Motivational Minute (12_105)

Quote of the day:

“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.” -- Henry Ford

Consider:

The story is told of a king who placed a heavy stone in the road and then hid and watched to see who would remove it. Men of various social standing came and worked their way round it, some loudly blaming the king for not keeping the highways clear, and others with varied complaints, but all dodging the duty of moving the stone out of the way.

At last a poor peasant on his way to town with his flock of sheep passed by, and contemplating the stone, laid down his load and rolled it into the gutter. Then, turning round, he spied a purse that had lain right under the stone. He opened it and found it full of gold pieces with a note from the king saying it was for the one who should remove the stone.

The moral of the story--it’s far better to make the effort to solve the problem and remove an obstacle that stands in your way than to go around it. Who knows you may just find a buried treasure.   

Bonus story:

In addition, here is a true story about Henry Ford, who took the above quote quite seriously.

When Henry Ford took over the Lincoln automobile plant in Detroit, he felt that it was being run inefficiently by those in charge. There were several hundred girls in one department on the top floor. So, Mr. Ford had a large tree cut down and carried to the hallway of the top floor, to see how long it would remain there before somebody with responsibility would see that tree and do something about it. That huge tree remained in the hallway for several weeks. Hundreds of people, including several foremen and stenographers, had to walk around it to get to their offices, but nobody attempted to remove it. They all assumed that it was somebody else's business. What was everybody's business was apparently nobody's business, and the big clumsy tree remained where it was, obstructing the path of every person who passed through that hallway, and yet not a single one of them took the responsibility of reporting it. After a few weeks of this, Mr. Ford walked in one day, discharged the lot of them, and put his son Edsel in charge of the entire Lincoln plant.

Don't let that happen to you. When you see a problem be a part of the solution.

Wishing you all the best,

Coach Dana

(Compliments of http://www.actionvisioncoaching.com/)

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