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Sandra Florence
Bus-1050-406-Su15
Professor German Lopez
August 1, 2015
Final Test
My favorite lecture of this semester was; Letters from a SelfMade Merchant to His Son by George Horace Lorimer. Mr. Lorimer
was a journalist and author from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. He
is best known as an editor for the Saturday Evening Post. This lecture is
one of the letters from the book Lorimer published in the early 1900s.
This lecture is written as if the fictional character John Graham, of
the House of Graham & Company, a pork packing facility in Chicago,
were writing to his son, Pierrepont. This was under the premise that his
son had just been promoted and he is sending him a bit of advice.
I must admit I was

(Gruger and Justice)

disappointed to find out that John Graham was

not a real person; but, despite that, I find the wisdom written over 100 years ago to be
surprisingly applicable more than a century later. I found the letter humorous and fun to read.
Mostly humorous because of the preachy, old-fashioned style. But beyond that, I was struck by
how pertinent the information was to todays world. I loved the no nonsense approach and
straight forward advice. I will pull some of my favorite pieces of advice found in the letter and
compare them to today.
You cant work individuals by general rules. Every man is a special case and needs a
special pill. (Lorimer) Early in my leadership career, I had the opportunity to hear Ken
Blanchard, PhD speak. Ken is a highly respected leadership expert. I have been a fan ever since
and have read most of the books he has written. I studied Ken Blanchards Situational
Leadership II philosophy, which basically serves as a model to support Lorimers statement. I
learned through study and practice that leaders must be flexible and adapt according to the
individual and the situation. When a new hire starts, they are excited and eager to learn the new

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job (if they arent, youve probably hired the wrong person). A leader uses a style that is very
directive; deciding how, when and where tasks are accomplished. As the employee matures in
the position, the leader adapts until the style is very supportive; but mostly hands off. The model
assigns numbers to the developmental curve of an employee. A new employee starts at D1 and
matures to D4. The leader uses a leadership style that matches the development stage. Again,
numbers are assigned, from S1 to S4. My life was always easiest when I had a team of D4s
because the S4 style is more supportive and doesnt require as much of my time. Conversely,
when I had a team of predominately D1s, it was exhausting. Blanchard states; Situational
leadership is not something you to do to people but something you do with people. (Blanchard
and Johnson 85) I learned over time how important this is. I have one on one meetings with
each of my direct reports on a monthly basis. While performance of all my team members is
based on a standard set of key statistics, the approach I take with each individual is unique. I
truly care about each employee and I am invested in their success. We use these meetings to
determine the course that best suites the employees strengths. In addition we decide how much
involvement they need from me. The direction we agree to is as unique as the individual. This
approach has served me well over the last 2 decades.
Be slow to hire and quick to fire. (Lorimer) There is no better piece of advice for a
leader. Hiring is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges companies face, and, at the same
time one of the most rewarding opportunities. Executing it well the first time will help avoid
costly and time-consuming repercussions, bolster a necessary area effectively and have a positive
impact on your existing team. (Kaiser) One of my biggest hiring mistakes was a young female
who transferred from our Denver location to my office in Midvale. I didnt follow my usual
hiring protocol. I needed someone and I was so focused on the fact that I wouldnt have to train
her, I simply approved the internal transfer without interviewing her or checking references. She
worked for me for 7 days before I terminated her employment for violating our company policy.
I was in the office with her for 3 days before I left on a business trip. While I was out, I received
a call from our Human Resource department. Once they detailed what she had been doing in my
absence, I was compelled to come back early and investigate. She ultimately sued me for
discriminating against her. It took 2 years for the legal system to deal with her claims, which
were frivolous. She did not prevail, but it cost the company tens of thousands of dollars in legal
fees. In the course of the investigation, we learned that many of the behaviors, that ultimately

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cost her continued employment, were exhibited in the Denver office prior to her transfer. They
had spoken with her a few times, but never took any meaningful action. At one point, I
estimated this employee cost us hundreds of unproductive hours in addition to the costs of
litigation. Had the Denver manager dealt with her swiftly, it would not have been such a costly
Geralt

ordeal. We both made expensive errors. First, in not terminating her before
she transferred to my office and then in hiring her without taking enough

time to interview her with the proper amount of investigation.

Consider carefully before you say a hard word to a man, but never let a chance to say
a good one go by. Praise judiciously bestowed is money invested. (Lorimer) After managing
the UT office for 11 years, I was asked to move to the WA office. The manager in WA had been
terminated and I was asked to take over and make the necessary adjustments to get the branch
back on track. One of the ways we measure the effectiveness of our leadership is to administer a
companywide engagement survey. A survey was completed just after I arrived and we found that
a majority of the team was highly disengaged. This means that most of the team members I
inherited were working against our success. I knew I had my work cut out for me. I interviewed
each member of the office. Most had an innate negativity. This was a team that, on a daily basis,
chose to look at the negative side of most every situation. I was pretty
discouraged and the only think I could think to do was show them
something different.
I am very positive by nature and I learned early in my leadership
career that I got a lot farther when I praised an employee than when
I criticized. This doesnt mean that I am not willing to hold people
accountable for their performance. When I find that I must speak
with someone

Ramdlon

about poor performance, I always start from the

heart. I want them to be successful; so we work together to figure what changes need to be made
to hit our objectives.
I live by and teach my leadership team to catch their employees doing something right.
Catching people doing things right is a relationship-building and self-efficacy enhancing tool.
Done properly, it will build competencies, skills, knowledge and attitudes that we all wish to see
in our workplaces. (Sansom) Catching someone doing something right is more than just surface
praise. I worked for a manger once who was instructed by her boss to be more engaged with her

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team. She stood at the exit at closing time and told us all good job as we each left. It felt
empty and didnt mean much. I often wondered what I did that she found good that day. I dont
think she really knew.
I want my employees to flourish. To flourish means to live within an optimal range of
human functioning, one that connotes goodness, generativity, growth, and resilience.
(Fredrickson and Losada 678) I have studied the Broaden and Build Theory that helped shaped
my approach with employees. Interestingly the theory ties into another lecture this semester
about Natural Selection. The theory posits that the function of positive emotions, as shaped
over millennia by the processes of natural selection, was to build an individuals resources for
survival. (B. L. Fredrickson 2) The Broaden-and-Build Theory states that positive emotions
have been useful and preserved over human evolution because having recurrent, yet unbidden,
moments of expanded awareness proved useful for developing resources for survival. Little by
little, micro-moments of positive emotional experience, although fleeting, reshape who people
are by setting them on trajectories of growth and building the enduring resources for survival.
(B. L. Fredrickson 2) Moreover, experiments with brain imaging (e.g., fMRI) reveal that
positive emotions expand peoples field of view at very early perceptual encoding stages
[Schmitz, DeRosa, & Anderson, 2009]. Positive emotions, then, quite literally widen peoples
outlook on the world around them. (B. L. Fredrickson 2) Employees with expanded awareness
are more likely to see their work life as bigger than themselves. This leads to higher productivity
and an attitude that promotes teamwork. A team all working toward success for themselves and
the company is a win-win.
After employing my catch them doing things right philosophy and teaching my leadership
team the power of positivity, we administered another engagement survey a year and a half later.
This time, the results were much better. In fact the score had more than doubled in a positive
direction. I now have a team that is working towards our success not against it. Thank goodness!

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One of my favorite tales is from an unknown author:

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a
battle that goes on inside people. He said, My son, the
battle is between two wolves inside all of us. One is
Negativity its anger, sadness, stress, contempt, disgust,
fear, embarrassment, guilt, shame and hate. The other is
Positivity - its joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride,
amusement, inspiration, awe, and above all, love. The
grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his
grandfather: Which wolf wins? The old Cherokee simply
replied, The one you feed. When we follow the advice to
praise judiciously, the positive wolf wins.

Audte, Patrice

No man can ask more than he gives and theres nothing breeds work in an office like
a busy boss. (Lorimer) I believe in and teach the importance of the shadow of a leader to my
leadership teams. It is a timeless concept. Im not sure who actually penned the phrase first, but
it has been widely written about and studied by Larry Senn, Jim Hart and John Childress.
Those in leadership positions cast shadows far and wide across their company.
(Childress) We must lead by example. Our leadership behaviour has an impact
on performance. High performance leadership teams understand that their
collective and individual behaviour casts a positive or negative shadow across
the entire organization. And since employees tend to take their cues on what is
important and how to behave from their leaders, negative behaviour at the top
creates negative behaviours far down into the organization, adversely impacting
performance and productivity. Whether the leadership team is aware of it or not,
Martin, Lisa

their behaviour casts a powerful shadow far into their organization. And actions
speak louder than words! People watch the behaviour of their leaders for clues

as to what is accepted and what is not. When the leadership team says one thing and then
behaves differently employees quickly figure out the real story. One of the major obligations of
leadership is integrity between words and deeds!(Childress)

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For quite a long time, the company I worked for seemed to have a double standard. We
preached integrity and ethics and yet members of the sales team were allowed to do quite the
opposite. Ive caught them, falsifying documents, misrepresenting our service to potential
clients and unduly enriching themselves by submitting accounts as new sales that were fake
businesses. Their leaders encouraged and taught them the techniques that resulted in their
actions. The sales leaders cast a shadow that was not in keeping with the philosophy we
professed in our employee handbook. This started at the top with our VP of Sales. He had a
philosophy that if they hit their quotas the sales leaders and sales representatives were
untouchable even if they blatantly violated our ethics standards. Once he left the company, the
new VP of sales came in and cast a different shadow. He has supported our ethics policies. Sales
reps and their leaders have been disciplined for violating our policies and in some cases have lost
their jobs. The shadow cast by the new VP of Sales is having a positive impact.
I smiled when I read, The salary will be fifty dollars a week, and the duties of the
position to do your work so well that the manager cant run the department without you,
and that you can run the department without the manager. (Lorimer) This is exactly my
philosophy. I dont need my managers help to run my branches and he doesnt have to worry
about whether things are taken care of. I let my results speak for me and I rarely need to speak
with him. I think he likes it that way. I was curious how well
paid Pierrepont would be in his new position; so I used an
inflation calculator to determine that the equivalent in todays

$50/WEEK

dollars would be $1388.89 or an annual salary of $72,222.28.

ADJUSTED FOR
INFLATION

Interestingly, this is exactly in the range of pay that I pay my

$1388.89

leaders in todays world.

Another great piece of advice; Never threaten, because a threat is a promise to pay
that it isnt always convenient to meet, but if you dont make it good it hurts your credit.
(Lorimer) This statement is so true. The most common thing I have to counsel employees on is
their attendance. We follow a prescribed counseling process that includes written
documentation. I dont typically use language asserting that the employee will be terminated at
the next offense; because I dont want to be backed into a corner. I want to allow for extenuating
circumstance and I dont want to lose my credibility if I dont chose to terminate their
employment.

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The letter concludes with this advice; When youre through

+50
%
-50%

sizing up the other fellow, its a good thing to step back from yourself
and see how you look. Then add fifty per cent to your estimate of your
neighbor for virtues that you cant see, and deduct fifty per cent from
yourself for faults that youve missed in your inventory, and youll
have a pretty accurate result. (Lorimer) This is
not only great business advice, but great life advice.

I am engaged to be married. We have spent that last 2 years getting to

know one another. Ive found this philosophy very useful. I assume
positive intent when he does or says something and Im taking a more
judicious look at myself when we have a rough patch. Abraham Lincoln
once said; If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you
surely will. I would rather look for the good in people and expect to find
it. Im happier that way.

Abraham
Lincoln

There is so much advice in this letter that I appreciate. It was difficult to find any piece
of advice in the letter that wasnt applicable to today. Were always looking for the newest and
best way to do things. Technology has certainly changed in the last century, but the basics of
effective human behavior are timeless.

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Works Cited
Audet, Patrice. Wolf. CCO Public Domain. Pixabay. 2015. Photo.
Blanchard, Ken and Spencer Johnson. The One Minute Manager. New York: William
Morrow, 1982. Print.
Childress, John R. Leadership Behavior and Organization Performance The "Shadow
of the Leader" Concept. Article. London: The Principle Project, 2009.
Fredrickson, B L and M F Losada. "Positive arrect and the complex dynamics of
human flourishing." American Psychologist, 60(7) (2005): 678-686.
doi:10.1037/0003-066X.60.7.678.
Fredrickson, Barbara L. "Updated Thinking on Positivity Ratios." Advance online
publication. doi: 10.1037/a0033584. 2013, July 15.
Geralt. You Are HIred. CCO Public Domain. Pixabay. n.d. Clip Art.
Gruger, F R and B Martin Justice. I started in to curl up that young fellow to a crisp.
Small, Maynard & Company. Letters from A Self-Made Merchant To His Son.
Boston, 1903. Book Illustration.
Kaiser, Mary. "Now to Hire the RIght Person for the Job." 3 June 2015. Entrepreneur.
31 July 2015.
Lorimer, George Horace. Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to his Son. Boston:
Small, Maynard & Company, 1902.
Martin, Lisa. shadow-man. ABSFreePic. n.d. Photo.
Ramdlon. Be Positive. Pixabay. CCO Public Domain. n.d. Photo.
Sansom, Lisa. "What does it mean to catch someone doing something right?" 15
February 2014. LVSCONSULTING. 1 August 2015.
Unknown. Abe Lincoln. Terms of use: Private home/school non-commercial, nonInternet re-usage only is allowed of any text, graphics, photos, audio clips,
other electronic files or materials from The History Place. The History Place.
1996. Photo.