Whale Done! 1

We will start off 2016 with a little different format for our leadership lessons. We will invest the next couple of months in a book written by Ken Blanchard entitled Whale Done! It carries the subtitle "The Power of Positive Relationships."



From PRWeb

I recently received this book from a colleague and thought the message and the "to do" items melded nicely with our journey to culture excellence in safety, quality, ethics, production, etc.

Of course you are familiar with trained, captive sea creatures. Have you ever wondered how 200 pounds of human can get 10,000 pounds of whale to do tricks and stunts? The book frames its lessons by following the story of Wes Kingsley, a businessman with troubles in his personal and professional lives.

Wes is attending a business convention in Orlando and decides to clear his head by visiting SeaWorld. He is amazed and dumbfounded - how can a human train whales to do such things? How can a human communicate with a whale, especially when he is struggling to communicate with other humans at work and at home? Wes meets one of the trainers and begins asking questions about the training regimen.

Trainer: "Killer whales are the most feared predators in the ocean. They can kill and eat anything in sight."

 

Wes: "I guess if he's not learning his lessons, you don't make him go and stand in the corner."

 

Trainer: "That's exactly right. One thing we leaned quickly was that it doesn't make much sense to punish a killer whale and then ask the trainer to get in the water with him."

 

Wes: "...How do you get him to perform so well?"

 

Trainer: "Let's just say it didn't happen overnight. Shamu taught us patience ... Shamu wasn't about to do anything for me or any other trainer until he trusted us..."

 

 

Hmmm!    Time and trust!    Sounds somewhat familiar, doesn't it?

We will learn more about Wes and his journey next time.

Donald G Rosenbarger
Senior Vice President
Delta Companies Inc