Dedication

Unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth…you will work for the best years of your life.  When I say the best years I am referring to your, young and middle age years…or your years of optimum health.  The alarm clock rings…and you arise for another day of toil and labor, and your mission to place food on the table, and shoes on the babies feet, and a roof over your head, and petrol for the automobile.  Hopefully within the framework of your supreme efforts there is a little funds left over for a periodic vacation and some weekend enjoyment.  Have you ever worked, sick?  What about working when there are domestic issues that captivate your emotions and cloud your mind?  What about working after you have cared for your aged parents…or perhaps your parents of parent…live in your home and instead of having young children to care for…you also have old children to manage?

Then there is the interpersonal communication issues and personality clashes that are endemic in an office environment.  Maybe, colleagues desire to stand in the way of your success…unless they receive the financial recompense that they feel that they deserve.  And, there is the office or workplace politics that is as difficult to cruise as a tsunami, while being as dangerous to your career.  Of course there are the whispers and snide remarks and the gossip…that cuts like a knife to your soul.

Perhaps you work for a supervisor that is never happy with your job performance and who consistently moves the goal posts of success at the moment that you are prepared to spike the ball!  Do you see the bosses friends and cohorts and sycophants…succeed….while you are stuck in place?

Photo by Steve on Pexels.com

Photo by Jhefferson Santos on Pexels.com

So, now, we get the subject of the title of this blog…dedication.  Leaders, administrators, managers, supervisors, do you recognize dedication of your staff when you see it?

Dedicated people stay with the mission of the organization when there is no clear motivation to do so.  I have often heard it said when complimenting a colleague regarding their job performance, ‘show it on my check,’ when in reality, money is never in the first place of primary motivations for dedicated members of your staff. Many people are motivated by a heartfelt vision of what the mission of the organization, that they are serving, and their supreme efforts to bring to fruition that vision.   I have witnessed this type of allegiance in both the workplace and in church government.  People that may be shut out of decision making and yet continue to serve as a promise and pledge to the congregation and the vision of the church.

When you are involved in a career, your heart and emotions and life are involved in your efforts.  I know people at Southern Illinois  University @ Carbondale, that live and bleed Saluki Maroon!  During my over 32 year career at the University, I worked countless hours that I was not compensated for and when I was away from SIUC…I thought about it.  I wanted our department, Building Services, to be the best in the state of Illinois.  I wanted Plant and Service Operations to be appreciated throughout the Campus.  I wanted SIUC to succeed…and worked tirelessly toward that end.

The dedicated staff of Southern Illinois University are the secret to the success of the institution.  People who are not there for the money.  People, for whom the University resides in their heart.  Those who refuse to take, no for an answer, when it comes to the renaissance of their SIUC!

The next time that you are interacting with dedicated staff in either church work or employment environments…look for the quiet heroes.  They do not seek the limelight or the stage…but they are the backbone and the bedrock and the foundation of the organization, and the reason for the success of the group!

Photo by Samantha Garrote on Pexels.com