April 13; Personnel Evaluation Filter For the Manager’s All-Star Team
MANAGEMENT BY THE BOOK:
365 Daily Bible Verse &
One-Minute Management Lessons For The Busy Faithful

Chapter Four: Relationships: 13 April

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.

They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.

But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

1 Corinthians 9:25-27

Testing

The best indication of future performance is past performance.

How can management predict the success of a relationship? How do we know if a job candidate will persevere? How do we know that he won’t quit?

The best proxy for preparation is an activity, a practice: show up on time, work within a team, work through physical pain, rules bound environment, gain mastery of an expert skill, with measureable results, in public, with the occasional failure and humiliation.

What can the manager look for on a resume?

Theologian Michael Novak, the 1994 recipient of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, tells us on how most men reminisce on how they gained confidence,

Michael Novak

“Millions of men look back nostalgically on their days in active athletics precisely because they experience there, as at few other points in their lives, a quality of tenderness, a stream of caring and concern from and toward others…

“Male bonding is one of the most paradoxical forms of human tenderness: harsh, hazing, sweet, gentle, abrupt, soft. Blows are exchanged. Pretenses are painfully lanced. The form of compliment is, often as not, an insult.

“There is daily, hourly probing as to whether one can take it as well as dish it out. It is a sweet preparation for a world less rational, less liberal, than childhood dreams imagine. Among men, sports help to form a brotherhood…”

General Douglas MacArthur served as both West Point Superintendent and as head of the 1928 American Olympic Committee. His words are inscribed over the entrance of the United States Military Academy cadet gym,

Upon the fields of friendly strife

Are sown the seeds

That, upon other fields, on other days

Will bear the fruits of victory.

I once asked a retired Naval Officer the best predictor of success as a ship’s captain. “Sports,” he said, “ is the best experience for leadership.”

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. 1 Corinthians 9:25-27

###