So I work for this giant company. GIANT company. And sometimes, I meet strangers who are so impressed that I work for this GIANT company, that they don't realize I am but a speck of dust. By no means am I belittling who I am, the work I do, or the impact I have--I'm a speck of gold dust among several others, but no matter how you look at it, it's still dust. Let's just say, if you pulled out an organization chart of this GIANT company, you'd need to use a magnifying glass to find me. And it is quite fascinating the number of people that are so starstruck by my GIANT employer that they grossly misjudge the power I actually wield.
Case in point: I'm a member of a professional association for leadership development geeks, and whenever I go to the annual conference and people find out where I work, they are suddenly all, "Oh? Oooooh!" And I try to explain the speck of dust thing, but I lose them at GIANT.
A couple of weeks ago, a staff member at the head office for that association wrote me with a request. He was drafting an article for an upcoming newsletter about the benefits of membership, so I gave him a couple of my deepest thoughts and called it good. On Monday, I received a copy of the article and nearly peed my pants when I opened it up.
The article closed with four quotes from the following people:
1. A Pulitzer-prize winning author, well-known scholar, essentially one of the gods of Leadership Studies. Yes, he even has a school at the University of Maryland named after him.
2. A former Prime Minister of Canada.
3. A senior leader at Unilever. A person in a role that's more giant than mine for a company that's also more giant.
And yes, number four...
4. Little Ms. Notetaker, Assistant Speck of Dust, GIANT corporation.
Seriously? A Pulitzer-prize winning author? The former Canadian Prime Minister? I would really love to be flattered, but I know this has n-o-t-h-i-n-g to do with me and everything to do with GIANTS. But can I really help it if this file finds its way into my annual review?
2 comments:
See, there you go- drop your name and the company you are associated with and you too can have your pearls of wisdom published. That's power. That's street cred. I think you should try it at your dry cleaners, coffee shop, and probably even IHOP.
'course, it might just have something to do with the fact that your deep thoughts were genuinely valuable and worth printing. You might leave that possibility open. Just a thought.
oh sigh......
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