It was mid-term exam time for my American Government & Politics classes this past week and for the most part all of the students did fine.  And as I passed the corrected tests back and gauged the reactions…one young man pointed his finger at me and stated:  “Now sir I know why you make us do those one page Position Papers each week…to get us practiced to answer these essay questions in the same manner…right?”

Well I did NOT deny the accuracy of this discovery and I completely agreed and said:  “Yes I do practice having A Strategy Behind The Strategy for helping all of you get totally ready to get an A on these exams!”  And you can guess he was very proud of his revelation and was rewarded with smiles and multiple nods of support from his classmates!  I too joined in the smiles…but mine came more from a remembrance of my Dad and his use of A Strategy Behind The Strategy for getting me ready for my tomorrows.

What do I mean?

Think about it…as a very young boy he put me “in charge” of all of our baby calves.  I didn’t think it was right…but when he later said he didn’t think I was old enough to drive a tractor yet…I reminded him how much I could do when I was “way young”…and so I was very ready to do tractor-driving jobs…and MORE WORK!

Do you think Dad had A Strategy Behind The Strategy?

And if you don’t think I picked up on Dad’s strategies…I have to tell you I was caught many times by a co-worker or two.  Like when we cross-trained everyone in organizational services and even sent “office-people” out in the field to help client-customers face-to-face.  Or when we tried to better communicate in a more complete way about Agency activities every week.

Do you think I had A Strategy Behind The Strategy for reducing “that’s not my job” attitudes or “I can’t do that stuff cause no one told me” claims?

Bottomline:  Always think about having A Strategy Behind The Strategy as a means of creating personnel and organizational growth.  It helps you and those around you consider “What Next?/What Else? possibilities.