Giving Back to the Tribe

My friend John wants to move to Oklahoma. He's applied for a job there, but doesn't really hold out much hope for being chosen. He talked with me about his hopes and his prospects for succeeding.

John is focused on what he can contribute to the organization if he succeeds. He visited the site not long ago and listened to members of the management team there express their number one concern--no one in the local labor market seems to have the skills they need. John, who grew up in Oklahoma, knows a few things about the Choctaw Nation's manufacturing training programs that customize training for manufacturers in the hope of getting jobs for young members of the tribe. It's free. Nobody knew anything about it. You see, all of the managers there are from somewhere else. John, who is part Choctaw, grew up in Oklahoma. He knows where to find resources like that.

John is also the kind of guy that puts in the time to learn what he has to in order to have certification to enter any part of the facility. Why? He'd rather be accessible to hear about what's on people's minds before they get mad enough about them to look him up in his office.

What he dreams of is putting the facility's needs in front of the Choctaw's manufactring resources and launching a development program that helps tribal members get some of the best jobs in the state. He says it would be a great way to "give back to the tribe." His notion set me to thinking. He could probably see the gears turning, and John, being the kind of guy he is, turned the conversation to me and my thoughts and the conversation moved on.

It made me think some more about "giving back to the tribe." What is my tribe? When will I wake up and get moving on giving back? How can I best do that? John even had a few suggestions. But enough about me.

Back to John--it turns out there is someone who is in line ahead of John. She is likely to be chosen because she needs it as a development opportunity. There is a cynical corporate expression for such choices. She will just be "punching her ticket," by holding a place in this role for a year or two in John's dream job. Not that John is bitter, he only observes that it isn't very likely to want to tackle the job when he's sixty.

Me, I'm rooting for John and for "giving back to the tribe."