My Dad Taught Me Well

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My Dad Taught Me Well

When you search for the attributes for a great leader you get a very long list of things like trusting, honesty, selflessness, empathy, adaptability, integrity and authenticity. While these are all good things to strive for, I think they should include being:

·      A Tenacious communicator

·      A Resilient planner

·      An Imaginative innovator

·      A Purpose driven leader.

Of course, the type of industry sometimes dictates how a leader should present themselves. I had the good fortune to work summers under my Father’s leadership at an explosives factory while going to college. Yes, you read that right, it was a dynamite manufacturing facility.

My Dad had risen from a laborer before World War II to a supervisor after he got home. He was in charge of the box factory and the shell house. I worked in the box factory running a huge stapler making boxes of different sized and shapes. Besides me, there was another man on a staple machine, one who brought us flat cardboard that we would bend and staple into shape, another one who took the finished product on palates to the shell house where the order of dynamite would be placed in each box. 

Dad had a good reputation on the plant as a fair boss who communicated well and treated each man and woman with respect. They knew the daily production schedule posted by him on a big blackboard using chalk to indicate the size of the shells and number needed. Both buildings were very noisy when all of the machines were running and everyone had to shout to be heard.

I think that it was during those two summers that I really got my first taste of TRIP without knowing it. My Dad loved using his imagination to improve the machinery. His 40+ years working there gave him a lot of insight into safety, innovation, personnel, and planning.

I loved watching him with the other workers. If we were behind in getting our daily production completed, he’d jump in and help often doing hard laborious tasks. He never lost his temper but used humor with the employees to get the job done. If we were done early, he’d congratulate us and let us goof off for a while.

I lost my father four years ago at 97 and miss his wisdom and positive outlook. But the lessons I learned from him still serve me well today.

Remember to take a TRIP for a lifetime, not a trip of a lifetime.

Keith……