One of the things any effective leader would like to instill in their team members is the feeling that it is “my business.” You are the businessperson. It is your reputation. Your money is on the line.
As a college student, I worked at night at The Tastee Bread Company in Nashville, Tennessee. Their motto was “Baked while you sleep.” The company had a suggestion box and rewarded employees with monetary payments for suggestions that saved money or improved productivity. A member of the maintenance department measured the water being lost by a leaky faucet and applied the utility’s rate to calculate the monetary cost of water being lost yearly. He entered a suggestion that the bad washer causing the leak be replaced. The suggestion even included his calculation of the dollar amount the replaced washer would save the company. The next day, after the suggestion box had been opened and his suggestion read, he was fired.

You see, he was the maintenance man. It was his job to repair the faucet. Something he would have done if he had looked at The Tastee Bread Company as “my business.”

With a common sense of direction and an understanding of the rules of the road, you will make the right decisions and avoid the wrong ones as long as you treat this as your business.
It is your business; just stay on I-65 North!

# # #

Mysteries by Tom Collins include Mark Rollins’ New Career, Mark Rollins and the Rainmaker, Mark Rollins and the Puppeteer and the newest, The Claret Murders. For signed copies go to http://store.markrollinsadventures.com. Print and ebook editions are available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online bookstores. The ebook edition for the iPad is available through Apple iTunes' iBookstore.