The place where I work had someone leave to take a different position this past week. Normal thing on a job, people come and go, some you connect with more than others and you miss them. They may be a good enough friend the leaving will not change your personal life. Maybe they are a nice person and you wish them luck. On occasion they are people you say good radiance to. Then there is the extremely rare occasion where someone leaves that changes everything. Those are so rare we don’t expect them at all. They shock us. They change everything, not just their lives, or their job, but literally everyone and everything. I must state this again, this is profoundly rare.
They say we may change jobs up to 20 times in our lifetime. To come across one of these types of people once in your life is still a 1000 to 1 chance. But that was this person and this situation. In fact, it is so significant that this job needed to happen in my life if for no other reason than to meet this one person and see this one thing happen. One life makes a difference. One life can change everything.
Understand I am someone who believes this intrinsically. (A word I used a lot in my last conversation with him) That said I was still shocked at how intensely true it was. It was funny when I read the email where he shared he was leaving, I was floored. Stop in your tracks floored. Change your entire plans floored. I knew it was a game changer, what I didn’t understand was just how it would change the game. Even more I had an inkling it could effect my life, but I thought it would be limited to some of my choices. No, it was bigger than that. IT CHANGED MY LIFE!!!
Now let me step back with you for a moment. I like this guy, he is a great person, super smart and funny. I knew him at a fond colleague level. Always looked forward to engaging with him, enjoyed our conversations, laughed (if you know me that is a common theme) if had a few minutes and he was in his office I would pop in, stand in the doorway, and we would chat. A few minutes usually turned into 30 or more. We could swim laps in the pool of life conversations. Deep, shallow, silly, funny, philosophical, practical and meaningless. My favorite type of conversation. We did not interact often though. Nor did we socialize or cross paths in our general lives, even though we had a lot in common. Sometimes you just don’t.
We worked in different departments and he was not a flashy person. Not the first person you would notice in a room. Not the biggest personality. Not the magnet in the room. He was in operations, I worked in marketing. Flashy people were my daily existence. His area was function, mine was in form.
Bear with my rabbit trail for a moment. We both work in the real-estate industry. I have loved houses all my life. There are lots of pretty houses that are built for crap. Something I have learned is a pretty house with a crappy layout, materials and function is not worth nearly as much as a well built, well thought out house, that is solidly built and truly meets the needs of the people who live there but is ugly. Oddly people buy pretty over practical 9 times out of 10. Can I tell you something? It is much more affordable to change carpet and paint than structure and mechanics? We often ‘buy’ people the same way.
The gentleman was also a detail person. Details can be so boring. It is so funny though; the magic is in the details.
After he had sent out the email, over the next 48 hours, his last in the office, I watched almost every single person in our company, as well as some of the satellite offices, and organizations go out of their way to stop in, chat, hug, cry and say good bye. He did not work there for 30 years, in fact less than 10.
We don’t work for a huge cooperation, rather a small local company of just over 100 people. Some of whom, like myself had been there for just a year or 2. Yet well over most of them took the time to reach out share their sadness. To let him know how much he would be missed and the impact he had had on their lives.
I watched this and was not overly shocked, like I said, it was a change your plans and schedule kind of response. What amazed me was that with each person that stopped in, phone call, email and text he had a very personal and ‘inside’ joke or connection that they had shared. He knew the details. He knew not only the details of the company and its function, duties, tasks, challenges, idiosyncrasies and systems. He knew the details of its soul, the people. Not just the flashy ones either, every single person had value. Not a lip serve statement we put together to make ourselves feel like we are making a connection, but a unique acknowledgement of who they were, what they could do and how much they meant. I watched as this man of function and details appreciated people in that same detail. He had seen the form, not just the function, of the people. He knew the heart and soul of a company of systems. I was humbled to the core by who he was. It reminded me of who we are truly called to be.
In our last conversation with him before I heard the announcement our question was from the deep end of the pool. “What does leadership mean to you?” His response was simple “The ability to do the right thing.” What I saw lived out in the last 48 hours is; To do the right thing and truly lead others, you need to first BE the right thing. That takes a lifetime of details to BECOME.
Guess what? If you are to BE the right thing then you probably won’t be the flashy person in the room. Rather you will most likely be the funny, slightly odd guy in a back office who pays attention to the details like character, ethics, a strong inner compass who focuses more attention on others than he does himself. Who takes the time to connect the details to the value of who people are and what they have to offer. Who is not afraid to confront that which is wrong or is a total mess, with the courage to fix it or turn away from it if it is wrong.
Interesting how it is not rocket science but is so rare that we are stopped in our tracks when we see it, and unfortunately rarely recognize it until it has passed. I am grateful, deeply so, that I got to see it, and even if I didn’t fully recognize it until later, I still had the opportunity to have my eyes opened and my life changed.
Thank you, sir, I pray I do not throw away this lesson. That I let it truly impact the ability to see the details. May there be another life that becomes one to see and add value. Not to be flashy or be lip service, rather to leave each life better for having been in a door way having a conversation.
