Joshua Chamberlain played a key role in American history. He was a professor who spoke seven languages, president of Bowdoin College and governor of Maine.  Chamberlain was born into humble means and learned to work hard from a young age. Recently, the History Channel told the story of a young Chamberlain helping his father plow a field where they came upon a large rock. Instead of solving the problem for the lad, his father simply told his son to “move it – do it.” The boy did and the attitude of being singularly focused on the problem at hand remained a theme throughout his life.

Joshua Chamberlain is most remembered for his quick thinking as a Union officer on Little Round Top at the battle of Gettysburg. Noticing a gap in their line of defense, he quickly assembled his men to meet the Confederate onslaught. His troops repelled the repeated advances and saved the Union flank. Had not Chamberlain and his men acted quickly, with singular focus, the Confederates may have been able to drive the Union army from the battlefield and possibly win the battle of Gettysburg. Conceivably, such turn of fortune could have changed the course of our nation.

All of us have many responsibilities we are juggling. Being singularly focused on the task at hand is critical to success. Sometimes we just need to “move it – do it.”

Last month I mentioned GSA’s gift of farm animals, in honor of our clients, to help families in developing nations through World Vision. Several of you expressed interest in this work, so I wanted to make you aware of the World Vision film “Journey to Jamaa” at the historic Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, Sunday, February 12 at 7 pm. “Jamaa” is an award-winning short film inspired by the true story of two orphaned children in Uganda who make a heart-breaking journey to overcome extreme poverty and experience hope. Opportunities to learn how to help will also be available. Hope to see you there.

Over the years, GSA frequently has given chocolate at the end of the year as a way of saying thank you to our clients. While the gift is always well received, one more box of calories for the holiday season is less desirable. We wondered this year what we might do differently. We decided we would make a donation on your behalf to those who do not have enough to eat. GSA has partnered for several years with World Vision, a humanitarian organization serving close to 100 million people in nearly 100 countries around the globe. In your honor, we have donated 1 cow, 1 sheep, 1 goat and 12 chickens, 10 ducks and 1 rabbit.  What will this do? One dairy cow can produce up to 120,000 glasses of milk in its lifetime and surplus milk can be used to produce butter and cheese for family income. Sheep also produce milk and cheese as well as provide wool for sweaters and blankets. If you would like to know more about how your animals will benefit those in need or for further information about World Vision, please check out the link on our home page at www.genservassoc.com. 

Thank you for making this donation possible by working with GSA this past year. It will be of great benefit to those in developing nations who are in dire need. May you have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a wonderful New Year.

Why do we Americans celebrate Thanksgiving Day on the fourth Thursday of November? Abraham Lincoln declared it a holiday in his famous Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863. But who put Lincoln up to it?

The answer is Sarah Josepha Hale, arguably the most successful midlife woman in American history.

In addition to moving President Lincoln to action, Sarah Hale was the first to urge equal education for American girls. She was the first to start day nurseries for working women, the first to suggest public playgrounds, and the first editor of the first woman’s magazine in America.

Hale authored two dozen books and hundreds of poems, including the best known nursery rhyme in the English language: “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

And perhaps the most remarkable part is, she did it all after she turned 40.

Widowed and penniless at 34, with five small children to raise, Hale supported herself with sewing and poetry. Then, at 39, her first novel, Northwood, was a huge success.

A year later a British publisher asked her to serve as the first editorof The Ladies Magazine and the rest, as they say, is history. Nine years later she moved to Godey’s Lady’s Book in Philadelphia. Here her editorial skills helped the publication become the largest in America with a subscription list of 150,000 by the 1850s. 

Sarah Hale continued to write and edit until she was 89. She died at a robust 91.

“The Lady Editor,” as Hale was affectionately called, advocated a national celebration of Thanksgiving as early as 1827. “We have too few holidays,” she wrote in Northwood. “Thanksgiving like the Fourth of July should be considered a national festival and observed by all our people.”

To Sarah Hale Thanksgiving would be a therapeutic holiday. “There is a deep moral influence in these periodical seasons of rejoicing, in which whole communities participate. They bring out . . . the best sympathies in our natures.”

Hale saw this spiritual dimension of Thanksgiving as a means for preventing the insanity of civil war in America. This is why, as hostilities heated up between North and South, she bombarded both national and state officials with requests for the national holiday.

By 1863 when Lincoln issued his now famous Thanksgiving Proclamation, Sarah Hale had penned literally thousands of these letters in her own hand. “If every state would join in Union Thanksgiving on the 24th of this month, would it not be a renewed pledge of love and loyalty to the Constitution of the United States?” Hale wrote in a 1859 editorial.

Of course, Sarah Hale was unable to avert those saddest years of American history, but in 1863, as civil war ravished the land, Abraham Lincoln did issue the proclamation Hale had spent nearly 40 years and thousands of letters to procure.

Speaking of America’s blessings, even in its darkest hour, Lincoln wrote, “No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered us in mercy.”

And so Americans celebrate Thanksgiving together on the fourth Thursday of November each year. And perhaps that celebration has helped as much as anything to keep us from the insanity of fighting against ourselves again.. 

If so, we have Lincoln’s Most High God to thank for it, as well as a spunky midlifer named Sarah Josepha Hale.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the thing which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.   Epictetus

I like Thanksgiving. It’s one of my favorite holidays. History tells us that Abraham Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1863 creating the American holiday. (While Lincoln traditionally gets the credit, Sarah Hale, the author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” bannered the cause for almost 40 years prior to Lincoln’s Proclamation. For the complete story, go to our blog at www.genservassoc.com/blog)  

We are hard-wired to see things that need to be changed or fixed and then to act on them. Change happens when we are discontent, which motivates us to do something about our discontentment. Thanksgiving is about stopping. Stopping. Stopping the focus on our discontentment that things are not as we think they should be and reflecting on the good things that are. Thanksgiving is about taking the time to contemplate what we are grateful for. Even when we’re going through difficult times, taking time out to ponder the many things we have to be grateful for gives us a new, more accurate, positive perspective. This Thanksgiving, stop, and take a moment to make a list of things you are thankful for; it’s guaranteed to lift your spirits.  

Let me take a moment to thank all of you – clients, vendors and friends for all your support this year and over many years. We appreciate your desire to allow us to work with you and are grateful for our partnership.  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Recently, I attended a conference where one of the featured speakers was Len Schlesinger, former Harvard professor and current president of Babson College, the nation’s top rated business school for entrepreneurship. As a business and entrepreneurial expert, he believes we sometimes over-think our decisions and make them too complicated. For instance, regarding customer service his basic 3-point plan is:

1)     Find out who your customers are

2)     Find out what they want

3)     Give it to them

Though simple, his wisdom is hardly simplistic. Virtually everyone reading this is involved with business, academia, or a non-profit and all sell something, whether a product or service. It is very easy to lose track of who our customers are and wander from what their needs are. These 3 points can help us refocus and provide our customers want they really want.

Schlesinger’s identifies 16 reasons why “Action Trumps Everything: Creating What You Want in an Uncertain World” the title of his newest book.  If you would like a summary of his 16 reasons, they are posted on this blog.

ACTION TRUMPS EVERYTHING

1.         If you act, you will find out what works…        

2.         …and what doesn’t.

3.         If you never act, you will never know if you are right or wrong.  You may think you know, but you won’t be able to point to anything concrete to prove you are right.  As Mark Twain famously pointed out:  “It ain’t so much the things we don’t know that get us into trouble.  It’s the things we know that just ain’t so.”

4.         If you act, you will find out if you like it…with “it” being whatever the new action is…

5.         …or you don’t.

6.         Acting leads to a market reaction, which could take you in another direction.

7.         As you act, you can find people to go along with you.  For example, in talking to your suppliers, you ended up meeting the world’s most organized person.  She now runs the day-to-day operations of your catering business and is a 10% owner.

8.         As you act, you can find ways to do things faster, cheaper, better.  You discover, after making your world-famous Chicken Parmesan 50 times, that you can prepare the dish in eight steps instead of eleven.

9.         If you act, you won’t spend the rest of your life going, “I wonder what would have happened if…”

10.       If all you do is think, you are less interesting as a person.  Who would you rather sit next to on a plane, someone who started a successful rock-climbing store (or even an unsuccessful one), or someone who only thought about it?

11.         If all you do is think about stuff, you gain tons of theoretical knowledge, but none from the real world.  In other words, if all you do is think…

12.          …all you do is think.

13.         Action always leads to evidence.  You act, therefore something changes, and in observing that reaction you gain knowledge.  (Hmm, if I drop an egg from shoulder height, it shatters.)  Thinking doesn’t lead to proof.  Or messy floors.  As Scott Cook, founder of Intuit, says:  “Evidence is better than anyone’s intuition.”

14.          If you act, you  know what is real.  You always want to know what’s real.

15.          Talking to people is action…at zero cost.

16.           It seems the cost of doing more thought, before you pull the trigger, is    zero.  But there is a huge opportunity cost.  While you are still thinking, someone else could be stealing your market or the opportunity itself may end.

 Taken from Action Trumps Everything:  Creating What You Want in an Uncertain World by Charles F. Kiefer and Leonard A. Schlesinger.  Copyright 2010 by Charles F. Kiefer and Leonard A. Schlesinger

 Everyone in the state of Michigan, baseball fan or not, knows of the late, legendary announcer Ernie Harwell.  Ernie’s soothing, dulcet voice filled the airways throughout Michigan for decades.  Just the sound of his voice had the ability to transport listeners back to fond childhood memories.

My wife and I, along with a couple of friends recently attended the play “Ernie” at City Theatre in Detroit.  The play, written by Mitch Albom, takes us through the “9 innings” of Ernie’s life – from youth to just prior to his death last year.  Actor Will David Young plays Ernie and does a phenomenal job imitating Ernie’s voice, inflections and mannerisms as he takes the audience back in time.   

But why was this man so revered?  Was it because of his genial manner or skill in which he called a game?  Yes, but it was more than just that – much more.  It was the gracious manner in which he not only performed his job, but also how he treated people, regardless of stature.  Young and old, from all walks of life, were treated with kindness and respect.  Story after story has been written about how Ernie went out of his way to reach out to people.

In the play, Ernie is asked if he ever confronted his long time broadcast partner, Paul Carey, about his habitual smoking in their small, cramped broadcast booth.  Ernie replied that no, he hadn’t, as he believed it was “better to be kind than right.” 

I can’t think of another person in the State of Michigan whose death saddened more people than this humble baseball announcer.  May each of us strive to be more like him in both our personal and professional lives.

“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” Mark Twain

Early in my business career I had opportunity to watch a seasoned businessman learn a painful lesson. This successful businessman’s livelihood depended on a particular Fortune 500 company, which he called on regularly. The gentleman had the bad habit of treating people according to what they could do for him. For instance, he would blow by the department receptionist of his largest client, speaking rudely to her, on his way to visit the people he thought could “do something for him.”

The receptionist was a hard-working woman, who was seeking to improve her lot in life by taking night classes to finish her college degree. After years of both working and going to school, she graduated. A wonderful accomplishment! Upon her graduation, she was now eligible for promotion at her company. Her supervisor, having worked with the talented young woman for several years, wanted to keep her in his department so he rewarded her with a key position within the same department she had worked for all those years. Lo and behold, she would now be responsible for managing the work that had been performed by the businessman who had shown her contempt for so long.

Now, his attitude changed. He was as sweet and courteous as he could be. She would have none of it. She knew the lack of character of the gentleman. The work would require teaming up with some one who could be trusted. His years of unkindness cost him dearly.

Regardless of people’s stature, all people should be treated with respect and courtesy. It does not matter whether a person is a receptionist, in the mailroom, on the maintenance staff or is the CEO or senior purchasing agent. Treat people kindly regardless of what you may think they can do for you. Though the only benefit you may receive is that you feel better about yourself, it’s also simply the right thing to do.

Genius is initiative on fire. Holbrook Jackson

I have many faults and weaknesses. We all do. One of mine is to make a project or task larger in my mind than it is in reality. This is especially true if it is something I dislike or am not as skilled at as I would like to be. This is also true because we sometimes make a task more difficult than it is. Steve Sample is the former president of the University of Southern California. His book “The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership” is one of the best business and leadership books I have ever read. His statement in the book “Do things just well enough” at first seems antithetical, especially for a university president overseeing thousands of students who have been taught their whole lives to “do your best.” His point, though, is that we should not do our very best on all tasks. There are many tasks we just need to get done and should do just well enough.

Things are frequently not as difficult as our minds make them out to be.

Most people have some sort of organizational system for tasks and appointments for the day, whether it be a PDA, electronic calendar, day planner or simply a hand-written list. It helps us know what needs to be done and when. I’m a firm believer in doing so. It makes my day much more productive and my clients much happier knowing we’ve done all that we committed to do. That being said, I find sometimes that’s not enough. Sometimes it feels like the hamster on the tread wheel, hour runs into hour, day into day, week into week and I’m caught in the daily grind.

What to do about it? As Marcus Buckingham, renowned speaker and best-selling business author (his books include: Now, Discover Your Strengths and Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently), puts it, we can “muse daily.” In other words, take a moment to think creatively about your work and job. What purpose does it hold? How can I better service my clients, my fellow employees, my family. The “how” and “why” gives importance to the tasks. This gives meaning, purpose and energy to the day.

I try to begin each day with a brief time of reflection before I tackle the day’s tasks. What is important to you today? Take a few moments at the beginning of the day to think about what is important for you. What really matters to you. Where there is meaning and purpose to the day, there is no rat race.