By David Hegg
Labor Day is around the corner with all of its fun, food and family. Sadly, conversations about actual labor and the part it plays in America’s success aren’t usually on the menu. Maybe they should be. If we took time to evaluate the work ethic in our country, we’d find a debilitating toxin has crept into the marketplace.
I have a good friend who recently left home for his first spring training as a professional baseball player. After honing his craft through Little League and high school, he was recruited by a university, and did so well he was drafted and signed to a professional contract.
My friend might seem just like other university grads ready to launch their careers. But from my vantage point, his mindset is vastly different from most others in this way. As a rookie, he knows that he doesn’t know. And he knows that what he doesn’t know he needs to know. And he knows that what he needs to know, along with the skills he needs, will only come through experience.
As a professional player, he accepts that he must start at the bottom and work harder than most of his teammates. He knows he must demonstrate consistent, long-term progress in the skills baseball demands if he wants to gain respectability and move up. He realizes he is a beginner despite previous achievements. He understands there are many more skilled than he is, and he values their coaching and modeling. He is clear that he doesn’t know all he needs to know and can’t do all he needs to do to make it to the major leagues. At least, not yet.
He knows he can’t go around sulking that, after two months, he hasn’t been asked by major league coaches to offer his insights, take his spot on the field, and be treated as highly valuable. He must be humble enough to learn, focused enough to work extremely hard, and respectful enough to gain the added value of having real relationships with those who can help him improve.
He must realize the level of his value to the organization is, at this point, minimal. The reason? He hasn’t done anything yet. In baseball, accomplishment always precedes recognition and reward. Just because the minor leaguers wear the same uniform and are paid to play doesn’t mean their stock is equal to that of the major leaguers. What he needs is only gained through experience, and you can’t hurry experience.
If only the same mindset populated other arenas of society. For some time now, we have watched a massive influx of a generation pervasively nourished on their own self-worth. They have bought into the pernicious and erroneous ethical perspective that being alive and human makes them equal to those who have lived more, learned more, done more, and earned the right to speak, act, and be in charge. They wear their entitlement on their sleeves.
Unlike other areas, the failure rate in baseball is high. Generally only 10% of those signed to minor league contracts will play at least one game in the majors. But apparently, the fact that 90% never make it motivates the minor leaguers to give their all, and then some. It adjusts their arrogance downward, and propels them to take advantage of every practice, game, coach and manager they can find. It means they enter the fray understanding they have a long way to go.
That’s where many entering the labor force show their ignorance. Rather than knowing they have a long way to go, they believe they’ve already arrived. They come onto the scene wearing an inflated sense of their own importance, abilities and value. Worse, they come armed with entitled expectations and a storehouse of indignation just ready to burst forth if they feel undervalued, underrecognized or underutilized.
We need to get back to the tried-and-true concept that value follows achievement, just as insight and ability are honed through experience. This doesn’t mean newcomers don’t have a place. Just as baseball drafts a new crop of hopefuls yearly, businesses do recognize the value of new employees whose potential may be greater than that of previous generations. But potential is of little value until it is fulfilled in maturity, experience and accomplishment.
So, if you are at the beginning of your career, learn from the professionals in baseball. Be honest about your value and strive to learn from those more experienced. Work hard to improve and succeed. Take your job seriously but never yourself. Be humble, teachable and honest about your abilities. Prize achievement above status. If you do those things consistently, those with power to promote will take notice.
Local resident David Hegg is senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church. “Ethically Speaking” appears Sundays.
