Synopsis
This is a rebroadcast of Episode 685, first released on December 9, 2020. Links and special offers may no longer be valid.
This week on the podcast, Dr. Misner shares a story from his college days, when he had a night-shift job stocking shelves at a grocery store. He had an idea for making it easier to get the shelves stocked, but when he mentioned it to his manager, the response was “We don’t pay you to think.”
But paying people to think is exactly what entrepreneurs and managers should always be willing to do. At BNI, Directors, Executive Directors, National Directors, Members, and Dana have all made observations that have changed the way Dr. Misner thinks about things.
The things we say to people can mean a lot. If you’re going to end up in someone’s story, you want to be in it for a positive reason. One of the ways you can do that is to listen to people’s advice and opinions as much as you can. (You don’t have to act on it, but listen to it.)
If you have a story, good or bad, share it in the comments—but don’t name names, either individuals or companies.
For more on the topic of “Whose story are you in?” check out Episode 637, “The Networking Mentor.”
Complete Transcript of Episode 875/685
Priscilla:
Hello everybody, and welcome back to The Official BNI Podcast. I’m Priscilla Rice, and I’m coming to you from Live Oak Recording Studio in Berkeley, California. And I’m joined on the phone today by the Founder and the Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, Dr. Ivan Misner. Hello, Ivan. How are you today?
Ivan:
I’m doing okay, Priscilla, thanks for asking. That’s an unusual title, isn’t it? You’ve got to be wondering what this is about.
Priscilla:
Definitely.
Ivan:
Well recently, my assistant, Dana, who’s amazing, made a couple of suggestions to me. And afterwards, she asked if I minded her giving these suggestions to me. And I immediately said that not only did I not mind her ideas, I actually wanted her to share those ideas with me. I then told her the story that I’m going to share with you today, and with everyone listening to this podcast, about an experience of mine many, many years ago.
I was 21 years old. I was finishing up my bachelor’s degree in California and I had scholarships to help but I still needed to work a job to pay for my living expenses. And I found a good paying position working for a really large chain grocery store, stocking shelves from midnight until 7:00 a.m. four days a week. And then I went to school. So I would go home, get a shower, and go to school. It was brutal, absolutely brutal. And on some days, I would work all night and go get that shower, and then go straight into classes by 9:00 a.m. Even then, I believed that sometimes you got to do what you got to do, to get to do what you want to do. And early on I knew one thing for certain, and that was that I did not want to work at a grocery store stocking shelves at any hour of the day for a career.
And I came to that realization because of one conversation that I had with the early-shift Assistant Manager. In other words, he was not one of the higher-level assistant managers. And I had this conversation soon after I started working there. The night crew had some serious quotas for boxes that had to go up on the shelves each and every night. While it didn’t sound very hard, the truth is it was back-breaking work and it was probably the most physical job I’ve ever had. And one morning as I was coming off a break, I had a conversation with the Assistant Manager. I made a suggestion to him that I thought would help in moving the many pallets, I mean pallets, of boxes that had to be taken by dolly to every aisle in the store and then put up on the shelves, you know, one item at a time. It was a small suggestion. I don’t even remember what it was, but I thought it would help. And that’s when the Assistant Manager gave me a life lesson that I would take with me for the rest of my career. He said, “Ivan, we don’t pay you to think. We pay you to get lots of boxes on lots of shelves every single night. Now go back to work.”
Priscilla:
Wow.
Ivan:
Yeah. And I remember so vividly standing there thinking, someday, I’m gonna own my own business. And I promised myself that I will never, ever say that to anyone who ever works for me, ever. In fact, I’ll tell them the opposite. I pay you to think. I want ideas. I want input. I want engagement. And that’s the philosophy that I’ve tried to bring to BNI, and it’s certainly the philosophy I’ve tried to bring with Directors, as well as Director Consultants and Ambassadors and Members. I want to hear your thoughts and ideas. Now I have no idea where this manager is today, but if I ever met him again, I’d actually tell him that I appreciate that comment. Because it cemented my belief that managers and entrepreneurs need to do the opposite of what he said to me.
You see words have power. And that’s not the kind of power I want to impart on other people. Managers need to listen to the ideas, entrepreneurs need to listen to the ideas, that employees have. They may not all be gems but listening shows you care about them and you care about their ideas. It also gets engagement, and possibly, even a certain amount of loyalty because the employee or the Director, in our cases many times, feels that their input matters. And I may not have played this perfectly over the years. But it’s something I truly strive to always do with people who have worked for me. I kept track of this Assistant Manager for about 10 years after I left the company. At that point, he had been promoted to the main-shift Assistant Manager.
And I was well on my way to building a global enterprise by that time, that now has operations in more than 70 countries. I believe that paying people to think is exactly what entrepreneurs and managers should always be willing to do. Sometimes, we get our life lessons from people who give us great advice. And sometimes we get our life lessons from people who give us horrible advice. By applying a little discernment, they can actually both be a gift. His was certainly a gift for me. I did my best to never, ever follow it. So, did it go in a slightly different direction than you thought?
Priscilla:
Yes, it certainly did. And that’s a great takeaway for some pretty bad advice.
Ivan:
Yeah, it was pretty bad advice. And you know, I think sometimes managers, entrepreneurs, just get so frustrated with all the things that have to be done. They just don’t want people talking, they just want them doing. And I get that. But at the same time, I think it’s really important to pay attention to the people that work with you and for you and hear them out. Because sometimes they do, in fact, have a gem. And I can’t tell you how many times the people who’ve worked for me gave me advice that changed what it was I was doing. Whether you’re talking about Dana, my assistant, who has many suggestions that I have, like, oh, wow, I didn’t think of that, thank you; to Directors, Executive Directors, National Directors, Members, who have made observations that have changed the way I’ve thought about things. And I don’t know if you remember, Priscilla, on one of our podcasts, I don’t remember the number, I talked about, and I may have done this more than once, how we have people in our story, that we share our experiences, and we tell about people that have been in our story, that are in our life, and that they’ve made a difference in our life, somehow, some way. And generally, these people we talk about are people that have had a positive difference. And one of the things, I know I’ve said this in a previous podcast, is that what’s most important is not who’s in your story, because we all have that. The question is, whose story are you in? And why are you in their story? Words have power. And the things we say to people can mean a lot. And you can be in someone’s story in a negative way, as this Assistant Manager was, or you can be in someone’s story in a positive way. And what I’m suggesting is that we all try to be in someone’s story in a positive way. And one of the ways you can do that is to always, as much as possible at least, listen to people’s advice and opinions. Because they, too, matter. And that’s my message for today. Priscilla.
Priscilla:
I like that message, Ivan. It shows a great deal of respect for the people that work for you and that you work with. And I think everybody benefits from that.
Ivan:
Yeah. And listen, if you have a story, good or bad, put the good ones, the good, the bad, the ugly, but if it’s bad, don’t name names, okay. Or name the companies. But if you’ve got a story, good or bad, I’d love to see it here on the BNI podcast. That’s it for today. Priscilla, back to you.
Priscilla:
Okay, great, Ivan, thank you so much. Well, that’s it for this week. I’d like to tell you that the sponsor for this podcast is Ivan’s Inner Circle. Go check out the great content that’s available at www.IvansInnerCircle.com. He has assembled a huge variety of interesting topics for you to learn about and also to participate in. Thank you so much for listening. This is Priscilla Rice and we look forward to having you join us again next week for another exciting episode of The Official BNI Podcast.
