The Sting of Untapped Potential

One of my earliest memories of the behavior-based safety concept was hearing Terry Ward say that no one wakes up in the morning and decides they’re going to lose a body part in an industrial accident later that day. But because of at-risk behaviors, often behaviors they’ve practiced for years without so much as a near miss, people experience those types of significant injuries every single day. Even with the amazing technology engineered into manufacturing processes, the “people factor” still exists. Before moving on, let me be very clear: that “people factor” is also where we as leaders have tremendous opportunities to impact lives and capture incredible profitability for our organizations - which is also based completely on the behaviors WE choose daily.

I first heard Terry share that idea in my early to mid 20s. I suppose I could be that guy who says I wish I would have heard it years earlier, but I’m not sure I would have listened. I’m completely convinced that I heard it exactly when I was meant to hear it and the poor choices I made through my teens provided me with the lens I needed to receive that message. While I still maintained a picture of stability, even after what should have served as a wake up call by nearly failing Chemistry and English my junior year, my daily choices didn’t change. If anything, the choices compounded - just in the wrong direction.

I pushed the clutch all the way to the floorboard my senior year. I already had all the required credits I’d need if I chose the college path, which I had no intention of at that point. Had I pushed myself, I could have graduated high school with four college courses under my belt; the most available at the time. I had no desire to participate in such stuff, though! There were two classes left that were mandatory for graduation, some version of twelfth grade English and US Government. I opted for the most remedial available in both and enrolled in the Industrial Cooperative Training class so I could leave school at noon and work the rest of the day. Looking back, what I learned in that class has served me as much as any I’ve ever taken, even if I didn’t absorb it all at the time.

Saying I drifted through my senior year doesn’t come close to describing it. As long as I showed up, I was good to go. And that was actually a requirement for me to be allowed to work; if I missed school, my employer wasn’t supposed to allow me to work that day either. Some of my peers in those classes chose to skip that occasional class, and usually got away with it. I did not, I was getting nearly as much sleep at school as I did at home.

During that final year of high school, I got to work around 1p most days and worked until around 10 or 10:30p. From there, I’d head straight to the local hangout spots or to catch up with older friends, largely because I knew the chances of convincing someone to buy me beer was solid in either case. Those shenanigans often went on until the wee hours of the morning before I headed home for a few hours, only to do it all over the next day. And the next… 

The extended naps at school meant I showed up to work fresh and ready to take on the world. I worked circles around most of the kids my age, all the college students employed at the same store (but that’s a story for another time), and many of the adults. I earned my first promotion, which came with a twenty-five percent pay increase, while I was still sixteen years old. The company offered me a full time position with a complete benefits package when I was seventeen, something that was (and still is) unheard of. All that said, I wasn’t applying anything close to what I was capable of at school - and I knew it. Even when it’s subconscious, there’s a bit of sting in knowing your potential is going untapped. And untapped potential in bad situations stings the most because it reveals our role in the outcome; owning it unlocks the lessons in personal responsibility (even when it takes us years to discover those lessons).

Looking back more than three decades, I can point to some of the most powerful lessons I’ve ever learned as coming from my ICT class as a senior in high school and the two years I worked for that grocery store chain. Seeds, however, do not grow themselves - especially when we’re not even looking for them. We’ll dig into that next. Before then, I want you to think of a time you knew better but did less (like I did through basically every class my last three years of high school). Share the story with someone you trust completely and ask for their perspective on a hidden lesson you might have missed.