Dummies for Hire

I was only sixteen...

There are many in positions within companies who have an interesting take on hiring staff for their businesses. One good friend talks about it being  a case of 'hiring for the person, training for the skill.' To him, it was always a case of looking at the person, not the credentials. Because he ran a high level company and needed top notch sales staff, he considered that any staff member on his shop floor would have to be a person first, and a certificate second, if at all. In this respect then, his hiring criteria had little to do with what they knew how to do. It had little to do with education or certification. Those things can be often taught. But you can't teach a person how to be the person you need. The person is a culmination of things that can't be taught so quickly - aptitude, social graces, patience, work ethics, attitude and many other things. A skill is usually an academic process of learning that can be inculcated. But the canvas upon which you paint, or the marble in which you carve must be the right quality first.

So, we are all wise to ask ourselves what kind of canvas we present to others, especially when we are in the company of those whose influence or position can positively affect our lives. Do we present an academic skill set with little personality or individuality? Are we presenting a robot, or are we offering a malleable, amicable, hard working human being with grace, ethics and intelligence? I know which one I would prefer to hire and offer to the rest of any team as an equal and individually valuable member.

Me? I am a high school dropout. I left before my final year to begin working in the photographic industry. I was sixteen, but I was confident, friendly and willing. I had that much going for me. What I knew about photography could have been written on a Post-It note. But I was young, malleable, passionate and enthusiastic. 

I arrived at the photo retailer. I walked into the manager's office, well dressed and willing, my hand outstretched for an assertive, yet friendly, handshake. I was polite, respectful and relatively eloquent. I was willing to take what they had on offer. I was hired on the spot. I was to start tomorrow. 

I arrived the next day to meet the rest of the staff. I was surprised when I learned that so many of the sales staff of this photographic retail outlet were photographers with university degrees. Years of learning had brought them to the same place I was working. They were older than me, better educated in the ways of photography and had forgotten more about photography than I had even learned. As you can imagine, I was somewhat intimidated. I was made to feel very welcome, but who was I that I could work among such elite members of the photographic fraternity?

These young men had shared the same dream that I came to live. They all wanted to be professional photographers, and they had the pieces of paper that proved their initial desires. However, in the years to come, I would realise that not one of them ever came to that realization. Not one of them ever became a working photographer. Almost all of them remained in retail - certainly not something that they had spent years of their life training for. That's not a criticism. Only an observation. Me? I didn't even had a high school certificate. However, in the years to come, I would forge a difficult and yet rewarding career as a photographer, editor, journalist, tutor and public speaker - none of which I had any training for.

So, yes, there are dummies for hire. I was one of them. Untrained, yet malleable and passionate. Whatever happens to you that featured somewhere in your initial plans, it happens because you were the kind of person who could make it happen and not necessarily because you had a brain full of cool stuff. 

When You Get the Ball....

There are times in life when things happen because they...happen. We are all affected by the inexplicable, random events that transpire within the confines of our lives. No matter what you do, they exist and they will continue to exist. We learn to work around them, or even use them when we can. 

Then, there are times when things happen because we make them happen. These events in our lives have a cause and an effect. They are the fires that burn in our lives because somewhere, at some time, a spark existed and the fuel was found. These aren't random events. They are deliberate. And they are ours.

Our lives abound with opportunity. Where those opportunities fail is not in their existence, but rather in our capacity to either see them, or run with them. If life is a ball game, the ball is very real. Getting your hands on it is one thing. Running with it toward the goal, step by step, opponent by opponent, is quite another. 

Using this analogy for life, let's examine just some of the outcomes of the game at a personal level. One of those outcomes might be that you spend the entire match running around, thinking that you are engaged with the purpose of this game, but never really working to get your hands on the ball. From your perspective, it is up to your teammates to get that ball to you. After all, you've been waiting near the goal for so long! Haven't they seen you there yet? Why haven't they thrown the ball your way?

The answer to that is that you haven't run toward it. You haven't shown initiative. You haven't shown anyone what that ball and all its potential means to you. Why would anyone throw the ball your way when you haven't proven its value in the way you have been running? You may have no idea what to do with it when you get it. After all, you haven't proven anything to the contrary, have you?

Outcome Number Two might be that you actually do get the ball. Its a fluke, but you got it! Now what? Should I pass it on to another team mate? Do I run for the goal? What is the strategy, right here, right now? Well, while you are thinking about that, an opponent tackles you, takes the ball and sends it the other way. Your lack of readiness comes from the fact that you didn't expect to get the ball in the first place. That being the case, your opportunities were lost because you hadn't prepared to get it, or you just didn't think it was possible for you in the first place.

Outcome Number Three is the one where you run for the ball and, using your natural abilities and your acquired understanding of the game, you get your readied hands upon it. Taking it firmly under your control you turn for the goal and make your play. From this point on, it doesn't matter what happens next. The important thing is that you know how to get that ball rolling and what to do with it. Even if this initial opportunity to score is not realised, you have proven that you are ready, that you value what the ball represents and that you know where and what the goal is. Don't worry. You will get it to the goal at some stage of the game simply because of those factors. 

Life is like that. Each player needs to understand two things. One, that you have a unique gift set. This is the culmination of you - your talents, your intelligence, your passion and personality and your acquired knowledge and skill. The second is your deliberate process to appreciate what you have and use that unique gift set in your life to make your own success. 

Is this YOUR definition of success?

'Success' is an interesting word. It means many things to many people. For some, it is the veneer of finance and material gain that defines success. For others, it is far deeper in its expectations and outcomes. Whatever it means to you, it should result in the satisfaction of your soul, a happiness that is derived from an understanding of what will make you happy. Most find that it is found in simplicity, not complexity. In the game of life, there is a ball and there is a goal. There is a team on your side and a team against. That is the simplicity of it. Making it more complex than that is a mixture of your definitions of happiness, and the random events in life that tend to alter our course for a period of time. Every sailor who sails into the wind knows to 'tack', but each deviation off course is validated by the fact that the destination remains unchanged.

You will succeed if you understand what it means for you, and how you can uniquely attain it with what you have already, and what you can learn.

Shelton.