‘Being There’ is What ‘It’ is (Corner Office by Jeffrey Wood)

Years ago my friend, the late Mr. Orville Henry, gave me some career advice. The older I get, the more it means.

Maybe it’s September’s warm smell of Bermuda grass that’s whipped up the memories. Maybe the sentiment got started this summer in Paragould.

Several high school teammates reunited to surprise our football Coach Mike Carter at his retirement party. Thirteen of us played for him one way or another from seventh grade to graduation. Eleven were there.

The guys are all entrepreneurs, professionals or company leaders of one kind or another. They drove in from all over the Delta and central Arkansas. Two came from as far as Indiana and New Jersey.

The camaraderie we share has lasted 20 years due more than anything else to the effort, and laughs, we gave each other. Just as it is in the workplace, respect and admiration come from knowing the person next to you cares just as much about the end result. That’s what a team is.

Mr. Henry’s words resonated again this week when a friend left forlorn to settle affairs related to a family death. Whether for closure or respect, she went to New England to find something she could not get her arms around here. There were complexities, but she made the journey.

That’s what family is. You just go.

Last March I went on a similar sojourn when my grandfather died at 89. I met my sister in the Memphis airport, and we made the flight to Montgomery, Ala., together.

The old man still roams through my head, and the deer woods of central Alabama, where he unloads a truck bed of hunting dogs and growls across the hills, “Meow dogs, Meow!”

I got his sense of humor. Papaw was coarse and tender and of his 27 grandchildren, I was No. 6. He made all feel second to none.

The most emotion, however, came when it was time to part with my sister in Memphis. Between stores peddling barbecue rub and commemorative Elvis plates, we stalled through our goodbyes.

The trip was probably the most time we had spent together, just us, since we were children. Eventually, I had a flight to catch and Julie had to get back to being a professional woman and an exemplary mom.

I stood and watched her red ponytail bop away until it mixed into the terminal crowd. She is a grownup, and I’ve missed a third of her life. I am resolute to miss as little as possible going forward. That’s what effort is.

The clincher was retired U.S. Army Major Gen. Harold Timboe, who’s also a medical doctor. He recently spoke at the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s annual Forty Under 40 luncheon in Rogers.

Timboe led people into many tragic situations throughout his decorated career, none more amazing than on Sept. 11, 2001.

None of my trivial memories compare to his. Timboe’s message about “having a sense of purpose larger than self” is what leadership is.

He made me remember a long ago conversation with the legendary sportswriter that Arkansas called Orville. He was Mr. Henry to me.

During Razorbacks football two-a-days, he would sit out in the direct sun with his bucket hat cocked slightly back. One leg of his scraggly lawn chair would eventually scoot onto the field.

Rick Schaeffer, the media relations man then, told the remaining pack of newspaper wretches who huddled on a bushy knoll for shade, “When you’ve been covering Arkansas for 50 years, you can sit anywhere you want, too.”

Once over a couple of Tandy typewriters, I asked Mr. Henry what I could do to be the best at our profession. I said I would do whatever it took.

He leaned in real close with smiling eyes and said, “Be there.”

I thought for years he meant I should be at every game, press conference or anywhere else that I might miss something. He did, and I was, whether it was Christmas Day or midnight. Sometimes, and especially for the young professional to hear, you have to be willing to give whatever it takes.

But there was a lot more behind those thick black glasses.

Genuine commitment and servant leadership are about more than just “being there” in the physical sense. Leaders don’t wait for permission to get into the fray, or a position out in front. They’re already there – leading.

Personal value, whether with customers, teammates or even family, is created by being willing to take the first step to make things right.

Not having to be asked is what “being there” means.