Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

When starting an endeavor that seeks the educate and spread information, here is a meager goal – don’t make the people less interested in the topic.

Consultant and author Jerry Weinberg taught this one to me. It is his goal when teaching a class or seminar. At the end, he wants to ask, “Are the people less interested in the subject?” If the answer is, “no,” he has succeeded.

That is a meager goal. It stems from the old medical goal of, “do no harm” or “don’t make the patient any sicker.”

I find this meager goal to be applicable to many endeavors.

• A producer makes a movie and puts it in theaters. When people watch the movie do they walk away thinking, “I will never spend a nickel on another movie in my live! Movies are terrible!”
• A band gives a performance. Do the concert attenders walk away thinking, “I will never attend another concert again! They are terrible!”
• I write a book instructing people how to use fill-in-the-blank-with-a-management-technique. Will the readers toss the book in the trash and say, “I’ll never try that technique!” or “I’ll never read another management book!”

Of course, I have to ask the same question about this blog post. After reading it, will people say:

• I’ll never read another blog post again.
• I’ll never read anything that Dwayne writes again.
• I’ll never ask the meager question posed in this post.

And so on…

Hmm, maybe this isn’t so much of a meager goal after all. Maybe it is a high standard that I’ll struggle to achieve.