Identifying what you did well and enjoyed doing is the key to maintaining a career and should be a central strategy in any education system. Your success is determined by your ability to do what you love.
My experience as a child from age 1 to 7 included playing the piano by ear, listening to all music from classical to country. All of my relatives were clowns and I acquired a sense of humor. I learned to be entertaining. I listened to music on the radio. I learned to sing and harmonize with my older brother. I saw lots of stage performances from light opera in St. Louis to broad-way shows in Manhattan New York. We got a TV when I was 6 and preferred comedy and musicals.
I was born in St. Louis Missouri. I moved to Hallettsville Texas at age 2, moved to Providence Rhode Island at age 3, moved to Memphis Tennessee at age 4, moved to Queens New York at age 5. I was homeschooled from age 2 to 6 and entered 3rd grade at age 6. I moved back to St. Louis at age 8. Our families lived in St. Louis and we had visited them every Christmas.
My parents separated in 1951 when I was 8 years old. My mom, brother and I returned to St. Louis. My dad had been promoted to Managing Director of Volkart Brothers and moved to Brussels. I saw this as an understandable failure to maintain their relationship. My mom never wanted to leave her family in St. Louis and would have preferred that my dad would have remained in St. Louis to continue to expand his gas station businesses. My dad was too talented and totally career oriented as was the norm in the 1950s. I decided to not repeat this mistake. I moved my family 3 times, but my wife was fully on-board. She liked the moves from 9 years in St. Louis to 8 years in Kansas and 40 years in Atlanta. My wife got to have 6 kids and got to have her career as a Dental Hygienist. We will celebrate our 60th Wedding Anniversary in August 2024 with our 6 kids, 12 grandkids and 6 great grandkids.
My experience in doing home chores and projects from age 8 to 13 were critical in determining my skills and interests. I cut the grass, raked leaves, gathered peaches from our peach tree, swept out the garage, painted storm windows, replaced the concrete sidewalk and painted the house. I was interested in learning how houses were built and how things were made. I really enjoyed being a fixer-upper.
I learned to play the Bugle for the Boy Scouts at age 8 and learned to play the trumpet at age 10 in the Grade School band. I learned to play the Guitar at age 11. I won a Trumped Scholarship to high school at age 13.
I started a Rock Band at age 14 and played for Teen Towns 3 nights a week to pay for my high school expenses. I preferred Chuck Berry and Ray Charles rock. I did not do songs by Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson or the Beetles. I joined a Dirty Two Horn Blues Band at age 18 and played at Little Milton’s club where BB King visited. We became the house band for the Livingroom on Gaslight Square nights a week to pay for college. Chuck Berry came to our club in 1963 and sat in.
I became interested a career as a Personnel Director at age 10 and read “American Communist Goals” at age 10. I was motivated to remove the Mafia and the Marxists from the Labor Unions in US manufacturing companies. I was also motivated to remove Communism from the US. My motivation was anger at US manufacturing companies for putting up with the Labor Unions and Communists. Many companies had moved to Right-to Work States. Consultants were advising companies to create employee teams and become union-free.
My course was set. I was able to select my college courses to support my career plans, had no school debt and graduated in 3.5 years. I had done all my extra-curricular activities in high school and had no time for them in college. My summer jobs in college included working as a therapist at St. Louis State School and Hospital and a steel worker at Granite City Steel. School was never hard for me. I had an IQ test at age 6 with a 120 IQ. My Iowa Tests indicated that I functioned 2 years ahead of my age group. My favorite course was Physics, because theories were confirmed using the scientific method.
The purpose of sharing my experience is to give you a roadmap to determining your own motivated abilities.
My first instinct was that individuals need to select their own interests and occupations. Helping them determine these requires a base-line series of tests they would use to decide what they wanted to get better at. At that point, they connect with the urgency to follow the path they set.
My first experiment in employee development was conducted at Schwan Foods in 1975. They promoted from within and were interested in employee development. The employees wanted us to use a test to confirm qualifications for supervisors who led the bakery, assembly and packaging groups. They also wanted job descriptions and a job evaluation process. Schwans had identified the APT test as a possible solution. I started an ASPA Chapter for 40 companies’ personnel staffs in Salina to get a wage survey requested by the Chamber of Commerce.
At Schwan Foods, I personally wrote the job descriptions and established pay levels using a 9 point job evaluation plan. I had my staff and I take the APT test and confirmed that they were as smart as they seemed. I soon learned that all of the employees were smart. Many of the employees were farm kids, who did their chores and had A averages in school. The problem was that I wanted employees to discover and prepare to do what they loved. I had my Training Supervisor test employees and give them the test results along with books that could improve their scores. These turned into a series of counseling sessions. They connected and took responsibility for their own development, where it belonged. This helped employees add to the skills they would need when we fully automated the plant in 1978. I also used the Meyers Briggs and DISC tests to add personality dynamics to the picture. I also developed a weighted Performance Appraisal that motivated employees to get the highest scores they could get. I completed what I joined Schwan Foods to do and then some. I joined Rickel Manufacturing in Salina to run off the UAW.
Getting employees to take control of their own destinies requires a Strategic Plan.
The first step in Strategic Planning is to describe current conditions to determine a base-line. The next step is to determine the best ways to improve performance. The first step is to allow employees to determine their own destinies by giving them the information they need to accomplish what they wanted to do.
Unfortunately, our education system and our current companies are not using any effective solutions to impower employees, so you are on your own. You need to use my road-map to determine your own roadmap.
Several companies are looking to use AI to confirm their list of known employee abilities, but none have mentioned the need to enlist employees to work to improve their own skills or discover what they love to do. If they fail to do this, their expensive AI system will fail.
We should require all candidates for elective office to take the APT test and publish their results.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea
Party Leader
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