Monday, January 11, 2010

Never Assume Anything

A story is told of a young soldier's unfortunate experience where he learned a valuable lesson about assumptions.

A young enlisted Marine was leaving the base headquarters' office at 15:45 when he found the Colonel-in-charge standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand.

"Listen," said the Colonel, "this is a very sensitive and important document, and my secretary is not here. Can you make this thing work?"

"Certainly," said the young Marine. He turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and pressed the start button.

"Excellent, excellent!" said the Colonel as his paper disappeared inside the machine, "I just need one copy."

Lesson to be learned here: Never, ever assume that your leader knows what he's doing.

Unfortunately, that is true in the civilian world. It is true in the business world. And it is true in the church world. Don't assume your pastor automatically knows what to do in every situation. He gave you a brain and you are a leader as well. Exercise your brain, arms, hands and feet and help out. Don't stand by and assume that he knows what he is doing.

Photo licensed under the following terms: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/