Today in church our pastor delivered another strong sermon, this time beseeching us to be more generous and humble. (Of course I can’t report that I am humble as doing so would prove my assertion false, a catch-22 first reported by Ben Franklin in his autobiography.) Anyway before evoking the passage of it being “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man . . .” our pastor recounted his having owned a Chevrolet Chevette in his days as a seminary student.

His story about his Chevette was quite good as he described the Chevette model as precisely opposite a Corvette in terms of performance and design. The one redeeming quality of his chug-a-lug Chevette was that it was cheap. When he became a pastor and received a real paycheck he was able to upgrade to a better vehicle. The point of his story was admitting, now the proud owner of a Ford Taurus, looking down (ever so unnoticed to anyone else) on any Chevette pulling up next to him.

I would like to say the reason for posting this bit is it serves an analogous lesson to our student body; the duty of being educated is to not look down on others but to exhalt them. And be humbled by the perfect wisdom of God. Actually, this is a good reason. But my curiosity this morning upon hearing the story was more worldly: Was the Chevy Chevette really that bad? I know General Motors has been poorly run for quite some time now, but was Chevette the GM version of the Edsel? Most of our Rockhurst students are too young to remember the Chevette, but I’m not. It is worth doing a little research . . .

Welcome

For the inaugural post to this blog, I am writing from the Hays, Kansas airport. Actually (and my wife would disapprovingly agree) this is an appropriate place to start given I am spending more time in airports these days. This morning, with my management colleague Turner White, I presented a paper to an audience of business professors from all over the country.

I am usually reluctant to make these trips—it has costs, not the least of which was miss my morning Principles of Management class. But I also get to meet some interesting people in my field of management and business. For example, we got to hear from Matt DeFeo, a marketing V.P. for Techtronic Industries. Though Mr. DeFeo was an excellent and engaging speaker on the topic of leadership, the interesting thing was learning about his company, Techtronic. Did you know that this company makes the Swiffer (another company owns the brand), including the new hit the electronic Swiffer? They also own brands like Hoover, Ryobi, and Dirt Devil. They make other tools that are branded by other companies – tools like Craftsman and Rigid. Techtronics is one of those companies that makes a lot of things that nobody knows about. I love learning about companies and how they find ways to create value for their stakeholders – customers and employees.

I enjoy not only learning about companies but learning the people part, which is management (and leadership). In fact, learning and management have a symbiotic relationship . . . this blog will explore some of my reflections and observations about management, teaching, and learning as experienced here at Rockhurst. I am thankful for the opportunity . . .