap it and consume it even before they’ve asked for it!

Standing in front of us that day was a woman with her young son sitting in the cart and he was making a scene, demanding some chewing gum. Finally, to quiet the youngster down, the clerk produced a stick of gum and handed it to the child. His mother said, “And what do you say?” The boy turned to the clerk and said, “charge it!”

Now it was our turn. I usually didn’t get my children anything from the checkout lane but on that day, for some reason, I consented to do so. I can’t remember what I got my son, Jeremiah, but I do remember what I got for my daughter, Rachel: a package of my favorite candy – lifesavers. In the car on the way home, Rachel was unwrapping the lifesavers when the air inside the car filled with the sweet aroma of my childhood. I began to salivate. I couldn’t help myself. I also couldn’t help the next words that drooled out of my mouth. I said, “Rachel, may I have a lifesaver?” And she said: “tomorrow.”

It was at that moment I realized that with a single word, spoken over time, I had created a reality in the heads and hearts of my children that said this to them: “daddy will be our daddy and do daddy things with us – tomorrow.” I also realized that if I was ever going to be a father to my children in the ways they needed, I needed to be one today, for tomorrow never comes.

The words you use create a reality in the heads and hearts of those to whom you speak. What reality are you creating in your workplace? In your home? Is it the reality you want to create? It is possible to release the angels with your words, if that’s what you want to do.

Now that you know better what to do to get people to do what they know, what are you going to do now? In times past, I found “tomorrow” a convenient excuse for not doing what I knew I needed to do today.

“He’d be all a human could be – tomorrow No one would be fairer or kinder than she – tomorrow Each day he’s stack up the letters he was going to write – tomorrow Each day she’d think of the friends she’d fill with delight – tomorrow But the fact is they died and faded from view And all that was left when living was through Was the mountain of things they intended to do – tomorrow.”

Get people to do what they know today and tomorrow you can take a day off!

Ken Wallace, M. Div., CSL has been in the organizational development field since 1973. He is a seasoned consultant, speaker and executive coach with extensive business experience in multiple industries who provides practical organizational direction and support for business leaders. A professional member of the National Speakers Association since 1989, he is also a member of the International Federation for Professional Speaking and holds the Certified Seminar Leader (CSL) professional designation awarded by the American Seminar Leaders Association.

Ken is one of only eight certified Business Systems Coaches worldwide for General Motors.

His topics include ethics, leadership, change, communication & his unique Optimal Process Design® program.

Tel:(800)235-5690 Claim your free eBook, "How to Do Better Than Your Best in Anything You Do" by visiting the Better Than Your Best website.

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