A Charles Dickens Leadership Lesson
For years now, many Christmas Eves, I have been a fan of the classic tale by Charles Dickens; A Christmas Carol. I have loved this story in all of its forms: A Muppet Christmas Carol, Mickey's Christmas Carol, Disney's A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey, and more. However, none of these versions hold a candle to the original.
I have read A Christmas Carol multiple times, and every time I read it I learn something new. This particular something I wanted to share with you this Christmas. If you, like me, having the privilege of leading a team of people, whether great or small, have the opportunity for a great lesson here.
Through the years I have read many books on leadership, business management, and organizational strength, but I have yet to find a lesson so profound and sincere as the one found in Scrooge's visit to his past. Every vision, every memory he relives with the Ghost of Christmas past carries with it a purpose, a recalled experience meant to soften the heart of this cold, lonely, embittered soul. And it is his visit with his former employer, Old Fezziwig, that I want to recall here. Join me as I read along...
"When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads - Scrooge and Dick Wilkins - were left to their beds; which were under a counter in the back shop.
During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear.
'A small matter,' said the Ghost, 'to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.'
'Small!' echoed Scrooge.
The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said,
'Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: there or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?'
'It isn't that,' said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. 'It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.'
He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.
'What is the matter?' asked the Ghost.
'Nothing particular,' said Scrooge.
'Something, I think?' the Ghost insisted.
'No,' said Scrooge, 'No. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all.'"
In that moment, when he was defending the character and loving nature of his former employer, Scrooge fell under the conviction of his own adulation. Remembering the impact that Fezziwig had on him as a young man, and the value he had added to Scrooge's younger self by his actions, attitude, and words, he remembered there and then...Bob Cratchit.
The last few words Scrooge had spoken to his clerk before his Ghostly encounters were anything but encouraging. Threatening to fire him for humbly applauding his Nephew's praise of the Christmas time, mocking the lowliness of his working situation - which, mind you, was Scrooge's own doing - and the meager money he made, and then again by bludgeoning him verbally about his paid time off in observance of Christmas Day. Scrooge was a miserable boss; a burden of a manager under which to serve.
At the end of the day, we do have a job to do in our professions. We have goals to overcome, metrics to achieve, quotas to meet, projects to complete, products to distribute, services to perform, and so on: the work has to be done if the business is to remain and grow. However, we do not have to sacrifice our humanity while also being productive in our work, or in our leading of others in their work.
Just imagine...how much would you get done at work if your team did not show up? How much would get ordered, received, inventoried, fabricated, quality checked, packaged, delivered, installed, shipped, quoted, invoiced, billed, and collected without your people? At the end of the day, regardless of the work you do, odds are you depend on people: whether to perform the functions of your business, or to be those with whom we conduct our business. We need people.
We can not afford to be Scrooge. Yes, Scrooge was well off, with all the money and substance that a person could want, but he had nothing else. The visions he had of the old scoundrels picking through his belongings for gain, his former business associates dismissing his funeral save for the opportunity to enjoy a free lunch, or those poor souls indebted to him who became gleeful at the hearing of his passing for the hope of a new creditor who could scarcely be so unforgiving...all of which were the sum of the equation that was Scrooge's handling of the people in his life for the pursuit of his own bottom line.
May it not be so with us. We are here, at the close of one year and looking ahead at the next, with such an opportunity in front of us to be different. In fact, as Scrooge found to be true, every day we wake we have the opportunity to pursue those nobler endeavors of business. Remember how Marley's Ghost rebuked Scrooge in his attempt to better his bleak situation by praising his former partner's business acumen:
"'Business!' cried Marley, wringing his hands again. 'Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!'"
It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.
'At this time of the rolling year,' the specter said, 'I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode!? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!?'"
What a powerful illustration!
When one of your team has an issue, how do you respond? Yes, we have to get the job done, but how different the impact of our questioning could be if rather than delivering a "Your work performance is slipping: lock it up!" we offer a humble "I noticed you have been struggling to meet your goals lately. Are you ok? Is everything alright?"
It always seems this time of year, the Christmas time, that people are more susceptible to a softening of the heart, and, like Scrooge's Nephew, Fred, observed, "I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round - apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that - as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not some other race of creatures bound on other journeys."
We who Lead, Manager, Supervise, or whatever professional jargon is you may use, have so great an opportunity to impact the lives of those reporting to us. In fact, I have come to see it more as my Duty rather than an opportunity that is simply afforded me by my position. If someone were to ask me, after any given tenure in this or that business was complete, whether or not I seized any opportunity to make better, by my own actions or by the influence inherent with my role, the lives of those over whose charge I was given and my answer be anything else but, "Yes! Of course I did!" I would hope to be ashamed of myself.
Tomorrow is Christmas. Whether you are visited in the night by a host of specters goading you on to a better way or not, may we begin to see our days as opportunities for betterment. Betterment not just in our dealings or profit, but in our personal relationships, in our influence in the lives of others, in our giving of encouragement or hope, in our uplifting of the downhearted, in our investment in the good of others, in our giving the benefit of the doubt, in our walking beside our underlings rather than lording over them, and any number of other ways we may find.
Merry Christmas to you and yours this joyous season.
And, as Tiny Tim observed, "God bless us! Everyone!"
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