Page 473 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

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CONCLUSION SENIOR’S CORE PRINCIPLES
Character is built on the core values and principles one believes in.The following illustrations highlight some of the principles Duane Doyle Sr. has subscribed to all his life, both in business and personally.
Work as fun—Both my grandfathers were in the business and both had a big effect on me in terms of work ethic. They really enjoyed working. And they instilled that in me to where I actually think work is fun. That’s what they did all the time and they enjoyed doing it. They were always building things and fixing things, both inside and outside the business. Pa [Ed Doyle] was an automotive mechanic early in his life, and Grampie [Howard Peterson] was a welder. It wasn’t that they were heavy duty equipment mechanics. My attraction and aptitude for working on heavy equipment was acquired from enjoying things like that and being around it. I credit both of my grandfathers for exposing me to that as a little kid. Even letting me drive the ranch Jeep when I could barely reach the pedals.
Learn from your mistakes—I credit my dad a lot for giving me space to learn and not be protected—room to fail, I call it. Even though you don’t want to fail, you learn more from your mistakes than you do by just doing what somebody tells you to do all the time. At Warm Springs Dam and at the Redding store, specifically, I was pretty much on my own. It was, Here’s your job, figure it out. There were people that helped me, but there were other people that kind of stayed out of the way because they didn’t know what to do with the owner’s son.
Lead by example—In Brand Ambassador, we’ve done more than seventy seminars, so far. I’ve only missed two because I just couldn’t be there.That’s 180 of my workdays,but it’s very important.It’s culture work.It’s culture change. And it’s very important. I’ve been told by many people at other companies that, normally, the CEO comes in and introduces the thing and then leaves. They’ve been quite impressed that the upper leadership of
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