The StoryCorps Mobile Tour returned to Fort Myers in February 2024 to record meaningful conversations with people right here in Southwest Florida about their lives.
Each Monday, we’re highlighting some of the compelling stories from our fellow Southwest Florida residents.
In this installment, we hear Gene Dole share lessons he learned from Afar tribesmen while on paleoanthropological expeditions in Ethiopia in the mid 1970s while he was a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
Those lessons became integral to his approach to managing teams of workers throughout his career and a critical aspect of how he’s approached relating to others throughout his life.
Transcript:
JOHN DAVIS, HOST: Each Monday, we're featuring conversations recorded through the StoryCorps mobile tour stop in Fort Myers earlier this year. Today, we hear Gene Dole share lessons he learned from Afar tribesman while on paleoanthropological expeditions in Ethiopia some 50 years ago that became a guiding force behind his approach to managing teams of workers throughout his career, and a critical aspect to how he's approached relating to others throughout his life.
GENE DOLE: I was an anthropology graduate student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. As kind of the low man on the totem pole as a graduate student, I worked with the locals a lot of times in the field, and we would take sand from the sites where we had found some significant fossil and sift through the sand.
Well, one day, I was working with tribesmen by the name of Dato. I'd gotten to know him really pretty well. We'd worked together before and neither of us spoke each other's language. The first dictionary of the Afar language had been organized the year before, but it had not yet been published.
They were very friendly people once you got to know them. They thought that we were really strange and that we were a little crazy because we were out there collecting rocks, and they didn't see any value in that, but they still helped us and went along with it.
Dato and I were in a very remote location working this one day. We were sifting the sand with a large two-man screen. During this time, we didn't speak at all. We just put shovel-fulls of sand onto our screen, sifted it, scrutinized for remains of fossils, put whatever we found in a plastic bag, and then went to the next shovel of sand. It was very peaceful and steady, smooth and coordinated efforts. And from hindsight, it was a very meditative joint activity. It was really fascinating. At the end of the day, as we packed up our work and left, I was struck by how much in sync we were. Both of us respected each other and coordinated our efforts seamlessly, for we had shared our humanity without speaking words and without reservation. The time was very special, and for me, it was transformative.
As a result, I've always remembered that feeling of oneness with working with a person. I learned two things from working with Dato that day in 1973. We are connected to all people, and it doesn't matter what culture, whatever they are, we have a basic humanity together, and everyone has virtue and deserves respect, whatever their heritage or background. And that really stuck with me for the rest of my life.
I got out of anthropology and started managing people in healthcare, and I still remembered those two things, and I used them as core value systems as I was managing people. A second insightful event occurred a week later. There were five tribesmen and myself. We were sifting fossil fragments at a much larger site. As we worked the locals would occasionally talk and joke around. All of a sudden, the Afar tribesmen, they just stopped talking. They stopped working, put down their shovels and the screens, and walked over to the edge of the work area and sat down under the shade of a large bush. I mean, it was the only shade for a long ways around. So I was just stunned. They had never done anything like this before. Were they protesting? Had I offended them? So, I was standing there for a few seconds, and I looked over at them with confusion, and they motioned to me to come over to them and sit down. My instinct was to follow their instructions promptly. And just as I sat down in the shade of this bush, a gust of very, very hot wind came across the work site, the temperature must have jumped 10-15, degrees immediately. And even sitting there, I was almost overcome with heat. What would have happened if I'd been standing up and I hadn't listened to them? They all patted me on the back and chuckled like they were saying, “It's good that you did listen to us.”
Well, the thing that I learned from that that was so important was to listen to the people that are actually doing the work for me. And I always remembered standing there looking at these five workers, wondering why the hell they had sat down and they weren't doing anything. Then I went over and I sat down, and I realized they knew what was going on, and by paying attention to them, I had saved myself. I could have fainted, and I did that with my employee on a regular basis, whether I managed 60 of them or close to 200, and it took me a lot more effort, but I enjoyed that, because I was giving credit to people that had ideas and allowing them to actively participate in their work decisions that did affect them on a day to day basis.
So, I found that my paleoanthropology experience was really critical to my ability to manage people. When I first tried to explain that to people, when I was trying to get a job as an administrator, boy, I can't tell you how many people looked at me, thinking “you are nuts.” And then about 10 years after I had started managing, it became in vogue to put anthropologists into large corporations, because they realized the culture stuff did matter and that it was important. So we do have choices, and we can make choices when we interact with people, and I think that's what's so critical, as I learned when I was in Ethiopia with the natives.
DAVIS: That was Gene Dole, speaking of the StoryCorps Airstream trailer studio during this StoryCorps mobile tour stop in Fort Myers earlier this year. This is WGCU News.
WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and donate now. Thank you.
