One day a teacher asked her class, “Can anyone give me a sentence with an object in it?”

A little girl said, “Teacher, you’re the most wonderful and beautiful lady I’ve ever seen.” The teacher responded, “Thanks, but what is the object”?

The little girl added, “I’d like to have a longer recess today.”

OK, the little girl was buttering up her teacher, and I don’t blame her. But I’d like to butter up all the teachers out there for a different reason -- they make a difference in every life they touch. November 18 to 22 is American Education Week. And if you’d like to plan ahead, Teacher Appreciation Week is May 3 to 9, 2020.

I have a personal admiration for teachers; my mother taught fourth grade. She made sure my sister and I were the best students we could be, and instilled in us a love of lifelong learning. She always reminded us that school ends, but education doesn’t.

Teachers are the unsung heroes behind almost every successful person. From preschool onward, they challenge, encourage, rein their students in when necessary and then set them free to discover and achieve. I suspect you could ask any CEO, business owner or person who has followed their dream if they can remember a favorite teacher, and they will have an immediate answer.

As I was researching this column, I found some remarkable data from the National Center for Education Statistics. As of fall 2019, there are 3.7 million teachers in public and private schools, managing 56.6 million students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. (Those numbers don’t include the students who are home-schooled or online learners.) That’s an enormous responsibility to face day in and day out.

Education is easy to take for granted. With schools in nearly every town or neighborhood, buses to provide transportation to the front door, books and resources available for all and qualified teachers to lead the way, who wouldn’t jump at the chance to get an education?

Yet we don’t always appreciate what we have in America and most developed countries. Our opportunities begin soon after we learn to walk and talk. All we have to do is show up and pay attention (and do some homework).

Teachers are the people who turn four walls into a learning environment and help develop the natural curiosity and creativity that all kids seem to be blessed with. As students progress through the grades, teachers help them to expand their horizons and find their passions. And when it’s time to move on to post-secondary programs, teachers are there to prepare young minds to take on the challenges of life after school.

Grayson Kirk, former president of Columbia University, put it well: “The most important function of education at any level is to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of his life to himself and to others. This is the basic architecture of a life; the rest is ornamentation and decoration of the structure.”

I’m pretty sure I made all my teachers earn their salary every day. When I think about who had the biggest influence on my life aside from my parents, I can remember a few. But one stands out: Professor Harold Deutsch, my academic adviser at the University of Minnesota. I scored a “D” in his History of World War II class, and when I went to plead my case for a better grade, I was quickly informed that my affinity for the golf team had to take a backseat to my studies. He didn’t mince words. And I am forever grateful.

A story collected in “Wisdom Well Said” by Charles Francis illustrates the impact teachers have on a person’s life and future.

The noted American novelist James Michener received an invitation to a dinner at the White House in the 1950s from President Dwight Eisenhower. And, even though he felt it would be an honor to meet the president, he politely declined.

Michener wrote: “Dear Mr. President, I received your invitation three days after I had agreed to speak a few words at a dinner honoring the wonderful high school teacher who taught me how to write. I know you will not miss me at your dinner, but she might at hers."

Michener promptly received this reply from an understanding President Eisenhower: “In his lifetime, a man lives under 15-16 presidents, but a really fine teacher comes into his life but rarely.”

Mackay’s Moral: A person without an education is like a building without a foundation.

Back in 1960, when I bought a small envelope company with dreams of becoming a gazillionaire, I could not imagine a world where people just turned on a machine, clicked through some instructions and paid the electric bill.

I didn’t think that I could have a contract signed and returned to me in a few minutes instead of dropping a paper document in the mail and waiting a few days. I was operating in a time when catalog orders went into an envelope back to the retailer to be processed.

In other words, I didn’t anticipate the changes ahead -- and neither did my competitors. Had I read a book like Daniel Burrus’ “The Anticipatory Organization,” I might have considered investing in developing computer technology.

But over the years, I wised up and learned to follow trends, even predict a few. I was perhaps a little late to the party with some of that wisdom, but it made a big difference when I could start to see what was coming my way.

“Organizations of all types and sizes have traditionally relied on their ability to react as quickly as possible to shifting challenges, the demands of the marketplace and other types of disruptions,” Burrus says. “That’s often referred to as agility."

But in today's increasingly disrupted and disruptive world, agility alone no longer cuts it, he asserts.

So, he asks, “Would you rather have merely reacted as quickly as possible as change took place, or anticipated it and crafted well-thought-out plans to take advantage of its game-changing opportunities?”

Burrus cites plenty of very recognizable examples to back up his ideas. For instance, he tells about the introduction of the iPhone. Reporters asked the CEO of BlackBerry, which then dominated the cellphone market, if he was concerned about a threat to his business. His response might amuse us today. He didn’t think anyone would want to watch a video on a phone, and couldn’t imagine the appeal of watching on such a small screen. As of November 2018, the last time Apple released sales figures, more than 2.2 billion iPhones had been sold worldwide.

When you adopt an anticipatory mindset, you learn not to focus on your competition. When you do that, Burrus says, you will be tempted to adopt or adapt what they do, and look like them. Instead of imitating, you should learn to innovate by intentionally focusing on what the competition is not doing.

Consider this: Only four companies that made the Fortune 500 top 10 list 20 years ago remained on the list last year. Apple and Amazon are on the current list, but they weren’t there just 10 years ago, even though both were in existence. Certainly there were computers, cellphones and bookstores aplenty during that time span. But they didn’t adapt to get ahead of trends.

I’ll be the first to acknowledge that, sometimes, just keeping up with trends takes an enormous amount of energy. As I mentioned earlier, envelopes seemed to be a pretty safe commodity when I went into business. Fax machines emerged as a threat to paper transactions, and then email and texting. Automatic bill paying, the decline of direct mail and online ordering cut further into our industry. We’ve had to reinvent ourselves time and time again, and I’m fairly certain that we will continue to do that as long as we are in existence.

As Burrus points out, “We’re going to be spending the rest of our lives in the future. Given that reality, why do we spend such little time or energy trying to anticipate what it has in store for us?”

He also emphasizes that “all the technology in the world is secondary to interaction between people -- constructive, trust-based interaction. Without that, what good is the most amazing technology?”

That’s music to my ears. I never want to be part of a business that puts technology ahead of people. I love interacting with my employees, customers and even competitors. That’s how I get some of my best ideas. That’s where I see my future.

If you see your future somewhere else, read and study this book. I anticipate that you’ll love it.

Mackay’s Moral: The future belongs to those who are prepared for it.

A man entered a shoe repair shop and said to the owner, “I just found this claim ticket for a pair of shoes I dropped off -- 10 years ago.”

“Oh my,” the shopkeeper chuckled. “Let me take a look at that,” he said as he inspected the ticket. “I hope we still have them. I’ll go in the back and check.”

The shopkeeper could be heard rummaging through boxes before he called out, “They’re still here!”

“That’s great!” the man said when the shopkeeper emerged from the back room holding a pair of dusty shoes. “How much do I owe you?”

“They’re not ready,” the shopkeeper replied, “but I can have them back to you by next Tuesday.”

We’ve all been in that man’s shoes, metaphorically. We do business with an organization, only to find out the customer isn’t really the most important person to them. Regardless of how often I speak or write about service, the response is most often centered on personal experiences that have disappointed. On rare occasions I hear about truly amazing service, and it just reinforces how important it is to share these stories with our sales force.

Let me give you an example. In the envelope manufacturing business, of which I’ve been a part for 50-plus years, we win or lose customer jobs by pennies per thousand. When most of our customers are purchasing between tens of millions to, in several instances, over 500 million envelopes annually, the pennies do add up to thousands of dollars of cost difference.

With our product and pricing so dramatically close between customer options, it truly does come down to quality of service and flexibility in adapting to the “ordering off the menu” requests by customers.

But the sale only begins when the customer says yes. In addition to the sales force, every person who has a hand in the production, packaging, delivery and post-sale customer service needs to be on board with the company’s philosophy and promises. Otherwise, that customer probably won’t be a customer for long.

Keeping employees motivated to consistently provide high-quality customer service is absolutely essential for any company that plans to stay in business. Here are some basic considerations:

-- Hire the right people. The rule is you either hire smart or manage tough. Hiring smart is much, much better, but it requires you to know what you’re looking for and to recognize the skills and attitude you want. Look at experience and listen to your gut. If you still aren’t sure, ask yourself if you’d want that person to be working for your competitor. If the answer is no, then you know your answer.

-- Keep score. Measure performance, or your team will be in perpetual warm-up mode. Let employees know what they’re being measured on and how it’s relevant to them, their customers,and the organization’s bottom line. Clear expectations eliminate misunderstandings.

-- Recognize employees. Make sure you reward the desired outcome. For instance, if you want your salespeople to create relationships and long-term accounts, reward them. We have a designated parking spot with their name near the door for the salesperson of the month. A “wall of fame” is great motivation for displaying the above-and-beyond attitude you want to encourage.

-- Practice what you preach. If you want a motivated customer-service rep, you need to be motivated yourself first. You need to love your customers, because if you’re not sincerely motivated yourself, you’ll never motivate other people to provide service excellence.

Steve Hardison, who went on to become a successful executive coach, began his career in sales at Xerox. Product returns were against company policy at the time, but according to a story in the Chicago Tribune, one day, Hardison decided to let one of his customers return a copier regardless of the rule. When his boss demanded an explanation, Hardison said, “If I lose a job because I took care of a customer, then I never had a job.”

The next day his boss’s boss called him into his office. Hardison fully expected to get fired. Instead, the executive said, “I wish I had more people like you.” His reputation for honesty and integrity was made.

Mackay’s Moral: There is no such thing as too good where customer service is involved.