Do You ‘Own’ Your Job?

I hope I don’t disappoint when I tell you that what you’re about to read isn’t about Tiger Woods, the OctoMom, or anything remotely salacious. Instead, this is about you.

Let me share with you a story that Jim Stovall tells in his book You Don’t Have to Be Blind to See. It’s about two tribes that lived in the Andes Mountains and were constantly at war. One tribe lived in the lowlands and the other high in the mountains. The mountain people invaded the lowlanders one day and, as part of their plundering, kidnapped a baby of one of the lowlander families. They took the infant with them back up into the mountains.

The lowlanders didn’t know how to climb the mountain. They didn’t know any of the trails that the mountain people used. They didn’t know where to find the mountain people or how to track them in the steep terrain.

Even so, they sent out their best party of fighting men to climb the mountain and bring the baby home.

The men tried first one method of climbing the steep terrain and then another. They tried one trail and then another. After several days of effort, however, they had climbed only several hundred feet.

Feeling hopeless and helpless, the lowlander men decided that the cause was lost and they prepared to return to their village below.

As they were packing their gear for the descent, they saw the baby’s mother walking toward them. They realized that she was coming down the mountain that they hadn’t figured out how to climb.

More amazingly, they saw that she had the baby strapped to her back. How could that be?

One man greeted her and said, “We couldn’t climb this mountain. How did you do this when we, the strongest and most able men in the village, couldn’t do it?”

The mother just shrugged her shoulders and said, “It wasn’t your baby.”

So, I ask you, “Is it your baby?”

At work, do you care enough to go to any length to get the job done? This story illustrates the importance of commitment and devotion. Was the mother in our story best suited to get the job done? It’s unlikely. The search party was made up of the strongest and most able men in the village. Yet she succeeded where they did not.

The bottom line is that she cared about the results more than they did. That level of caring and commitment allowed her to overcome obstacles that others could not. Success is part determination and part endurance.

Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. —  Calvin Coolidge

We live in a world that continues to struggle with the most difficult economic times of our generation. Most companies aren’t achieving the results that they have grown accustomed to. Large, respected institutions have been brought to their knees. You need to “own” your job. It needs to be “your baby” if you want to succeed. Only that level of commitment, persistence, and determination will allow you to climb that mountain and achieve your objectives.

Ask yourself today, “Is it my baby?”