March 3; Changing the World Is a Dirty Job
MANAGEMENT BY THE BOOK:
365 Daily Bible Verse &
One-Minute Management Lessons For The Busy Faithful

3 March

…so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it,

according to your means.

II Corinthians 8:11b

HipDeep

She was an air pollution engineer, and one of the world’s first female ‘smokestack sniffers’ also known as ‘stack-testers.’ Helen was trained as an environmental engineer and earned promotions to Vice President at an environmental for-profit company in North Carolina. Her organization would attract the smartest and most passionate of entry-level employees.

She would have a number of applicants for each of her open positions. Top students from top schools rushed to her office. She had her pick of the brightest minds with the best grades. Getting the best workers and work done would be easy.

Or so she thought.

Helen is a talented manager with decades of experience in that ‘motivation’ part of leadership. She recruited from an idealistic talent pool that any boss would envy. She understood the passion, desire and emotion that drove her hires. Her new employees would be internally moved to get out of bed in the morning and into the field. The newbies would need little external coercion to go out and deliver results.

The environmental business has a number of disciplines from the measurement of atmospheric quality (airheads) to waste management (sh!theads). But they all shared a passion to improve the planet; to make the world a cleaner, safer place.

To get to the ‘change the world’ part of the job description, Helen took her teams to the field where the actual save-the-world work is done. The world is, well, a muddy mess.

The filth is a contrast. It is dirty, smelly and different from the sterile environment of classrooms and faculty lounges.

Who knew?

All too many of the new engineers did not workout. The new hires’ new boots got scuffed.

‘Passion for an idea’ did not quite match-up with the ‘getting it done.’

Helen soon learned from this challenge and would only hire staff who had a track record for execution—professionals who had dragged themselves through the mud as interns. People with a passion for task completion.

…so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means, II Corinthians 8:11b

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