Not a stranger on the train

There's an unspoken rule among most train commuters in the morning: don't talk to me, I won't talk to you, and we can all rest or read in relative peace while we wake up on our way to work.

Most early morning blabber mouths are met with flustered glances or evil stares. But when a partially blind, 85-year-old WWII vet with an honorary MBA from Stanford sat beside me the other morning, he couldn't see the other passengers' annoyed expressions.

He was a small man with white hair, dressed in khaki shorts and a while polo shirt. He wore large, think-lensed darkly tinted sunglasses, which was the only indication of his disability. The way he made his way around the car, you'd hardly know he had less than half his vision left.

He had hardly finished hoisting his bag onto the overhead shelf before commencing our intense and mostly one-sided conversation:

"I'm from California and you wouldn't believe how much harder is it to get around here on the east coast," he continued with a story about getting stuck in an elevator in a Philadelphia hotel after receiving inadequate instructions on how to use some sort of special keycard.

Next he told me about his frequent guest appearances at Stanford where he gave talks on business strategy. He was always met with unbridled, ardent praise from students.

"They tell me, every time, that they learn more from me in an hour and a half than they do in a whole year of business school," he said, "and you know why?"

"No?"

"Now, my dear, I don't have a lick of formal business training from a school, but I have experience. I managed people for years. And that's matters. Experience. You'll learn more actually doing than you will reading, no matter what it is you do."

Of the several other stories he managed to squeeze into into my 35 minute ride, (including how a doctor botched his cataract surgery and left his vision where it is today and how and why Texas is the only state in the nation with a stable economy) two things stood out:

"What do you think is more important," he asked, "working on the right thing, or doing the work right?"

It was like talking to a much older and more conservative Seth Godin.

"Doing it right?" I offered.

"Wrong!" He nudged me with his arm. In my defense, my head was still spinning from last night's margaritas.

"That's what most people think. But if you're doing a great job at the wrong thing, you're not getting anywhere!"

Naturally, he gave the example of how President Obama worked on the wrong thing by taking on healthcare reform as his first duty as President, instead of addressing the more pressing issue, unemployment. I kept my political opinions to myself, but couldn't help but agree with the lesson behind the message.

His next question was, "is it better to concentrate on the process of the work or the people doing the work?"

I went with my gut. "The people?"

"Wrong again!" He laughed. "I'm not trying to embarrass you, just teach you something," he said. "You're a smart girl. But this is a lesson that everyone needs to know. If you have a strong process, the people will follow. The strategy is most important. The people are second."

I thought about these rules and how they apply to an ad agency. We can do great work, but if it's for the wrong clients, we lose. And we can have the smartest people in the business at our disposal, but if we're not strategic in our approach, we lose again. This could be a lesson for any business.

So when my stop came, we shook hands and wished each other luck. I don't know that I made much of an impact on him, but I will remember his words for sure. He spoke more passionately about business than I'd heard someone talk about their career in years. I don't remember his name or why he was in Philly, but I remember he reminded me a bit of my dad. The way he was so full of ardor and as my mom says, has "never met a stranger."

As I walked down the aisle, I heard him ask the woman in the next row, "do you know which stop is next?" I looked back. The woman just mumbled no, shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"Wayne is next, you still have a while to go," I called back as I departed the car. He turned his head from side to side. Then I remembered he couldn't see me.