Don't Send Your Ducks to Eagle School

Lesson 10 from Leadership Gold

John C. Maxwell

• Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781400275939
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Education
• Index: Business

Smart leaders learn from their own mistakes. Smarter ones learn from others' mistakes—and successes.  

John C. Maxwell wants to help you become the smartest leader you can be by sharing Chapter 10, Don't Sned Your Ducks To Eagle School, of Leadership Gold with you. After nearly forty years of leading, Maxwell has mined the gold so you don't have to. Each chapter contains detailed application exercises and a "Mentoring Moment" for leaders who desire to mentor others using the book. 

Gaining leadership insight is a lot like mining for gold. You don't set out to look for the dirt. You look for the nuggets. You'll find them here.

DON’T SEND YOUR DUCKS
TO EAGLE SCHOOL

My wife, Margaret, and I love Krispy Kreme doughnuts. When we pass a Krispy Kreme shop, we always look for the red neon “Hot Doughnuts Now” sign that tells potential customers that the doughnuts have just been made and are coming off the assembly line, hot and fresh and delicious. Although we do not allow ourselves to indulge often, occasionally we can’t help but give in to temptation. If we see the red light on, one of us will say, “It’s a sign from God that we should stop and buy a doughnut!”

One evening when we were approaching a Krispy Kreme shop, we could clearly see that the light was not on, but we decided to stop anyway. Much to our delight and surprise, the doughnuts were just coming off the conveyer belt, hot and gooey.

“You forgot to turn on the sign to let the customers know the doughnuts are warm and fresh,” I said to the young lady who waited on us.

“Oh, I don’t turn that sign on a lot of the time,” she replied. “The moment I do, people come into the store and we get too busy. If I keep the sign off, it’s less hectic.”

I was stunned. I wondered, Why would she think like that? At first it didn’t make sense to me. But then, as I thought about it, I realized it was a matter of her position influencing her perception. She was an employee who didn’t want to be inconvenienced. Certainly if the owners had been there, they would have turned the sign on! They wouldn’t be hoping for convenience—they would have the success of the whole business and all of its employees in mind.

WHY SOME DON’T SOAR

For more than three decades, I have hosted conferences and written books with the purpose of adding value to people. Experience has taught me a valuable lesson: no matter what I do or how hard I try to help people, not everyone will respond in the same way. Some people will attend a conference and their lives will start to turn around. Others will come and tune out everything I say. Some will change; some won’t. That has always frustrated me. I want everyone to learn, change, grow, and get better!

I experienced a “eureka moment” not long ago when I read something by speaker and ...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT
• CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• DON'T SEND YOUR DUCKS TO EAGLE SCHOOL
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR