Humanoid Skeleton With Two Rows Of Teeth

The strange story of the knight in Messina

This extraordinary story I have lived at the very beginning of my career, I often I find looking back, and every time I think it teaches me something.

I had just been hired at a big company and I made friends with Michael, who was working for a couple of years. Michael was very bright and was involved in marketing. He had made the request to have an assistant, had approved, and expected a young graduate. And instead

who the proposed ... an employee of more than fifty years, at loggerheads with the company. It was called Messina. He had been fired, he turned, he had won and had become re-integrate. Imagine his motivation to work with an almost graduate. And imagine the motivation for Michael to be in office in a guy like that.

Messina and Michael were initially three days without speaking. Michele then closed the door, took a chair and sat down in front of him. "I'm not moving from here until we speak," he said. Two hours passed in silence, facing each other. Then Messina opened. They spent a day talking.

"Diego," said Michael, "this man has never spoken with anyone. It 's a poor, struggling to pull at the end of the month. She has a handicapped son and his wife died. Every morning go to the bathroom to change shoes "beautiful" to get the ugliest shoes, to keep at work. It has only two pairs. No one has ever seen, no one has ever promoted, no one has ever believed in him. No one has ever heard. At one point he became an enemy to the company and all have begun to avoid it. But I want to believe in him. "

Nobody would have bet. But Michael listened to him, respect him, yet also claims that the collaboration was to give Messina. In a short time revived Messina. He became the right arm of Michael. It would made to kill him. Michele was its leader. He, more than fifty years old, would do anything for her boss in his early twenties.

For one reason: he had heard and respected.

Michele began to call him "Knight" because he realized that he liked. Gradually everyone in the company began calling him a knight. For all internal or external, had become the "cavalier Messina." He and Michael had become a force of nature.

often reflects on this matter when we try to embark on complex speeches on leadership.

And if the leadership was just listening and respect for others?


( C) Diego Agostini / Commitment 2011 - All Right Reserved




Picture: own the company where we worked