Dogs Really Are Our Best Friends

As I've mentioned a few times recently, our family returned to the island of Guam this past summer, where I we were stationed for a couple of years in the late 1990's.  Our youngest daughter was actually born there, so this was her first trip back to the place where she was born.  For those of you who don't know, Guam is located about thirteen degrees north of the Equator and a little west of the International Date Line (hence its slogan, "Where America's Day Begins").  It takes 8 hours to fly to Guam from Hawaii, so it's a long trip.  We flew back home via Tokyo, Japan and decided to stay for a few days to see the sights there.  It was a great trip!

One of the popular attractions (for both locals and tourists apparently) in Tokyo was the statue of the dog Hachiko near the famous Shibuya Scramble Crossing:

Hachiko was a Japanese Akita dog born on November 10, 1923.  His owner, Hidesaburo Ueno was a professor in the agriculture department at the Tokyo Imperial University and brought him to live in Shibuya as his pet.  Hachiko would meet his owner every single day at the Shibuya train station when he returned home from work.  Sadly, Ueno died of an acute brain hemorrhage on May 21, 1925 while at work.  Hachiko would return every single day to wait for his owner for the next 9 years, 9 months, and 15 days until his death on March 8, 1935.  Several other commuters would notice the dog waiting every day by the train station, and Hachiko became a national story and symbol of loyalty.  It's a beautiful story that pulls on your heart strings (and was the subject of a 2009 movie starring Richard Gere called Hachi: A Dog's Tale.  

There's no question that dogs deserve the title "Man's Best Friend".  Dogs are a symbol of loyalty, one of the most important virtues that our society values in relationships with our families, our friends, our co-workers, our organizations, and of course, our pets.  Loyalty is also a critical driver to any organization's long-term success.  Employees that are loyal to their organization are more likely to innovate and problem-solve and they are more willing to go the extra mile to help the organization to achieve its goals.  Leaders can build loyalty by:

1. Be present and "show up" - leaders need to build relationships with their teams and show that they generally care about them as individuals.

2. Help their teams grow and develop as professionals and give them opportunities to lead

3. Show that they trust their teams ("Deference to Expertise") and empower them as professionals

4. Provide fair and honest feedback

5. Recognize and reward their teams appropriately

6. Remove unnecessary uncertainty by being as open, honest, and transparent as possible

The late U.S. Army General Colin Powell said, "Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence."   The film producer Samuel Goldwyn said, "I'll take fifty percent efficiency to get one hundred percent loyalty."  U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper said, "Leadership is a two-way street, loyalty up and loyalty down."  I would add, "Be like Hachiko!"