My early career moves were from mowing yards to bagging groceries to driving a tractor to working in a gas station to pouring concrete. Looking back, I learned the most from pouring concrete.
I was the only one in my family of five kids to go on to postsecondary education directly out of high school. While I thought about college, knowing that I had to pay my way, I decided to go to a two year Vo-Tech school to be an Electronic Tech. Of the jobs I had to that point, fixing cars was the one that paid well and I enjoyed the most, so I could see myself as a TV Repairman.
I left Macksville for Salina Area Vo-Tech. It was a great move on my part. I loved learning the theories of electronics and found that I was very good at breaking a problem down and repairing radios and TVs. Good enough, I won the Kansas Vocational Industrial Clubs of America (VICA) in electronics and competed at the National level both years.
I moved to Dallas from Kansas once I graduated Vo-Tech because of my Uncle Ron, my dad's younger brother. Uncle Ron took an interest in me. He told me that I had too much potential to stay in Kansas. Uncle Ron was someone to listen to. He came from my same background to reach the C level executive suite. I always thought it important to listen closely to his advice. Just as important was to not let him down.
Soon I was a Field Service Rep traveling the Southwest fixing electronic medical diagnostic equipment in hospitals. I loved the work of problem resolution along with the customer interaction and was really good at both.
Complete rebuild and carburetor kit. Started on the third pull. Mike Kephart
Diagnosing and resolving problems with both the customer and instrument is a skill that serves you well throughout your career. How many times will someone diagnose the symptom and not get to the true problem? An example you see often in sales is the problem of lack of first meetings. The diagnoses will often be that Reps aren't making enough calls. The real problem many times is in the message. Either the company is providing an ineffective message or the Reps aren’t doing a good job of communicating the message. Either way, increasing the number of dials doesn't necessarily lead to more meetings.
Abbott Labs hired me and we moved to Tulsa. I learned the importance of goal setting and planning along with working the plan. My plan was to become the National Field Service Rep of the year for Abbott Labs. I learned the hard way that not only is it important to build and work the plan but make changes to the plan as new challenges are presented. While I was very disappointed when I didn't win the first year, I made the necessary changes to the plan and achieved my goal the second year. This opened the door to several promotions and relocations for my family.
A few years later, I felt ready for the Field Service Manager's position, Abbott announced a new rule. You had to have a college degree to become a Manager. Time to change the plan; I started night school and earned my degree in Business Administration. I enjoy learning new things. The great part was the Minor in Leadership Studies. I believe that if you are born with leadership skills, you then have to spend your life developing those skills, and that is what I continue to do.
Abbott sent me to Atlanta as the Field Service Manager. The Atlanta District had a Manager who had been there a while, so Leadership chose me as I had demonstrated strong leadership skills and was action oriented to make changes. The Atlanta Team needed to be held accountable. While I didn't know it at the time, my leadership style was much like the "broken window theory." I took care of the small stuff which set the stage to fix the big issues. Top performers improved and flourished while under performers either accepted their plan to improve or left. Some had to be shown the door. The Atlanta District turned around and became a top performing District.
What life lessons did I learn from pouring concrete in the hot Kansas sun? That hard work in those tough conditions gave me focus beyond anything else to study hard as studying hard was nothing compared to pouring concrete.