Wake Up! at Achieved Strategies

Shawn Murphy (Twitter, LinkedIn, Blog) is hosting a series of posts on the need to shake things up in the leadership space. The series is called Wake Up! and Shake It Up. He's had posts from great bloggers (besides himself) like Monica Diaz, David Burkus, Lolly Daskal,  Jason Moore and Ed McLaughlin.  And he'll have more great posts as the series goes on for a few days.

But today, he's got me.  My post is about a critical element in building trust: sacrifice.  We don't like that word much.  Not many people wake up each day planning to go out and make sacrifices.  But when you can make a sacrifice, even one so small as writing a handwritten thank you note, you show people that you are for them.

I once managed a small trucking company.  A driver had to lay over to get a load that no one else could get. When I asked him to do it, he said, well, my wife should be getting out of the hospital on a certain day and that would mean that I'm not there to take her home.

Shame overtook me.  I didn't know his wife was even in the hospital.  Knowledge changes things... and people.  It changed me.  I learned a lesson that day.  (The rest of the story's not in the post.  Suffice it to say that things got taken care of.)

Trust must be earned. Sacrifice is often the barter.  If you get a minute, check out the post.  Don't sleep through another day.  Wake up and make a difference!

Yellow Alarm Photo by h is for home