I Can Only Guide, You Must do the Learning

We all go though different cycles or seasons in our lives.

I have often reflected on the oddity of history repeating itself.

An event happens… good or bad, and we explore to see what caused it. What were the markers? What did we miss? How could it have been avoided? And finally what did we learn from it? Only a few rare times has something happened that we seem to have actually learned from it.

The atom bomb dropping only happened twice ending world war two. Since then, it has never been used again. Mutually Assured Destruction certainly plays a part, but there are many hot spots that some could argue could use a good wake up call, and yet leaders seemed to have learned the lesson about using the bomb… that the awfuliness of it out weights the usefulness of it. It would not surprise me though that we will return someday to leaders who do not remember or value this lesson.

That day may indeed be closer than we expect if one of the current jihad groups ever where able to get a hold of such a weapon. Bush might have been wrong, but it’s probably just a matter of timing.

The financial circles on wall street don’t seem to learn… after the great depression strict laws were put into place to keep people from having conflicted motives… but many of those laws were eventually eased or repealed, and in the 80’s and 90’s the regulatory atmosphere became very diluted with banks selling stock and brokers offering credit, and even the development of mortgaged backed securities, which while maybe not a bad idea to start, was eventually what lead to the crash of 2007, 2008. All in a effort to generate fee’s, while not generating value.

Before I moved out west I painted my grandparents house. It was very nice of them to pay me to do that and it have me a couple hundred bucks to hold me over until I found work in my new place. One day I was painting the patio behind the garage where it was all screened in and many summer days where spent there reading the paper, or the current book of interest. As I was working in there one day my grandfather came out to chat and we spoke about things I have never heard of before… like how he had worked at Pratt and Whitney Aircraft as a tool and die man, but didn’t like the company so struck out on his own with another guy he worked with to start their own tool and die shop.

In what I have been told about my grandfather, he was very skilled and was responsible for getting the first mechanical voting machines to work. All of the gearing and small parts needed to be designed and built in the machine so that you could choose to vote for all of one party or any combination of how ever many individuals there where on the ballot was a major jigsaw puzzle that no one had been able to figure out… until it was given to my grandfather, or that’s how the story has been told to me.

In any case, his entrepreneur adventure was short lived. His partner, I think another tool and die maker, liked sitting behind a desk and being boss, while my grandfather did all of the work… he wasn’t impressed, so when it became clear of how it was going to function, he headed back to a place with more security and less conflicts I assume.

He told me that day that when the business got up and running and they had some success, then he found out what his partner was really interested in… and it wasn’t in working very hard.

So he returned to work for Veeder-Root a small machine shop, which was eventually sold to Pratt and Whitney and once again became my grandfathers downfall. It was bought when he was 70 and Pratt had a mandatory retirement of 65, so he had - I think - about 2 months to prepare to retire… which I think he ended up doing OK. I have no idea if he saved for retirement… I know he wasn’t planning on retiring at that moment, but they lived a modest life.

When I started a business with some partners 9 years later I soon started to see a similar pattern. I was the guy in the chair, and my partners did bring in some business, but that didn’t require the hours my part in the business did. Selling is a skill and a talent, and it isn’t easy, but it has a lot of flexibility in it usually.

I was only paid when I billed hours, and I was lucky that most months and most years I billed many hours. My goal was 6 billable hours a day, but there were countless days with 16 or 18 hours… not to mention weekends and holidays. We also had some very slow weeks and months. That was part of the deal I had agreed to. As the business matured, my work was relying less and less on their work – in fact they had quite a drought of work the last year I was there, as projects seemed to be getting harder to sell for them. The last 2 years or so, they only accounted for 20% or less of the work I billed for.

My grandfather’s words came back to me as the business I had started became a steady successful business. I was seen really only as the worker bee… and the other partners were the visionaries. The poop really hit the fan when I asked to become a larger partner… but that’s for another blog.

The point is I remembered my grandfather’s words, saw what was really happening and acted on that wisdom. When success hits, you find out what motivates your partners.

I had been offered a partnership in my first business because they knew they needed some one with my abilities to be the business… but once we were successful, it was all because of their work… and I was often referred to as “one of the editors” even though I was not only the ONLY editor, but a partner to boot.

So I eventually left and started my own business.

What is the point? I was offered wisdom, and was able to recall it when I needed it. My grandfather actually taught me something… I was a willing student.

But I have experienced many other events where people don’t seem to be able to learn or, or want to learn – much less apply the lessons when needed.

So now we are back to the question… can you teach anyone anything, or is the best we can do is be a guide and hope some wisdom transfers?

Today I don’t have the answer, but I am leaning in that direction.