esrosedotblog

HEROES

George Prince was my first boss in the management training business.

He died last week at the age of 91.

George Prince, consultant who sparked innovation, founded international firm

We didn't get along very well but he taught me a lot. You don't have to get along with someone to be inspired by their example.

I worked around him, rebellious and sometimes resentful, for five years. He was always teaching. No let up.

It was a wonderful experience.

George had the curiosity of a precocious child. Very frustrating. Very freeing.

He was a paradox. A vital leader of the innovation business and a guy who couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag. A gentle soul.

You can see how ambivalent I am about him.

George opened my eyes to the possiblities in other people. That listening is a most powerful tool and means to get together with others even in the most upsetting conflict.

He hatched outrageous ideas like hens lay eggs. It was so fucking annoying. We would be working with clients to help them solve an invention problem and, out of the blue, George would just come up with some off the wall idea that would make us all cringe. But he preached that we should consider everything and we did and out of his hare brained contribution, we often force fitted an elegant solution.

So he was a teacher and practitioner of creativity. A most successful one. Many inventions bear his fingerprints.

I could only stand working around him for the five years. I was young and impetuous and figured I had learned it all. In fact, I had learned a lot and I knew that I was OK and could go out on my own. A fledgling.

I remember saying goodbye to him. I never saw him again.

He was actually glad to see me go. No wonder. I was a thorn in his side and a pebble in his shoe. But he did love me. He had a sparkle in his eye.

He told me what I wanted to hear more than anything.

He said that no matter what I had gotten or not gotten out of working for him, I had become someone who could get 600 dollars a day for my work. And it was true.

In those days that was top dollar.

I had earned my keep. George, for all his flightiness and human values, loved money and making it. It was the bottom line. The proof of the pudding.

And he was right. I did stay at the top of the line for all the years I was in the training business.

I never went back to creativity but I did other stuff creatively and used the basics I learned from George. Never let up. Don't pat people on the head and kill them with kindness. Challenge them. Stay in balance and above all tell the truth about things.

Not bad lessons at all.

Labels: life, nostalgia, wisdom