Our youngest son, Chuck, returned to Saudi
Arabia last week. After ten days at home, he's
back in Qassim province, a three-hour drive north of
Riyadh, helping his consulting team there to
develop a strategy with the provincial government to
broaden the economic advancement of
the region.
During the first four months of this engagement, in the
most conservative area of the country, Chuck has
adapted at least superficially to enough of the local
mores to gain credibility with his clients.
He avoids looking at women, all of whom are fully
covered in the traditional abaya (long cloak)
and niqab (veil). He knows better than to try to
access alcohol in the Kingdom (except at U.S.
Embassy parties!). And he's gotten used to receiving
expurgated mail — our clipped articles from
the Globe or the Times don't survive the
Saudi inspectors if the other side of the page
happens to include a picture of Paris Hilton in a
typical pose.
So Qassim is a world apart from familiar Cambridge
or even westernized Dubai, which is where Chuck
will be based for the next two years. The signals are
very different and the pressure is intense. "I've
been forced to learn how to build relationships from
scratch, and quickly, which is a skill that may
have been a little underdeveloped previously," he
writes. "That these new relationships are with
people for whom I work, or who work for me, only
raises the degree of difficulty and steepens the
learning curve… and it is especially complicated
given the fluid, non-hierarchical, brain-based work we
do…"
My wife, Annie, and I read that and look at each
other, wondering where this adaptive self-assessing
ability came from — this, in a kid who's
just three years out of college. It probably wasn't the
three early-teen years with the paper route, though
that taught some useful customer-service skills. And
his summer with Tiger Floors Company produced
mostly calloused knees to go with an increased
appreciation for hard work. But understanding
relationship-building and fluid management
structures — where did he develop those
insights?
Ah — from Gentle
Giant. The moving company. From Larry O'Toole
(Founder and President) and his core cadre of
permanent staffers. A summer job: two years for
Chuck, including one as a crew chief, and one for
brother Will. Dealing with people in stressful
situations. Performing to high standards. Solving
problems. Motivating a diverse work crew. Writing up
invoices. Collecting from the customer. Reporting
in.
They didn't absorb the whole business structure, by
any means, but their three months provided an
important window for Chuck and Will. Partly as a
result, both have gotten up to speed quickly in their
career jobs since college. Both can draw lessons
from Gentle Giant and from their other summer job
experiences about organizations and about
management. Both can remember good and
not-so-good examples of planning and organizing,
supervising and evaluating, administering and
reporting, and — yes — building
relationships, as they begin to establish the basis
of their management careers.
So here we are in the U.S. less than ten years after
Chuck and Will's summer job experiences. Who's
doing the paper route? An adult with a reliable
vehicle. The floors? Another immigrant
family, hiring more immigrants. The moving?
Still a few ambitious kids, but good ones are
getting harder to find (see Alligator Bites, below),
just like lifeguards, lawn mowers, baby sitters, and
retail clerks.
Summer time for teens is less and less about
finding out how the world really works and
developing some independence. It has become
more and more an extension of the other nine
months of the year — summer academic
programs, or parent-sponsored travel, or organized
sports.
Does it make any difference to a small-company
owner or manager? Only if you're looking for people
to help you build your business. See how your
next few job candidates respond to the following
interview questions:
- What was your most significant
accomplishment before you graduated from high
school?
- What events or activities in your childhood
most contributed to your perspective on life?
How?
- What were the key factors that influenced
your choice of a career in business?
- When and how did you learn to manage your
own money?
- Do you consider yourself financially
independent of your parents or others? At what
point did you achieve this? How did you meet your
college expenses?
Self-starters start early. Summer jobs aren't
the only measure of maturity, motivation, reliability,
and responsibility, but they're a good one. When
those traits get planted early, roots run deep, and our
twigs end up weathering the storms of life… in
places as disparate as Cambridge and Qassim.
