A close friend and I were talking about core company values. He mentioned that his main core value over time has been, “No one is too good to clean toilets,” a lesson he learned from his businessman father.
When his dad looked at hiring (pay grade didn’t matter), somewhere in the interview he would ask the candidate how they would feel about taking their turn cleaning the toilets (!) and then watch their face closely.
Candidates who believed that they were above cleaning toilets don’t get hired at his company.
His son now holds the belief that all work plays a critical part in helping the team win. While some people are paid more and are harder to replace, everyone’s role at work is important, and all work is dignified by the passion that the worker brings to the job, whether it’s toilet cleaning or chairing the board.
I have found that the people who bring passion to their work do it because of who they are, not because of where they are on the pay grade.
