An Interesting Conversation

"Well, at the very least it makes for an interesting conversation..."

I said those words to a dear friend of mine in reference to one of many employees who reports to me at my place of employment. The topic was to what standard should we hold those who make up the bread and butter of the American economy-the blue-collared everyday next door hard-working American.

I have changed quite a bit since I first began my role in management. Going in, I felt it was a corporate right to hire and fire at will, which I still believe it should be. However, what I didn't realize was to what extent that corporation has influence on the individual, as long as the corporation so chooses, and in that same regard I did not realize the desperate need of the corporation for those beautiful people who are completely content in their particular place in our culture. It is an intricately complicated web of hierarchy. Some of my best are those who will never have the opportunites I now have, nor have had in the past, but are those who enjoy the simplicity of understanding their place, and although they will in all likelihood not advance to a higher level, they know they are damn good at what they do and they take pride in it.

But in all honesty, knowing that you are damn good at something and being content in only doing that thing because you know you are good at it is something that is often looked down upon from a management perspective. This is precisely where I have changed my perspective. Beauty can be found in simplicity, in so-called complacency, and in a job well done, even if it is deemed unambitious by those who are responsible for the job getting done in the first place. This closed-minded view is archaic, and should be contradicted with an enlightened understanding that we are no stronger than the pieces that make up our foundation.

And so I ask... to what standard are we as 'ambitious' citizens to hold those who do the things we manage, those things that when done well make us successful? Did we do that thing, or did we ask it to be done and by some certain stroke of luck it was done so well that we received the commendation for managing it and are thus given the description of being 'high-potential?' Do we dub these do-ers as unambitious, inferior, and complacent, or do we embrace them as the cornerstones of our societal and individual successes?

At the very least, it makes for an interesting conversation...