A message to Garcia

I was reminded of this short story recently when I saw a few folks on Twitter and the Web highlight the birthday of Elbert Hubbard.  I first read this story when I read through Stephen R. Covey's The 8th Habit.  That was several years ago so I decided to have another read through the short story yesterday.  I was amazed that despite the advancement in technology and society, so much has stayed the same since Hubbard wrote this short story in 1899.  We're still looking for people who will take the initiative.  Who will do the right things without being told.  They're out there, but you have to look hard for them.  

I shared this short story with my Leadership class today, and encouraged them to become people who were known for taking iniative.  Hubbard identifies four key things that we should do:

1. Be loyal to a trust
2. Act promptly
3. Concentrate energies
4. Do the thing

The May 2011 Harvard Business Review focused on getting more things done.  Many of the articles say the same thing: Do something!  Don't just talk about the problem, fix it.  Don't blame someone else for things when they go wrong - figure out how to correct them yourself.  But in a world where we change our mind in the blink of an eye and where procrastination is fostered through technological distractions, we've lost the ability to concentrate on tasks for any length of time which keeps us from doing the thing that we're paid to do.   

In the end, more than a 112 years later, the person who does the right thing without being told is still a rare thing, and probably worth their weight in gold.