What important points you can get from Salesmen's story?
Have you read Salesmen's story? If you have, what points can you draw from the story? If you have not found out yet, please keep reading. Here as the author of that story. I will discuss some important points the story teaches us.
Don't judge people by apparence and/or experience
Allan is a statter, a person who can't talk or speak coherently. When the pastor asked who else want to sell Bibles, more than 3 minutes later after Tim said he would do it, Allan said "I", which extremely surprized the whole congregation because most of them know that Allan even can't talk or speak coherently. In their mind, selling is a challenging task even to a very fluent speaker, they couldn't imagine how Allan could sell Bibles. They thought that Robert and Tim could sell because they both have sales experience. The fact improved that Allan did the best among the three salesmen.
This made me remember one judgement about me made by the superintendant of the middle school in my home town in China where I was chinese language and math teacher for two and half years. The superintendant was my teacher when I was first grader in elementary school and later he became the superintendant, after I graduated from High school, he hired me as middle school teacher because I was one of his best students. At that time, we all (15-20 teachers) worked in one big office. During the recess periods and after school, we could talk, laugh, and prepare materials for next class etc. One day when we were talking about everybody's futures among us for a little while he said: "I think Shuyun (my Chines name) may not be able to go anywhere except being a quality teacher here." I understood his unharmful intention, so I didn't say anything and just smiled. Not long after that I got into college, then graduate school, then I came to the US and got my Ph D degree from the University of Maine, Now I am doing conselling service in a foreign country for people with different health conditions from different cultural and educational background. I think if the superintendant can still remember his judgement, he would not feel good about it. I remember this just to remind myself that I will not judge people lightly and make conclusion too early. We should know that everything and everybody is changing, you never know who can do what. Some people even don't know what they themselves can do, but they think they know what others can or can't do.
Don't be over-protective leaders.
The chief pastor of the church didn't say "Oh, Allan you can't do it." even he was concerned about Allan's selling ability. On the contrary, he encouraged him. Most of the time as parents, team leaders, or leaders in any kind of organizations, we worry too much about the consequence of certain event, especially when some new and/or young people want to do something that really interest them, we would say : "You may not be able to do it because you don't have experience." or something like that. They may just stop there because they don't dare to be blamed if something go wrong. Leaders should encourage people under his leadership to do things that is beneficial to the organization and the individuals who want to do as long as it will not cause any problems that will affect organizational goals. Give people opportunity to learn, to do, and to improve. Leaders should understand that whoever want to do something will always have probability to make mistakes or fail. Only those who don't do anything and don't say anything will not make mistakes or fail, but eventually these people will not contribute anything and they will end up being nothing.
If you want to do something, you can do it
Allan didn't have percieved ability to sell, but he wanted to sell, and eventually he sold. No anybody who know Allan believed he could sell before Allan reported his selling result. Most of the time we have desire to do something for our future, but we don't dare to do because we are not confident in our own ability to achieve what we want to achieve. If Allan thought about his speaking ability and judged himself by his experience, he would never sell anything, but he didn't let his speaking ability prevent him from doing things that will be beneficial to the church and people who need Bibles and he determined to sell Bibles to raise money for the church. Eventually he found the way to do it and did it very well. So, don't be discouraged if you don't have experience in doing certain things, as long as you really have the strong desire, just start to do it. We are in this world to learn, to do, and to grow. During the learning process, mistakes and frustration are not uncommon. If you are afraid of failture, you will never be successful.
