Take off your shirt, put your brain
By Luis
Felipe Calderón Moncloa on January 17, 2017 11:16 AM
If you are on step 7 or 8 of your
organization, it is nice to put on "the shirt" of the company,
identify with it and sing excited in the organizational choir. But if you are
in the intermediate levels and you intend to reach their higher levels soon,
you better take distance from that destructive modita.
Put on your
shirt" is a manipulative invocation to get emotionally involved with the
organization in order to give you more of your time and your energies than
healthily correspond to your work role.
In other words,
it serves so that people take hours out of their family, social and couple life
to devote themselves to the organization and, all, for the same modest salary. We will not discuss here why this
unhealthy mechanism is so accepted among Peruvian leaders, but clearly it is
not something that goes with the organizations or with the successful people
who have as one of their first characteristics, the balance between all their
different roles.
In summary:
that your work is only your job.
We do not doubt
that it is an important part of your life (thus, underlining
"a part" and not underlining "very important"). But your work is not your life and you
should not allow your work to become your "I", your identity. Unless you're an octave sucker and you
have no other way to get you out of that low-ranking job. T-Shirt
The first four reasons why you should take off your shirt
1. The first
reason why you do not build your "me" around your organization is
that tomorrow they could throw you out of work because your bosses decided,
despite all your sacrifices and all your delivery (since you did not take off
the organization's shirt nor to sleep), which should save costs and
"rationalize".
Or maybe they
do not throw you out, they just take you out of the form and they charge you
for receipt so that it costs the organization less and so they save the money
they wasted on your health, your vacations, your retirement and other silly
things like that. . The only important
thing is that some manager, thanks to these savings, will achieve their goals
and collect their annual bonus, which is the only thing that really matters.
2. The second
reason is prettier. It could happen
that, given your great capacity and your good performance, tomorrow you could
get a better job and decide to resign and leave this organization. What would you do then with that
"shirt" that you have already tattooed on your skin?
3. The third is
the most important reason: an executive with the shirt on does not serve his
organization and is a danger to him.
(I beg you, I
urge you to read the brilliant book by Alvesson and Spicer, 2016, The Stupidity paradox, buy
it from Amazon.com/kindle and get it in two minutes).
"That we
need executives committed to your company" is a dangerous half-truth. The truth is that a enamored and
fanatical executive will incur all the mistakes of lovers and fans and could
lead, in the end, to the disappearance of the company. Read each case of great brands that disappeared and you will see in them
the signs of the "Functional Stupidity" of which Alvesson and Spicer
warn us. You will also notice that in those
missing big brands there were some executives who warned of the dangers but who
could not make themselves heard, since everyone was too busy worshiping their
beloved company and their idolized products, refusing to see the reality of
their shortcomings and mistakes.
And today they
are history.
The best executives, rather than
having well-placed shirts, have very active brains. They love success, so they
want their businesses and their products to be successful, but they are not
blinded by love for them so they are aware of the dangers and limitations.
In the end, it
is a total and dangerous lie that we need executives committed to the company:
what we need are executives committed to their own lives, their families, their
success and, to our good fortune, decide to make their success in our company.
company. (This we will see in the following
article).
The best
executives, rather than having well-placed shirts, have very active brains. They love success, so they want their
businesses and their products to be successful, but they are not blinded by
love for them so they are aware of the dangers and limitations.
4. The fourth
and last reason is of great transcendence. I have set out on the basis of a false assumption: "high levels are
those that think, low levels are enough to commit themselves".
Well, I lied to
you: in an excellent company, everyone has a very active brain and is committed
to their own success so if we want them to have their success here, we must
develop a management style that achieves just that: stay because it suits them,
not stay because they are committed
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