By Marko Duffy
I’ve been working in Lawrence since 1990 and I was fortunate to work for a man I call “the smartest man I have ever known”. Interestingly enough, this man was the president of a manufacturing company, a high tech business with lots of processes and equipment that controlled the myriad of variables that went into the manufacturing process. This captain of industry was the smartest man I know and was professionally trained as a barber… And he learned much of what he knew from his father… an immigrant barber.
Anyway, my boss and mentor was trained as a barber and influenced me greatly. In every situation in business he had an answer. The best part of his answers though were the way he delivered them. He never handed you the answer… He answered you with a story and invariably he would start with “my father always said…”
When you were in a hurry, or angry, or terrified, or whatever place you were in that brought you to his office seeking advice, sometimes the last thing you wanted to hear or had time for was a story. But in a short time I learned that his stories not only gave you the answer but taught a lesson and made you think and learn and maybe more importantly… made you remember.
Professionally I have used these stories and their points over and over again. As a technical sales person and relied on confidant for my customers, many of whom are the owners of their businesses, these stories have helped shape many businesses and business men and women. I may have left out the “my father always said…” but the point was made and delivered in the same almost allegorical way.
Now the stories told are too numerous and have the greatest impact when “in the moment”. But there’s one I’d like to share here and now and I think it applies to life and business in Lawrence.
Whenever things in the factory would go badly for a spell and things would be crazy I would go and talk to him looking for answers or solutions or maybe just a chance to get things off my chest. This time though he stopped me and said “My father used to say…” and he told me what his father would tell him when things seemed insurmountable, his father would say “somewhere along the way something changed, something maybe you did or didn’t do. What I want you to do is go back to a quiet place, shut off the radio and TV (and I guess today he would say your phone!) and go back in time. Go back a little bit at a time until you reach a place where the problem you have didn’t exist. When things were working the way you wanted them. That’s where you went wrong. Only you will know what happened and what needs to be done to correct it. Assuming you want to correct it”
And it would work. And to this day whenever confronted by a customer, or my wife, or my kids about an insurmountable problem I’ll give them this same bit of advice: Go back to when it worked.
I think this story is applicable to Lawrence and where I see the city. I see and deal with manufacturing businesses in the city every day growing and thriving and filling space that was once a great mill and a world class, for the time, manufacturing facility. Businesses doing labor intensive work with an immigrant work force making a good wage and are creating something from a bunch of materials that are being sold and used around the world. Go back to when it worked Lawrence, when many businesses in the city made goods and people made money and went home to their neighborhood. Manufacturing once was and could be today the lifeblood of the city.
I also think it’s ironic that much of the wisdom in these stories I share have their roots in a barber shop run by a barber who wasn’t born here. If I told this story in a different way you might be visiting the many new barber shops that have opened around the city trying to find this man. But no, it was many years ago and this barber was born in Italy. But it shows that the barber shop, what used to be a community center of sorts, a place to gather and learn, and a place to talk and listen is back. Maybe this is just another example of life taking you back, bringing back to when it worked.
Marko Duffy CEF, is President of Marathon Manufacturing Services LLC.
