We are now just a little over two weeks since the launch of our book, Talent Force. To each of you have purchased the book, we can only humbly say thank you. We have nearly sold out our first publishing run of the book with little to no public relations or marketing. That means that you, our friends and colleagues who understand the value of Talent have stepped up. Again, a sincere thank you.
Last week, we were again humbled (there is a lot of humbling that occurs when you publish a book) by the other end of the spectrum.
We had three incredible book signings in Austin Texas Hastings Hastings Texas
So, yes, we were humbled by the fact that while we sat there behind our stack of newly printed books, no one came. But there were two conversations we had that night that humbled us even more.
The first was by a middle-aged (we can say that…we are middle-aged now) gentleman, dressed in jeans, tee-shirt and a leather motorcycle jacket. He projected the “techie” look. He stood at the book table and read the inside covers and the entire back jacket. He then put the book down and looked at us and gave us a two-word book review, “cute idea”. He knew he caught our attention. Given the traffic for the night for us, he had our full attention anyway by the fact he was actually at the table (smile).
For the next 15 minutes we heard the story of a man who has spent the last ten years working in a company where he cycled from a place where his dreams were soon to be achieved to now feeling trapped and angry that any day now his job would end up being done by someone overseas who was a cheaper part of the supply chain than himself. He hesitated to tell us where he worked because he said that people get fired for being overheard talking about the people practices of the company. He of course gave us enough descriptors of his company that it was easy to figure out. His role was one of the technical people who scouts out and sets up overseas locations for the next operation to be moved away from Texas
Another 45 minutes or so passed and another gentleman stepped to the table. A little younger than the last he seemed full of energy. He scanned the back cover and then looked at us and said, “You know the problem don’t you…it’s Wal-Mart”. He then went on to provide his version of what we describe in Talent Force as “Free-Talent Zones”. His perspective was not so optimistic though. It ended with a cycle of employees underpaid, living from paycheck to the day before paycheck, capped at 32 hours a week, without health benefits, funneling a high percentage of their earnings back into the store to purchase their goods, because 1) they couldn’t afford to shop anywhere else, 2) there wasn’t anywhere else to shop anyway. We came to find out that he was a high school chemistry teacher who left the business world ten years ago because he didn’t want to work as hard as he needed in business for something that he didn’t “believe in”. He believed in teaching and imparting knowledge to others and does so at a minimum wage, qualifies for food stamps, and fears for his job each year (Texas we came to find out does not have teacher tenure) because of test scores (which he said are manipulated to ensure that the district receives funding) and teacher cut-backs. He railed on text books as the money makers for schools and described “cartels” for text book publishers and school districts where generic text books are underwritten and marketed as “written and funded for Texas schools” but the exact same book can be found in Oregon with the imprinting, ”written and funded for Oregon schools”. This gentleman left after his conversation without buying our book.
As we drove away from Round Rock towards the airport, we reflected on what we had heard and learned that night. We sized the market again in the U.S. as somewhere around 25 million people in the U.S. who had some form of management or hiring responsibility and who might think that Talent Force and the principles in the book as helpful. Within a few hours though we had met two people who live on the other end of the barrel and who look at the value and development of talent as nothing more than cynics for they live the daily impact of not being valued and worse, had no hope that any of this could change. They live the bottom of the spiral without any place else to go.
We don’t believe that there is no hope. We wouldn’t have written the book if we felt that way. But those two honest conversations with strangers did make us stop and think. It should make us all stop and think. It should make each of us who do have the chance to make a difference, get after doing so. There are people who are depending on us to be different than the rest.
Round Rock, in the same honesty we received from those two guys, was good for us.
