When You Lie Down on Sand

Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Rock-hard sandstone used to be just plain old sand, the kind you see at the beach.

If you lie down on beach sand, you will leave your imprint on it.

But if you lie down on sandstone, it will leave its imprint on you.

Every person who starts a business hopes to leave their mark in the sand. If that businessperson is disciplined, committed, and consistent, their mark will become sandstone and leave its mark on future employees.

Did it ever occur to you that the processes and procedures, policies and warranties of a company are a direct reflection of the preferences and beliefs of the CEO?

Company culture, commitment, and camaraderie – or any lack thereof – are merely a reflection of the shape of that CEO.

Look closely at how a company’s employees are recruited, evaluated, motivated and compensated, and you will see the precise size and shape of that company’s CEO.

Listen to how a company’s employees talk about their job, their boss, their products, and their hopes for the future, and you will hear an audible echo of the soul of the CEO.

Companies don’t spring into existence on their own. They are born in the imagination of an entrepreneur when he or she lies down in the sand, then brought into reality through the magic of time, energy, and money. And if that company endures, every future customer will experience the values and beliefs and priorities of its long-ago CEO every time they interact with the company that CEO left behind.

You realize that I’m talking about more than just business owners and their businesses, don’t you?

I’m talking about grandparents and parents and their children and their children’s children and schools and religions and colleges and cultures and prisons and wars and the movies we make and the books we read and the hobbies to which we devote our time and money.

I’m talking our collective journey across the sands of time.

When you lie down on sand, you leave your imprint on it.

When you lie down on sandstone, it leaves it imprint on you.

Roy H. Williams

Peter Spitz is an MIT-trained chemical engineer and a renowned expert in petrochemicals. He holds seven patents and started a company that grew to $20 million in annual sales before being acquired by IBM. Peter’s most recent book is about the history of inventions.

When we turn on a television, use a computer, heat dinner in a microwave, open a refrigerator, drive a car, or take an antibiotic, we are using technologies that took root in the Industrial Revolution of England 300 years ago. Peter wasn’t around back then, but with a razor-sharp mind at 98 years of age, he has far-reaching insights on how to create successful inventions and how each of them will impact our modern world.

Sit back, turn up the volume and listen as deputy rover Maxwell Rotbart pulls a mesmerizing tale from the magical mind of Peter Spitz. Where else but MondayMorningRadio.com?