Words That Ring True

Truth, Fair, Concern, Beneficial, Goodwill, and Friendship.  These words are the heart and soul of Rotary’s Four Way Test.  What these words have in common with civility, good manners and etiquette is that they are all a part of civility, good manners and etiquette.

Telling the truth is what we learn as a child.  It is part of your code of ethics at home.  That particular code of ethics takes you from home to school to business and into your social and professional life.  When you hear something that seems out of the ordinary, it is common to ask, “Is it the truth?”   Rotary, just as etiquette, teaches each of us to ask “Is it the truth?” as the first question that comes to mind with an issue or a problem.  Your automatic, first answer to the question is always the truth.

The importance of truth brings you to the benefit the truth will provide to those concerned.  Fairness, concern, and beneficial; these are all part and parcel of truth.  The word “truth” beams of quality, sincerity, honesty, and genuineness.  It is ‘the quality of being in accordance with experience.”  When you choose truth you are telling others that you hold yourself to the highest level of quality.  Reality sets in; jokes and foolishness are dismissed.  Fairness comes to the surface immediately after truth. If the truth is real then fairness is the next stepping stone.

Goodwill and friendship are attainable by being truthful and by having a concern for others.  That concern for those concerned will benefit from your desire to build goodwill.  The bridge to your concern for those concerned begins with your quest that the road be beneficial, advantageous, and favorable.   Rotary’s Four Way Test is asking if your statement of words that exits your mouth is beneficial to those around you.  Take that in, decipher it, and realize how important the reality is of what you said.

You are your own truth.  If others know you as someone who is not one of his words, you may want to take a minute to examine what you have become.  Find out how far you have strayed from your childhood ‘code of ethics.’  Find out if there is time to tighten your belt and make yourself more accountable for your actions.  Perhaps you have slipped into a habit of bending the truth in order to harness a basket of friendship.  If so, the acquired friendships were harnessed far from the truth and if the truth were known, you might find yourself more alone then you were when you started your journey.  Take Rotary’s Four Way Test to heart and redefine the truth; it will set you free.

Rotary’s Four Way Test of twenty-four words is a comfort each day.  Memorize it, recite it, believe it; and live it; I challenge you.

Do you have an article you’d like to submit? A story? Or just wish to tell us what you think like Rod Keitz/s O.C? Then send your items to info@dallasrotary.org and they’ll appear in the next issue of the Rotagrams.

You May Not Believe It...

Meeting Review | September 21, 2011

By Rod Keitz

More from the Old Codger’s Notebook

I know some of you younger Rotarians may not believe it, but sometimes being older than dirt can be an advantage.  I can’t recall any of those times at the moment and, of course, there are disadvantages like having to view the world through the foggy filter of failing eyes and ears.  The disadvantages come to bare when we have a great speaker and it’s necessary to strain every sensor to understand what that person is saying.  The advantages come into play on those rare occasions when our speaker is, let’s be kind, less than inspirational.

Today we heard Dr. Wilfried Prewo, the Chief Executive of the Hannover, Germany Chamber of Industry and Commerce.  Dr. Prewo received a Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins, was an assistant professor at the University of Texas in Austin and can claim a whole list of other accomplishments that more than qualified him to speak to us on the subject of German Economics.

But, I have to tell you, I was disappointed with the program, I mean really disappointed!

No!  No!  Not with Dr. Prewo or his presentation.  I was straining every sensor throughout.

Telling us how his country had managed to lower unemployment to around 6.1% during this last recession, he gave us concise suggestions as to how we might accomplish similar results:

1.  Cut labor costs.  Germany increased their work week from 35 to 40 hours.  Eliminated overtime pay and even the regular rates paid for overtime were not paid out in cash but placed in rainy day funds for the individual workers.

2.  Management agreed to no layoffs, investments in plants and facilities and the funding of comprehensive youth training programs.

These and other steps such as farming out labor intensive production to countries with a cheaper labor force significantly lowered the price of German products and gave them a competitive edge for German products on the world market.

A great program! 

My disappointment?  I was disappointed because all the folks who really needed to hear Dr. Prewo’s words and see his charts were still blindly rooting around in Washington D.C., hoping to somehow stumble upon solutions to a very similar problem.   Instead, they should have been in the room with the rest of us.

That’s the way I heard it.

The O. C.