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Respect and Loyalty
file under Uncategorized - fmalek @ 10:24 amNo Comments »
The Business section of the Washington Post has a great article today about my son, his service in the Navy and what it has taught him about business. Much as I would like to think so, even I didn’t teach him everything. Here’s a bit of it:
We will get to his business, but first I wanted to know from Malek whether his Navy years built skills that help him manage a $38 million business with 150 employees.
“You have to learn what works and what doesn’t work,” he said. “What works is you have to earn people’s respect and loyalty through example and how you treat them. What doesn’t work is assuming they are loyal automatically.”
He told me about being on a troop ship in the Pacific bound for Iraq and Desert Storm. His team was training for combat on four-hour shifts where half would sleep while the rest prepared. After several visits from a white-gloved senior officer inspecting the quarters for cleanliness, Malek blew up.
ad_icon“I told him that my people needed their rest and they needed their sleep and this has got to stop,” Malek recalled.
Rebuffing the officer might have gotten him in trouble, but it bonded his men to him for the rest of the mission.
“I learned then that it is all about focusing on the mission and giving your team the best chance of succeeding,” he said.
