When I start a new project or a new job I like playing dumb. I pretend I know absolutely nothing about how to do my job.
Is that shocking? It is so contrary to what we think we should do – we should always show our knowledge and that we know exactly what to do in any work situation. How else can we take charge? How do we direct our people and make sure everything is done right?
When I think about teamwork, I think of a group of people working together to achieve a common objective. In teamwork each person has their role and they subordinate themselves and their personal importance to the larger objective. Teamwork makes us feel good about ourselves and our achievements.
Right?? Isn’t that what teamwork is all about?
Right?? Isn’t that what teamwork is all about?
I thought so, but recently I had a boss who gave me a different perspective on teamwork, one I had have not fully considered before.
When I entered the Air Force many years ago, I was told that I needed a “Sponsor” to help ensure my rise through the ranks. My Sponsor should be a higher ranking officer who was upwardly mobile. My Sponsor should also have a Sponsor who was a well-connected senior ranking officer who is on track for General’s rank. The trick to the system was picking the right line of Sponsors. At the very top of the officer ranks there were rivalries and the senior officer in your sponsorship line could instantly fall out of favor or lose status to a rival. If either of these happened, the entire line of sponsorship would suffer the consequences and once bright careers would be dead in the water.
The whole concept of sponsorship was to work the politics of the merciless up-or-out system.
In addition to a Sponsor, I also needed a Mentor. Sponsors and Mentors may not be one in the same. Mine were very different. The job of your mentor was to teach the ins and outs of doing the job. My first mentor was my supervisor and his career was in the toilet – but – he knew everything about everything! He mentored two of us and we got exposed to…well…the stuff you don’t see if you have to worry about politics. He was a cowboy who took risks and also took the hits as they came.
I always say that I wish everyone could have the same experiences early in their career as I had in mine. I learned soooo much!!!
But this system that I first learned was inherently male.
I came across a statement I made in an article : The successful businessman is the Hero and the driver of our society.
If you are paying attention to the stock market, 2013 is proving this statement is true.
I don’t know what made me do it but on January 20th I turned on CNBC. That is about the time the stock market really started taking off. And I don’t know why I thought it but I thought – someone on Wall Street has decided to take over the economy and drive it. Someone has decided that Washington is dysfunctional, not going to do anything and so, they are taking matters into their own hands to end this recession. Someone is going out on a limb, with a balls-to-the-wall attitude. Someone thinks they have nothing to lose that the only other option is stagnation.
In the weeks that followed, that someone ignored all of the bears, nay-sayers, the multitude of critics and doom-and- gloom forecasters. They were successful – they made something happen. And as an added bonus the whole federal budget debate in Washington is negated.
With the economy doing well, the fiscal cliff is postponed from May to end of the summer? Into late fall? Sorry Republicans your side of the crisis is negated. Sorry Democrats, your side of the crisis is also negated – there is no need to raise taxes.
The Wall Street businessman is the Hero who saved our economy. And his reward is power!!
Ladies – this is an example we need to follow!!
