Service and Sermon
by Frank Basile
Personal and
Professional Effectiveness
Opening Words
Good morning and welcome to
I’d like to begin the service with a poem: New Day.
"This is the beginning of a new
day.
God has given me this day to use as I
will.
I can waste it--or use it for good, but what
I do today is important, because I am exchanging a day of my life for it!
When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone
forever,
leaving in its place something that I have traded
for it.
I want it to be gain, and not loss--good, and
not evil, success and not failure—
in order that I shall not regret the price that
I have paid for it."
Hymn #6 Just as long
as I have breath
Covenant
Love is the spirit of this church and service
is its law –
to dwell together in peace, to seek the truth
in love and to help one another.
This is our covenant.
The reading is from the Hymnal #419 by Kalidasa
Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the verities
And realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendor of beauty;
For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision;
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday
A dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day.
Sermon
Personal and professional effectiveness
Looking at this lectern reminds me of the time about 30 years ago when my son Jason was 4 years old. I was talking in Fellowship Hall during the coffee hour with Paul Beattie, long time Humanist minister here at All Souls. Jason came running up to me excitedly saying, “Dad, Someone broke God’s desk!”
I said “What?” I then asked him where the desk was and he took me by the hand into the sanctuary and pointed to this lectern. The top part had been removed which it is designed to do but to a 4-yr. old it looked broken.
I then asked Jason who God was; he pointed to Paul! Paul wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or embarrassed! It was clear to all present that I had failed in my parental responsibility for religious education training in more ways than one!
Speaking of Paul, you other old timers will recall the meeting in this room to debate and decide whether to terminate Paul, or rather to terminate his employment here. I’m sure there were a few who would have liked to actually terminate him!
Was anyone here at that historic event? You might recall that it was standing room only; the aisles were lined with people, some of whom I had not seen in church in years.
Right after the debate, Paul leaned over and whispered to me, “I now know how to get people to fill the church!” However, I would not recommend this approach to ministers!
Please pardon another reflection before beginning the sermon. I recall my first visit to this church. It was 33 years ago this week; in 1973.
As a recovering Catholic, I was attending various churches
in an attempt to find one where I was comfortable. One Sunday morning as I was en route from my
apartment at Brendonway to Bethany Presbyterian
Church, I realized that I was running about 15 minutes late for the
As I was passing this church I noticed the sign which indicated the service did not begin for another 15 minutes. Since I like to be punctual wherever I go, I drove into the parking lot.
I suppose in those days it was more important to be on time than what Church I attended! When I mentioned this experience to my wife, she said punctuality for me is a religion!
In any event, I found there was a Sunday School,
deposited my two sons there and waited for the service to begin. I had never been in a
I enjoyed my visit and decided to come back again the following week and I’ve been coming back ever since.
Sometimes I feel badly that my conversion to Unitarianism didn’t result from study and reflection or maybe a bolt of lightening hitting my car as I passed the building. But, the important thing is that I finally found religion, in a manner of speaking.
This is my first sermon in twenty years. I used to give sermons on occasion. One was at the
After the service, several of the people came up to me and said how much they enjoyed the sermon. I asked what they liked in particular about the sermon. Almost in unison they responded, “You speak so loud we could actually hear every word!” I concluded in that situation it didn’t make much difference what I said as long as I said it in a loud voice!
My topic this morning is “Personal and professional effectiveness.” It’s based upon my favorite themes during the twenty years that I wrote a weekly column for the Indianapolis Business Journal.
You should also have a copy of one of my articles titled “Years of column writing reveal favorite themes.” I will cover a few of these themes during this sermon.
The article will allow you to review the points that I cover plus read about some that I don’t have time to discuss here, which will be most of them. You can also share this article with others.
But remember, this is a published article and as such, it’s copyrighted. So if you copy this, it’s a violation of the copyright laws and you could be subject to a fine or imprisonment or both! However, if you make a lot of copies, that’s research and it’s OK!
And I’ve certainly done a lot of research myself. In fact, I’ve heard originality defined as “The fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.”
However, when I use someone’s quote and I use a lot of quotes, I do try to give credit. Though as the years go by, it’s sometimes difficult to remember who said it.
Years ago I had no trouble recalling the author of a quote being Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Ford or Thomas Jefferson. But after awhile, I began stating, “As someone once said …”
Then, after a few more years of using certain quotes over and over and becoming even more forgetful, I began saying, “As I have always said!”
I used these comments during a fund raising kick off meeting
for the
I was followed on the program by then Mayor Bill Hudnut who, as you may know, was an excellent speaker and former minister and always got in the last word.
He began his presentation and fund raising advice with the following: “Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened - As I have always said!”
The first of my favorite themes that Id like to talk about is the importance of personal skills, such as time management, human relations, goal setting and communications.
In a couple of my articles I referenced a study by the American Management Association. Researchers interviewed the CEOs of companies in all fields to determine what was most important in their rise to the top of their companies.
In summary, about 20% attributed their success to technical skills, what they knew about their job and the industry. Eighty percent attributed their success to personal skills.
Another major study helped to further illustrate the importance of personal skills to success. A large west coast recruiting firm wanted to find out why people are fired.
At the conclusion of the study, they found that people are not fired for incompetence. In fact, and this was an interesting by-product of the study, they found that most companies and their managers don’t even know who’s competent. They don’t have goals in the first place, so they have no measure of performance.
That’s why so many companies give annual across-the-board 3.5% pay raises! What does this do for the motivation and attitude of the person sitting in the accounting department working hard and getting the same increase and recognition as the person sitting in the next cubicle who they know is not putting in the same amount of effort?
In addition to not knowing who’s doing the job, these companies are losing productivity. If they don’t have goals, they can’t measure performance and we know that measurement drives performance. It works in sports and it works in business with those firms that use it.
The bottom line, as I said, was that people are not fired for incompetence. You know what they found was the primary reason? Yes, they didn’t get along with people, especially the boss!
We hire people because they have 20 years of experience in a technical area and fire them for non-technical reasons, like not getting along with people, not managing their time effectively, and failing to communicate. We hire and fire for different reasons.
A classic example is Lee Iacocca. How many of you read his autobiography? He devoted a chapter to his being fired. This occurred when I was with Ford Motor Company, so I have some insight into what happened. Henry Ford II didn’t tell him directly. Iacocca heard about it from others, through the grapevine.
He immediately went to the top floor of Ford’s World Headquarters in Dearborn, by-passed Ford’s secretary and barged into his office. He asked “Why am I fired?” Ford didn’t respond immediately.
Iacocca said, “This company made $2 Billion last year” and, with typical Iacocca humility, he said “I did it. You don’t know how we did it. I did it! Why am I fired?” Ford, who was still seated at his desk, looked at him over his reading glasses and said, “Lee, Sometimes you just don’t like a person!”
Lack of technical knowledge had nothing to do with it. There wasn’t a better car man, as they say, than he. This man engineered the Mustang in the early 1960s that made Ford at that time, but he couldn’t get along with his boss.
A second recurring theme in my IBJ articles was time management, which I consider the most important personal skill. How we manage our time determines everything, starting with our happiness and success. It’s our only irreplaceable diminishing resource.
For purposes of this sermon, if I were to reduce a one day seminar on time management to three minutes, it would be this. Eighty percent of all time management is the To Do List!
How
many of you use a "to do" list?
I'm not surprised that most of you do.
If
you’re like me, you write out the typical "to do" list the evening
before or that morning and take satisfaction in scratching out each item as it’s
accomplished.
In
fact, sometimes I'll even write something on the list that I’ve already done! I immediately scratch it out and I’m off and
running!
As
we go through the day, we write a report, make a phone call, and scratch them
out. Pick up some groceries on the way
home and so on.
At
the end of the day, we’ve scratched out 17 of the 20 items. What a day!
We only have two or three things left over, but those are the same two
or three things we've been carrying over from one list to another for days,
weeks, months and even years.
Yet,
these are generally the most important, but also those that take the longest
time to complete and frequently the hardest to do. So we procrastinate and continually put them
off. How many are guilty of that?
The
type of "to do" list that we use will determine our success. To put it into perspective, I’ll relate an
incident which occurred in the early 1930s when Charles Schwab was President of
Bethlehem Steel. He noted that there was
a productivity problem, which he felt began at the top.
He
retained a well known management consultant, Ivy Lee,
to do a study which he anticipated would take about a month. On the first day
of his assignment, Lee spoke briefly with Schwab and interviewed several of his
top executives.
That
afternoon he announced to Schwab that he had completed his assignment. Schwab said, “What? You just got here today. I thought the assignment would take a month
to complete.”
Lee
said, I have already determined the solution to your
problems.” Obviously, Schwab requested
that he advise him immediately of that solution.
Lee
asked that Schwab list on a blank sheet of paper everything he personally
needed to do in running Bethlehem Steel.
"Well, that's easy enough; there are so many." He took about 30 minutes to list 12 items.
Lee
then requested that he prioritize them, putting a one alongside the most
important, a two alongside the next and so on.
It was a little more difficult to determine the relative importance of
each and it took Schwab about an hour.
Lee
then said, "My advice to you and each of your managers is to accomplish
each item in the order of its importance
and not go to the next one until you have finished the one before!"
He
then closed his briefcase and said to Schwab, “Send me a check for whatever you
think that advice is worth.” Two weeks
later, and remember this was the early 1930s, Schwab sent Lee a check for
$25,000.00! And now I say to you (for
substantially less), "Go and do likewise."
For there is nothing we can do
that’s more important than how we spend our time every day. We
should do the things that will help us achieve our goals, both personal and
professional.
Otherwise,
we are mistaking activity for accomplishment.
We may only complete 20% of the items on the list. But those will probably accomplish 80% of the
job. Too often, we spend 80% of our time on that which accomplishes 20% of the
job.
All
of this assumes we have set our business and personal goals. If not, it won’t
make any difference how we manage our time.
We have no basis for establishing priorities. Time management won’t help.
As I said, eighty percent of all time management
is this "to do" list.
Everything else is elaboration, including such time management
techniques as effectively using prime time, reading mail only once, bringing
reading material with us to occupy waiting time and delegation.
These techniques are important but they are
secondary to ensuring that our daily activities are goal-directed. When this occurs, we will almost
automatically use these other techniques, most of which are common sense anyway.
This leads logically into another favorite theme: the importance of goal setting. Goals motivate us to focus and use a higher percentage of our abilities. We are harnessing our time, talent and energy and channeling them directly toward our objectives. Consequently, there are fewer wasted resources.
Henry David Thoreau said, “It is not enough to be busy, the question is what are we busy about.” With goals, we know.
And we won’t end up like the guy whose epitaph read, “He asked little of life and life paid his price.”
Occasionally in my articles and frequently in my speeches, I would ask people to write out one goal on a 3x5 card that day and carry it with them in their pocket or purse as a reminder until it is accomplished, then set another until goal setting becomes a habit. I would explain that it should be only one goal, not a bunch of New Years resolutions.
And preferably a short term goal, one that they can accomplish within a week so they can get energized through the feedback of quick success. It could be something they have been thinking about doing but haven’t gotten around to, like one of those things on the to do list that we keep carrying over from one list to another.
The card should include a timetable as well as the goal. A timetable acts like the last two minutes in a basketball game, when the action really happens as everyone realizes the game is about to end and the adrenaline starts pumping.
I recall once when a fellow in a one of my goal setting workshops completed the card as I requested. However, instead of carrying it with him, which is the benefit of the card, he left for me in the seminar room along with the evaluation form.
Since he had already left, I picked it up and read it and realized it would not have done him any good any way. He had written on the card, “My goal: I want to be happy by Thursday!”
Incidentally, what do you think is wrong with this goal? Don’t say he should have said Wednesday! It lacks specificity. We need to know what it is specifically that will make us happier or more successful.
The more specific we are the better we are able to develop a plan to accomplish the goal and, just as importantly, we will know when we achieve it, which is an important psychological payoff to goal setting.
Another common theme is what I consider the second most important personal skill, human relations. Theodore Roosevelt said, “The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.”
Again, if I
were to reduce a one day human relations seminar to three minutes, it would be
this. Sincerely
help the other person feel important.
Whenever we can reinforce that feeling of importance, we are not only
helping his self-esteem but also making it likely that he’ll feel good about us
and be more receptive to us and our ideas.
We show the other person that we consider him
important by such things as talking in terms of what interests him, encouraging
him to talk about himself, being a good listener, using his name, and being on
time for appointments with him.
Another one of my favorite article themes, as well as another personal skill, is communications. How many of you saw the movie Cool Hand Luke? There was a classic scene when Luke, played by Paul Newman, was just brought back from another escape attempt from a labor camp.
This stereotypical southern warden glared at Luke, who was handcuffed and kneeling on the ground. Do you remember the words he drawled? Yes! “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”
Every day, people prove that “a failure to communicate” occurs not only in labor camps but any place where people come together. Some researchers have even concluded that communication failures represent the single biggest problem for business and personal relationships today.
People can only judge us in four ways – how we look, what we do, what we say and how we say it. Half of how we are judged is through communications.
And again, if I were to reduce a one day seminar on this
topic to three minutes, it would be this.
Seventy-five percent of
communications is listening. Listening is the most important part of
communications and probably the most neglected.
First,
we don't learn when we’re talking. We
learn when we listen. As we discussed
earlier, listening also helps us to make other people feel important.
Listening
helps us to get at the real reason - whether it is an objection to something we
are selling or a reason given by another person for something he wants to do or
is asking us to do.
There
are usually two reasons for doing anything - the first one given, which is the
one that sounds good, makes the person look good and is based upon noble
motives. However, the second one is
generally the real reason.
A
personal example occurred when I lived in
Now,
what do you think was the reason I made this offer? Do you think it was so she could have a good
time shopping? If so, I’ve got some
ocean front property here in
Again,
it sounded good. When someone says he
wants to do something because of, then adds, sometimes in a lower voice, “in
addition to” or “besides that”, listen very carefully for what follows because
you are about to learn the real reason.
If
we are too quick to accept or refute the first reason and do no continue
listening, or don’t ask additional probing questions, we may miss the real reason
and act upon the wrong motivation.
Good
salespeople, for example, ask questions, listen carefully and do very little
talking, except to ask for the order.
Another
personal theme came about as a result of reading an article in Newsweek about
the former president of France, Francois Mitterand. The article included a statement he made on
his death bed. “We only know when it’s too late that the marvel is the passing moment.”
We
live our lives moment by moment. Now is the only time we have for sure. Now is the
time to do the good deed we have been thinking about. Now is the time for that long overdue
"thank you" or apology.
Now
is the time to forgive the person who may have wronged us years ago, not so
much for his benefit but for ours.
Now is the time to tell those close to us that we love and appreciate
them. Now’s the time to make that
phone call.
Instead
of being in the moment, we often find ourselves thinking of all the things we
would like to do “one of these days” or “when the timing is right” or “when the
weather clears” or “when I get that promotion.”
“As
soon as I find somebody to love and get married, I’m going to be happy.” “Just as soon as I get a divorce, I’m going
to start living.” “Just as soon as we
have a baby, we’re going to be so happy.”
“When the kids are grown and out of the house, we will be free to really
enjoy life.” “When we have grand kids,
when the grand kids are grown….”
In
the case of my wife, she says she will be very happy as soon as she loses five
pounds! I think I may be in trouble!
Sometimes we do the right thing and take the time to do something that is important, though not urgent. If we are lucky, we do it before it’s too late.
A few years after Paul Beattie left All Souls to go to the
I thought of all the important things I had to do, but, thankfully, for once did the right thing and said I would make reservations and visit him, which I did, a couple of weeks later. I had a wonderful visit with him, Lucinda and their children. Two months later, Paul died unexpectedly.
On the other hand, I was not so fortunate with another good friend, who was also about my age - the poet, Max Smith. Because of some disagreement, the details of which I could never recall, we lost contact with one another over the years despite living in the same city.
A few years ago I started thinking about Max and how I missed our conversations and the relationship we shared. I decided I would break the ice and call him.
I looked up his phone number, but put off making the call to him until after I did some other important stuff. I finally made the call in February, 2005, two days after he died.
My sister Millie called me in early June 2005 and suggested
we go to our hometown,
In mid-June, my sister, wife, son and niece went to
A few weeks later, Katrina, the hurricane, devastated
On the one hand, I am so bummed out that this happened but on the other hand, I am so glad we took the time to visit before it was too late.
Joseph
Campbell, the storyteller and scholar, wrote, “Go for it! Immortality and eternity are now.
This is the great moment! Our
greatest fear is not that we have lived our lives badly, but that we have
failed to live at all. People say that
what we are seeking is a meaning for life.
I think that what we are seeking is an experience of being alive. It clearly isn’t enough to say ‘No’ to the
things that threaten us if we have nothing worthwhile to which we care to say
‘Yes’.
If
we are not here, at this place at this time and enjoying the moment, we are not
really living. If our minds, as well as
our bodies, are not in this church on this day, Sunday, April 9, 2006, then maybe
we are never ever really totally present.
As
John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to us when we are making other plans.”
Another theme relates to service. I believe that any success or happiness we achieve in this life is only a by-product of the service we render to other human beings. Service is the only rent we pay for the space we occupy on this planet.
In a speech, Albert Schweitzer said, "I don't know what your destinies will be; but this I know: Those of you who will be truly happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve."
Another theme is based upon the book, Don’t sweat the small stuff...and it’s all small stuff, by Richard Carlson. He begins his book with the famous William James quote, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.”
Mark Twain said, “I am an old man and I have had many problems in my life, most of which never happened!” He was not alone. Studies show 70% of those things we worry about never actually happen.
If there is a real threat, either do something about it or, if you can’t, don’t worry about it. I wrote an article based upon this book. Will this matter a year from now?
Consider Parkinson’s “Rule Six”: “Don’t take yourself too seriously.” When asked what the other rules were, Parkinson replied, “There are no other rules!”
Another theme is the importance of understanding personality styles. Again, if I were to reduce a one day seminar to three minutes, I would begin with a question. “How many of you know somebody that if only they would listen to you, you could straighten them out?” Other than your spouse and your boss? We all know they need help.
Would it surprise you to know that they feel the same way about you? Because they are different, doesn’t make them bad, wrong, weird or out to get us! They are just different.
Don’t try to change them. There are only four ways we can change somebody. We can hire someone in our business or marry someone or otherwise enter into a relationship and then send them to psychotherapy. Maybe in five years they will be changed, but don’t bet on it.
We could administer drugs; religious conversion sometimes works; a lobotomy always works! But unless we want to try one of these drastic measures, don’t try to change them.
People don’t change. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “We form habits, then our habits form us.”
So how do we deal with a problem if we can’t change the other person? We could change but that’s not likely for the same reasons.
Or we could change the situation. We could quit and get another job; we could get a divorce and find another spouse. But what’s the problem here? The conflict will happen again in the next job, with the next spouse.
The solution? Understand and accept people the way they are and adapt to minimize friction and increase productive or more pleasant interaction. We will probably find that they will begin adapting as well and meeting us part way if we take the initiative.
And remember in adapting and dealing with people in general, the golden rule doesn’t always work. In fact, it only works if the other person is like us.
And since there are four basic personality styles, then it won’t work three quarters of the time. It’s better to follow the platinum rule: Do unto others as they would have you do unto them!
Another theme: It’s not what happens to us that determines our destiny, happiness or success as much as it is how we deal with what happens to us.
When my wife went into real estate, a long time agent told her that 90% of what you touch won’t happen but you can’t let it get you down. She found that actually it was more like 95%.
Dale Carnegie said, “When life gives you a lemon, make lemonade.” When we do encounter a setback, as we all do, we need to work harder and smarter. As Ben Franklin said, “The things that hurt instruct.”
We need look no further than Christopher Reeve and Michael
Graves for examples of overcoming obstacles.
Graves is the
Last Sunday, CBS’s Sunday Morning program carried a
documentary about
Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can do a thing or not, you’re right.”
This leads into a related theme: the anticipation of success will help ensure its achievement. In Mark, Chapter 9, verse 23, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” I resisted the urge to say “As I have always said!”
Emerson said, “We become what we think about all day long.” I recall the first time I used this quote, a guy sitting near the front of the room, about where Ollie is sitting now, said, “That’s not true. Otherwise, I would have been a girl by the time I was 21!”
Another theme is the importance of doing work we enjoy. We will not only do the work better but enjoy life more along the way. We will generate enthusiasm for the work in particular and life in general.
Will Rogers said, “To be successful in life and in work, you need to know what you’re doing, love what you’re doing and believe what you’re doing.”
The best personal example I know of is my boss of 31 years, Gene Glick. At 84, he still runs a billion dollar company and is in his office seven days a week with no plans to retire. He still has the same sense of excitement as when he founded the company 59 years ago.
We are planning our 60th anniversary celebration next year and he is writing a ten year update to the book he wrote in 1997 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the company and the 50th wedding anniversary of his happy marriage.
Last week, when the editor concluded the final interview for the book, he told her he would do another update for the 70th anniversary.
As is his custom, he then dictated a memo to his secretary to call the editor to set up an appointment to begin the interviews for that update. He then said to mark it for follow up in December, 2015! He will only be 93.
The great architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, was 89 when he
built the
When they asked Mark Twain the secret of his success, he said, “I was born excited!”
Thank you!
Hymn #313 – O What a piece of work we are
Benediction
By Harry Emerson Fosdick.
Nothing else matters much, not wealth, nor learning, not even health, without this gift: the spiritual capacity to keep zest in living.
This is the creed of creeds, the final deposit and
distillation of all of man’s important faiths: that he should believe in
life.