Bit of a different one tonight. I’ve been watching the political dynamics at play in the office recently and mulling over the why’s and wherefore’s of who gets what – and more importantly how those who get what they’re after go about getting it. This has been bobbing around my mind for a few weeks now and I need to get it down to get it out of my head. Hopefully it won’t come over as a whinge or a whine, and it probably won’t come over as anything new to most of the people who read this, but humour me or at least go watch a bear falling out of a tree instead and come back when I’m in a less contemplative mood.
I think this initially stems from a P.J. O’Rourke comment on Barack Obama - about how his major failing was that he was a success at school (an ‘A grade student’) and how this didn’t equip him to become president. It’s a well oiled saw that a lot of successful businessmen who were B grade students still end up employing A grade students. I think that is because A grade students, in whatever discipline, have an eye for detail and a desire to get to the bottom of problems. The most important thing is to figure out the answer to the problem, to tackle the obstacles that are placed in your way and overcome them through the application of your own effort. And if you have the mindset to do this then you get rewarded with high marks, maybe scholarships or prizes, the accolades of your family and at least some of your peers. This leads to a certain mindset – you can achieve great things by thinking things through, by problem solving, by finding solutions. You’re a do-er.
But it also makes you a details person, someone who looks ‘down’ to approach the challenges that you’re trying to overcome. It’s less of a job and more of a vocation. In some ways the thing that you’re working on, be it a piece of software, an architectural drawing, a project implementation or a design, becomes an entity in it’s own right and it’s easy to feel that you somehow have a responsibility towards that thing to help it become the best it can be.
However not everyone takes the same approach. There are many people out there who feel no responsibility towards your project, people who’s only interest is not what they can do for it (or you) but how they can talk it up for themselves. These are the people that you leant your homework too, who wrote the formulae on their pencil case or who smuggle a mobile phone into the local pub quiz. The task itself is meaningless – the only thing that matters is how the outcome reflects upon them. There is no sense of personal accountability. Bending the truth is easier than learning the truth, deliberately misleading people is still considered to be honest and outright lying is an acceptable way of getting what you want.
I think the problem is that the do-ers treat the talkers with a mild contempt and derision borne of knowledge - but this knowledge is a weakness. The expensive car the talker drives, the high-end camera lens they use or cutting-edge computer that they have just bought may not deliver an equal performance to the cheaper, better equivalents that are easily available but this is not the point. A flashy, meaningless, self-appointed title added to a business card may seem to be vain and ridiculous posturing but only to do-ers – only to people who know the details. Other talkers, other people who are looking up instead of down, will take this information at face value. They will try to challenge it not through knowledge but by the further use of symbols. The do-ers may exchange wry looks and sly sniggers at their desks as they attempt to wrestle through the problems they are working on but the talkers are the ones walking the corridors getting noticed. A flashy Rolex may only tell the time as well as an understated Seiko but that isn’t it’s primary role – it’s there to catch the eye, to project a certain aura regardless of what is underneath. The symbol is everything, the information itself is meaningless. Look up not down.
The detailed nature of a do-ers job helps maintain the divide. It’s hard to take the time to play the game, to have the lunches, make the ‘casual’ phone calls, ‘coincidentally’ be on the same plane as your boss when there is a deadline to meet. The talkers are the ones with the time to play the games, and it is those games that get them what they want.
And of course once a ‘go-to guy’ reputation is established the trap is firmly sprung. You will not escape from that role because you’re too good at what you do, you’re too valuable to be moved. You have double-glazed your own glass ceiling. And don’t think that you reverse out of this position by failure. Your long days, sleepless nights and successes may well have been seen as excellent teamwork that reflected well on your management and helped bring great success (and many commissions) to the sales guys but mess up and it will land on your head and your head only. And after that – well no-one wants to promote a failure.
Not really sure if there is a solution to this - true success should be measured by your own internal values, not by outside markers, and I think that a lot of do-ers would struggle to turn their backs on their projects, cross their own personal moral codes and become a talker. But it’s ironic to think that by doing so well at those tests so long ago I’ve created limits for myself. Until I stop talking and do something about it, that is….
I think this initially stems from a P.J. O’Rourke comment on Barack Obama - about how his major failing was that he was a success at school (an ‘A grade student’) and how this didn’t equip him to become president. It’s a well oiled saw that a lot of successful businessmen who were B grade students still end up employing A grade students. I think that is because A grade students, in whatever discipline, have an eye for detail and a desire to get to the bottom of problems. The most important thing is to figure out the answer to the problem, to tackle the obstacles that are placed in your way and overcome them through the application of your own effort. And if you have the mindset to do this then you get rewarded with high marks, maybe scholarships or prizes, the accolades of your family and at least some of your peers. This leads to a certain mindset – you can achieve great things by thinking things through, by problem solving, by finding solutions. You’re a do-er.
But it also makes you a details person, someone who looks ‘down’ to approach the challenges that you’re trying to overcome. It’s less of a job and more of a vocation. In some ways the thing that you’re working on, be it a piece of software, an architectural drawing, a project implementation or a design, becomes an entity in it’s own right and it’s easy to feel that you somehow have a responsibility towards that thing to help it become the best it can be.
However not everyone takes the same approach. There are many people out there who feel no responsibility towards your project, people who’s only interest is not what they can do for it (or you) but how they can talk it up for themselves. These are the people that you leant your homework too, who wrote the formulae on their pencil case or who smuggle a mobile phone into the local pub quiz. The task itself is meaningless – the only thing that matters is how the outcome reflects upon them. There is no sense of personal accountability. Bending the truth is easier than learning the truth, deliberately misleading people is still considered to be honest and outright lying is an acceptable way of getting what you want.
I think the problem is that the do-ers treat the talkers with a mild contempt and derision borne of knowledge - but this knowledge is a weakness. The expensive car the talker drives, the high-end camera lens they use or cutting-edge computer that they have just bought may not deliver an equal performance to the cheaper, better equivalents that are easily available but this is not the point. A flashy, meaningless, self-appointed title added to a business card may seem to be vain and ridiculous posturing but only to do-ers – only to people who know the details. Other talkers, other people who are looking up instead of down, will take this information at face value. They will try to challenge it not through knowledge but by the further use of symbols. The do-ers may exchange wry looks and sly sniggers at their desks as they attempt to wrestle through the problems they are working on but the talkers are the ones walking the corridors getting noticed. A flashy Rolex may only tell the time as well as an understated Seiko but that isn’t it’s primary role – it’s there to catch the eye, to project a certain aura regardless of what is underneath. The symbol is everything, the information itself is meaningless. Look up not down.
The detailed nature of a do-ers job helps maintain the divide. It’s hard to take the time to play the game, to have the lunches, make the ‘casual’ phone calls, ‘coincidentally’ be on the same plane as your boss when there is a deadline to meet. The talkers are the ones with the time to play the games, and it is those games that get them what they want.
And of course once a ‘go-to guy’ reputation is established the trap is firmly sprung. You will not escape from that role because you’re too good at what you do, you’re too valuable to be moved. You have double-glazed your own glass ceiling. And don’t think that you reverse out of this position by failure. Your long days, sleepless nights and successes may well have been seen as excellent teamwork that reflected well on your management and helped bring great success (and many commissions) to the sales guys but mess up and it will land on your head and your head only. And after that – well no-one wants to promote a failure.
Not really sure if there is a solution to this - true success should be measured by your own internal values, not by outside markers, and I think that a lot of do-ers would struggle to turn their backs on their projects, cross their own personal moral codes and become a talker. But it’s ironic to think that by doing so well at those tests so long ago I’ve created limits for myself. Until I stop talking and do something about it, that is….
Well summed up and written Mike.
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