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Working from the Heartland |
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Jose Rego
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"Success also has to be measured by how you help other people...it's meaningless unless it can be shared. If you're the only element involved in that success, there's something missing." |
The Miami-based design firm, Arquitectonica, is filled with architects who have these visions. The results spring from their sketch pads to become global landmarks. Peru, China, France, Puerto Rico, the United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Holland all share the incredible imaginations of fabulously gifted designers. Theirs is a profession that demands vision married with rigid attention to detail. The detail and the organization part is handled by many administrative assistants. But Jose Rego tops them all.
That Jose is in Miami at all is a testament to another set of visions and faith that one day a dream might come true. The oldest son of a distinguished Cuban family, he was born in the United States only because his parents left behind all they were and owned in their beloved homeland. He grew up watching two parents struggle in their adopted country. And as an adult, he has come to meet some of the relatives who stayed behind. How different his fate would have been had his parents made the choice to stay.
"My father loves his country very much," says Jose. "My grandfather was a military man; he is in the Cuban history books. My father was also in the military. But they had one other thing in common, and that is that family comes before country. If you don't have a family, you don't have a country."
"More than anything, I get my own work ethic from my father. I remember for many years my father coming home from work and sitting down for a cup of Cuban coffee with my mother for more than an hour before dinner. And he would talk about everything, what happened, who it happened to, how he was thinking of resolving it. His principles and ethics were always there. They always dominated his decision making. If it was going to compromise his ethics, he wouldn't even consider it. Period."
"Some parents don't realize how much power they have over shaping their children's attitudes toward work. Nowadays when I make a decision, I ask myself, 'what would he do? how would he tackle it?' And I consult my father all the time. He's never failed to be a great source of information for me. He may not always be the only source I tap into, but he's always the first one."
Like his father, Jose never finished college. His father was called into the military. But Jose left school in Cincinnati when family issues called him back to their Puerto Rican home. In retrospect, though, he says he was also disenchanted with his field of study -- psychology -- because he couldn't subscribe to the notion of stereotyping individuals. So to earn a living, he developed skills that positioned him for a career as first a secretary, and then as administrative assistant...then administrative coordinator for Arquitectonica. Of course, it takes people by surprise that this young man is in a career normally held by women.
"Most of the things I have learned administratively I have learned from women," he says. "Traditionally they have been the ones who have ruled the administration fields. There was one woman in particular who I worked for at Royal Caribbean Cruises who I had many many conflicts with. But I also learned a lot from her. She was picky about details and picky about quality. But her department was the single most sales revenue producing department in the entire corporation. I recently sent her a letter telling her that working for her was one of the most important factors of who I am today." "She was an incredibly positive influence on how I do things today, how I treat people on my team," he says. "She never responded to my letter. But I don't really need her to. What I really needed was to tell her, 'I know how much you think I didn't hear you, but I did.'"
At Arquitectonica, he is given much more responsibility than most administrative assistants receive, not the least of which is the administrative coordination of his firm's portion of Miami International Airport 's $4.75 billion expansion project. Where in most firms, architectural or otherwise, the secretary is at the receiving end of administrative planning, Jose is the funnel through which all correspondence and communication must flow. If you want it done or said, tell it to Jose.
The difference here, he says, is his eagerness to take ownership of a project in its entirety...not just passively receiving assignments that flow down from the architects. In a way, his work style defies organizational gravity as much as the designers' visions for buildings seem to defy physical gravity. It's all about ownership, says Jose.
"The only reason they've given me this amount of responsibility is that I've shown ownership of both the job and its outcome," he says. "I've told them 'I can handle this, give me the chance to show you.' And they do. If you don't take ownership, you're not going to take pride in your work."
Likewise, he says, if a company wants to hang on to a valued employee, the supervisors should provide more and more opportunities for the employee to take on responsibility for the project as much in its entirety as possible.
"Nothing is going to provide an employer with a higher level of loyalty than getting the employees involved in as high a level as possible," he says. "A lot of people in the administrative field are not exposed to that level, and ownership isn't given to them even if they ask. And sometimes it's legitimate to withhold information...if the work requires too much expertise, for instance. But there is a lot that a company can do to involve the administrative staff to a greater extent."
And, he says, that value-added relationship between the employee and the employer goes far in making both individuals indispensable to each other. We're all dispensable, he says. But, especially in today's tight labor market, employers are equally dispensable. On the whole throughout the country, good workers with current skills can easily find excellent jobs with bright prospects for growth. Smart employers will recognize that employees take peddle their wares elsewhere, and are well-prepared to do so.
"For the first time in my life, I feel very self-employed," Jose says. "Anybody who has my abilities can do what I'm doing. On that level, I'm very replaceable. Everybody is. But if you learn to be in the business of Me, Inc., and learn to ask yourself 'How can I suck the juice out of this opportunity,' not only will you be making more money for yourself, but also for your employer. Consequently you'll be making yourself less and less dispensable. And by making yourself less dispensable, by packaging and positioning yourself as a can-do person, you are doing the things that entrepreneurs do to distinguish them from their competitors. That's what being self-employed is all about."
The notion of "can-do" is profound for Jose, who has many relatives who chose to stay behind in Cuba in the late 1950's, thinking that everything would sort itself out. He watched his family members struggle to maintain their essential spirit in a land where "can-do" has been historically and systematically extinguished.
"I have an aunt who stayed in Cuba," he said. "I remember meeting her in 1982 when we were able to get her a three-month pass to leave the island. I remember thinking she was such a remarkable human being; she could tackle the world. Now she has been able to leave Cuba for good and has been living in Miami for five months now. Just in this short period, she's regaining the full aspect of who she was born to be. She's 10 times the person she was when she left Cuba."
"In Cuba it's a system that does away with your positive thinking, your ambition, your hope for anything better," he says. "Things are the way they are, and you have to learn to live that way. And in the process your spirit is consumed."
"I have no interest in visiting Cuba right now, because I have no desire to leave even a penny for Castro's system," he says. "No matter how many trunks and trunks and trunks of goodies that I could leave for my family members who are still there, it would never be enough to bring them up to how life should be today."
And still he holds out hope for the relatives who chose to stay behind in Cuba :
"They're just remarkable people," he says. "They have this survival power that nothing can get so dark that it will shadow them out completely. It won't ever get pitch black."
His family continues to be his inspiration.
"What I've seen my parents accomplish is amazing both on a personal level and on a professional level," he says. "When I was a kid, my father had two jobs, and I used to see him only a few hours every day. And now, just when he could retire comfortably, what does he do? He starts his own food and beverage distribution business. And my mother is a vice president! They are both a continuing inspiration."
Okay, so inspiration for what? What is Jose's definition of a successful life?
"Success is being able to say that I've done what I thought was correct at the time," he says. "Success is not whether you are right or wrong, but it is the road you take to get there. Are you happy with the steps you took?"
"And success has to be measured by how you help other people make their own steps," he adds. "It's not all in the dollar sign. That's the material part of it, and yes, it's an important part of it. But success is also in the satisfaction every one will get out of the effort."
"Success is meaningless unless it can be shared. If you're the only element involved in that success, there's something missing."
Copyright 2005 by Martha Finney. All rights reserved.