Some managers were asked what they learned from their mothers. These are their answers.
At 39 my mother inherited a tiny hotel chain in Canada. Her only qualifications were a driver’s license and high school education. And yet she did very well. She simply had a lot of common sense. So it doesn’t frighten me to hire or promote someone who doesn’t have credentials on paper. One of our highest-paid employees, our director of domestic sales and marketing, was once a checkout girl. Our production manager was working a night shift. Just like Mom once did, they are succeeding.
I never heard my Mom talk badly about anybody, except the time when I was battling with Victor Posner over the sale of a company I was running. She said to me:»I don’t trust that man. You should get away from him.” I didn’t know him that well then, but my mother nailed him down right away.
I feel extraordinary grateful to my Mom for the strong sense of security I had growing up. She was less judgemental than most other parents. It gave me a strong feeling that I was okay whether or not I got an “A” at school, or whether or not I won the basketball game. That support really helped me to set up my small business and follow my entrepreneurial path before I finally started my business. I went along for periods of time with no business card, no title, no affiliation. It would have driven a great majority of my classmates out of their minds, but it never bothered me. I have always felt that things would work out, and there is always a home for me in Kentucky.
She constantly told us to take on responsibilities. When my brothers and I were young, she would always tell us that we had to be reliable and had to smile and be nice. Now 30 years later, I am still in a service business and use the same tactics Mom taught me with my first customers.
Mom was a very eccentric, curious person, always saying “That’s interesting! Tell me about that!” She was constantly asking people what they thought, and she was interested in everything. She was a nursery school teacher, but she was also into geology, cultivating seeds, canning pickles and always digging in dirt and Indian burial sites. Like my mother, I am constantly asking people what they think. I sit behind a mirror and listen to people talk, trying to find out what motivates them to buy the things they do, choose the careers they choose, go on vacations they pick. I really get into the stories.
Слова:
to inherit — наследовать
chain — цепь (магазинов, ресторанов)
qualifications — зд. квалификация
common sense — здравый смысл
to hire — нанимать
credentials on paper — зд. свидетельство об образовании
checkout — касса в магазине самообслуживания
shift — смена
to nail smb. down — зд. раскусить кого-нибудь
security — безопасность
judgemental — требовательный
to set up — основывать, организовывать
entrepreneurial — предпринимательский
affiliation — филиал
responsibility — ответственность, обязанности
to take on responsibilities — принимать на себя обязанности
route — путь, маршрут
reliable — надежный
to rely on — полагаться
seeds — семена
burial sites — места захоронений
