This I Believe...

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

My father's 96th birthday would have been last Sunday, November 12, the day after Veteran's Day. Dad was a WWII vet having served in the Army Air Corps.

He spent most of his professional life working for the iconic Pan American World Airways, but he had a passion for being his own boss and having a business. One day, he came home all excited. He was awarded a Chevron service station franchise.

He loved it. These were the days of full-service gas stations with mechanics' bays, where the staff would come out to the car and pump gas for you and clean the windshields while you waited for the tank to fill.

As a business owner, Dad flourished. He built his customer base with excellent service and meticulous attention to detail. Small things mattered like listening to his customers, staying on top of the mechanics' projects, keeping the small office orderly, the floors of the mechanics' bay clean, and even the bathrooms (yes, the bathrooms) clean and filled with paper products.

My brother and I would ride our bikes to the station to help out, usually to sweep the floors, tidy up, and keep the bathrooms clean. Our dad would pay us, too. He would reach into his pocket pull out whatever money had in it, and dole out our compensation for a job well done.

Sometimes, I had to go back and redo my assignment because I didn't quite meet his expectations of what clean means. Also, I learned how to properly use a squeegee to clean car windshields. A very useful skill that I still practice today!

A Tough Decision

He had his struggles, too. It always seemed that there were people issues. It was hard to find good mechanics and service employees who would stay on for any length of time, for example.

Dad had several friends who were really good mechanics, and he would give them jobs only to find that they weren't reliable. He tried to help them as best he could but at some point, he had to let them go.

Amazingly, he was running his business by himself very successfully, yet he was holding down his manager's job at Pan Am working the midnight shift so he could be at the station six days a week

He tried to find a business partner so he could keep his job and have the station, too. He even asked his twin brother, Tom, to partner with him, but in the end, Tom decided not to join him. Dad had a tough decision to make.

My Dad, who had been working at Pan Am for twenty years or so, with four kids at the time (number five came a few years later) and a good health insurance plan, decided he couldn't keep burning the candle at both ends and sold the Chevron business. He made a tidy profit and bought his first new car, a 1972 Chevy Caprice Classic (as big as a whale).

A couple of years later, Pan Am faced financial woes and laid off hundreds of employees, including Dad. What seemed like a sure thing wasn't, as it turned out. He continued to work in the airline industry though, and retired from Midway Airlines years later.

What's the point you may be asking right about now?

This I believe...

I believe that the small things matter, that consistency matters, and that focusing on what matters most, matters.

It's easy to chase the newest fad or follow the herd when making business decisions. Chasing shiny objects only detracts from what you and your firm are good at and what you can be the best at.

Making key decisions as a leader is not easy. There are tons of distractions, mountains of ambiguity, and complexity, and you don't always have the best information upon which to make critical decisions. But deciding on a course of action and committing your firm to that course, you must.

The good news is you don't have to go it alone.

Surround yourself with good people to help you make good decisions. Seek out advice from colleagues, employees, and others outside of your company whom you trust.

Don't feel like you have to have all the answers, because you don't. You just need to know where to find them.

Be decisive, yes. But there's a real finesse in gathering enough data and deciding on when to commit. You likely will not have all the information you think you need.

In these moments, my advice is to follow your instincts. At some point, it's going to come down to just that, your gut feeling.

Until next time!