Tag Archives: character

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6 Things I Learned From My Dad That Are Foundational to My Success

“One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.” George Herbert

 

How often do we take for granted the foundational lessons that we were taught as kids not realizing that without those lessons we would not be the people we are today? I know I am guilty of this so, because this Sunday is Father’s Day, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about what I learned from my dad that contributed to my success so far in life.

I grew up on the outskirts of a small town in northern Alberta called Peace River. My parents were both from farming backgrounds and were comfortable with a very uncomplicated and frugal lifestyle. By the time I came onto the scene, my mom was a substitute school teacher and my dad was in the dairy business, neither of which were very lucrative. We never had running water until I was about 10 years old and we heated our house with a wood fireplace as much as we could (but the old furnace did kick in during those cold northern winters!) To say we were part of the lower income bracket is probably an understatement!

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How To Become A Company Of Giants

“If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.” ~ David Ogilvey

People are the foundation of our business. We need to ensure that we are building a rock solid business foundation and a huge part of this effort is to ensure that we are hiring the very best people we can. We want to hire giants, the best people we can find, so that we can become a company of giants and stand out from the crowd!

A number of years ago when we were hiring to fill quite a few engineer and project manager requirements, the leaders of the organization did the interviewing and candidate selection (the actual hiring was handled by HR). These leaders included the project managers and some of the top engineers. Using this method we were finding and hiring quality people.  Soon, however, the time required to recruit and hire new staff overtook the availability of these leaders, managers and engineers. Consequently, we ramped up a recruitment team whose job was to recruit and hire the staff that was required. The recruitment team consisted of human resource people.