A big moment for me was the opportunity to give a presentation at a National Cleaning Industry Symposium in 2010. The location was Portland Oregon. I spoke about my experience rising up through the ranks from cleaning worker to manager.
As a way of illustrating my point I compared the management styles of Darth Vader and Yoda in “The Empire Strikes Back.”
To my delight the crowd loved it and I had many of them in stitches. It secured me a place to speak again at the following years symposium. The gist was That Darth Vader had been a poor manager when he strangled Admiral Ozzel for coming out of light spped too close to the Hoth system instead of sneaking up on the rebels.
- Darth Vader: The rebels are alerted to our presence. Admiral Ozzel came out of light speed too close to the system.
- Darth Vader: He is as clumsy as he is stupid. Admiral Piett, you are in command now.
Lessons learned on how not to manage like Darth Vader:
- Darth Vader didn’t explain to Admiral Ozzel that it would be better to approach slowly.
- He didn’t give any opportunity for re-training.
- Dead (or fired) employees can’t be developed.
This was the first time that I used edited images in a presentation, and I had made 3 Star Wars themes ones for the occasion.