Walt Bettinger, CEO of Charles Schwab, kept a 4.0 average in business school. His senior year, he took a business strategy class that changed his life. The final exam was the one that would put the final stamp on his flawless college GPA. After long hours of memorizing formulas and content for the course, he sat with the rest of his class to take the final exam. Surprised to find it was one piece of paper, he turned it over. It was blank. The professor announced to the class, “I’ve taught you everything I can teach you about business in the last ten weeks, but the most important message, the most important question, is this: What’s the name of the lady who cleans this building?”
Walt later said, “It had a powerful impact. It was the only test I ever failed, and I got the ‘B’ I deserved. Her name was Dottie, and I didn’t know Dottie. I’d seen her, but I’d never taken the time to ask her name. I’ve tried to know every Dottie I’ve worked with ever since.”
Your challenge this week: get to know the Dottie in your environment.
In the words of Walt Bettinger, “never lose sight of people who do the real work.”
All our jobs are important and contribute to the flow of a company. But somewhere along the way, some of us stopped noticing that everyone, not just us, are doing the “real work”.
Written by Emma Pister and Karl Pister
