“Don’t Send your Ducks to Eagle School” – Jim Rohn

The first rule of management is this: Don’t send your ducks to eagle school. Why? Because it won’t work. Good people are found, not changed. They can change themselves, but you can’t change them. If you want good people, you have to find them. If you want motivated people, you have to find them, not motivate them.

My first hearing of this lecture from Jim, I have already been walking a long way in the wrong direction; I was in a senior management position at a very young age (25 yrs old), with high expectations from everyone and a big responsibility, most importantly I had to grow people, who were… Well, already older than me :).

When you are young, your really want everything to happen very fast; Think about when you were at school, you couldn’t wait till you go to college and then to graduate… And years down the road, you will look back and wish you could go back to those old days.

You see, every single phase of someone’s life, is significant in their overall life span, and skipping steps trying to mess with the equilibrium of their development is un-healthy (Leaping Forward  – which is a concept in strategy – by the way is different than Skipping steps) 

I once seen an optical illusion, that was part of an interesting experiment, they showed the same photo to a child, and to an adult… The photo had  dolphins jumping out of the water, and at the same time (from a different perspective) you can see 2 adults making love. The Child Only Saw the Dolphins!

Sometimes, it’s not the Right time for someone to SEE something… Just like it’s not the right time for them to take a new responsibility or a new role… and forcing them to do so, Will Only make things worse.

If you send your ducks to eagle school:

• You will frustrate the ducks
• You will frustrate the eagles
• You will frustrate yourself

The tip for this week, is to ASPIRE your employees the same way you would do for your children.

• Lend your sight: A child cannot see himself growing up and becoming successful, you need to have your children borrow your sight of them growing up…
• Share your vision: An employee would look at you as a manager to get inspired to do great things… Share your vision and Help them ASPIRE success.
• Give enough time: you cannot force a plant to grow by filling it with more water everyday! it’s just not possible and the result will be horrible.

Have a great week!
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Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project