“People of Action” and “People of Flossing”
A textbook story for almost any (or probably for any) company. Someone is clever, efficient, decent and useful for the common cause, they are “people of action”. Yet the situation turns out like in a folk art gem, “The horse worked its tail off on the collective farm but it did not become the chairman.”
And someone is incompetent, is prone to scheming, wrecks everything both because he or she is mean and because his or her fingers are all thumbs. They are “people of flossing”. But they can very well swim because others hold their heads, they make no scruple of getting quirks and perks from their bosses, they take other people’s achievements for their own without a second thought. Or, having made a mess of a project as a consultant and having been kicked away by their client, tell tales from TV screens full of enormous self-importance.
I do not want to go into HR details: someone is born to manage, someone is born to be managed, someone is born to inspire and someone is born to create an atmosphere. That is why I am writing not about a place in the corporate hierarchy but about recognition of services which, unfortunately, is rarely proportionate to the services for the reasons mentioned below:
Focusing on the result not the process. “People of action” unlike “people of flossing” value their time and do the job for the sake of the job not merely to impress. They nurse clients, win elections, spend days and nights in scientific laboratories. That is, they care for the result of the process not for their place in it. And they do not run “to the higher-ups” or “into the TV-set” every minute, they do not idle around in the outer offices and do not truckle to the powerful. That is why “people of flossing” make the most of their soft touch colleagues, pass them on a curve easily working not towards the result but their bosses’ loyalty to themselves.
An expert’s mistake. “People of action” are really ashamed to speak in platitudes. They are naïve enough to believe that they do something very common and there is nothing special in the results they have reached while “people of flossing” are ready to inform the whole world fondly like preschoolers that the earth is round and consider it to be a great recent discovery. And, which is not surprising for reason number 5, to find an appreciative audience and even to win over their own “evangelists” among those very “people of flossing”.
Inability/reluctance to frame the contents. “People of action” are not disposed to “advertise” their achievements for reasons number 1 and 2: it is a waste of time and energy. Even if they are perfectly trained in self-promoting, they take corresponding actions in utter disgust. Too much of self-esteem stands on their way of becoming the boss’s favorite or the center of crowds.
Incompetent management. Modern management is not only incompetent by and large, it is much above this level in the hierarchy of incompetence. Having made their career over dead bodies, the vaunted managers got to the height where they cannot meet the expectations of their noble rank because of their professional inaptitude. Or they might have been artificially bailed out to the unattainable heights – by nepotism parachutes. “People of action” pose a threat for this kind of specimen. They are either given tasks of “scrubbing madam’s chamber and those of misses, her daughters” or of “going I don’t know whither and fetching I know not what”. However, “people of flossing” are in favor: they will never outshine their bosses with their achievements, they have a perfect command of lickspittling and ratting, they enjoy being engaged in idiocies like joint trips abroad to concerts at the shareholders’ expense and other perverted forms of teambuilding. Yet, until the time is ripe and until a cunning vizier stabs the slack and careless sultan in the back.
General dullness. Modelling as a method of scientific cognition based on simplification of the object under study came to social sciences from exact ones. There is nothing wrong about it. Actually, there wasn’t before primitivization became universal. Unfortunately, modern world is too complex for the majority of people, both technologically and structurally. So in order to overcome the stress caused by the contact with it, people get back to practically a natural state voluntarily and on a massive scale. They mythologize the reality up to a limited set of simple categories instead of critically digesting it. In this world, the value of “people of action” is clear only to themselves and to a handful of sane employers.
Who is to be blamed? “The family and the school” that teach “one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover”. And mass culture that values flossing not action where the audience wants to see and hear only a pleasing and easy to digest mass of pseudo-facts and media rascals.
What is to be done? To live in accordance with your nature. If you somehow managed to be born intelligent, honest and conscientious, be so kind as to comply. At the same time, follow safety rules in order to get remuneration you deserve for “the work done”:
1. forget about your favorite work flow, kick back (within reasonable bounds – to a degree that nobody else but you understand you are working not at full capacity) and “do some flossing” if people like it;
2. surrender to the idea that you are really cleverest of all at something and that you can do something best of all – and tell the world about it;
3. make an effort and waste your time on little things – color your power point presentation, edit down your speech, find a nice picture that will delight your boss’s eye, fix your director’s tie – enjoy yourself after all;
4. study the rituals of corporate hypocrisy – to laugh at the boss’s jokes, to simulate pleasure at puppet courses – like they say, if you cannot avoid being assaulted … and further on as the text goes;
5. always remember what world you are living in and what this world is coming to. Clear ideas help keep the balance of your mind and make progress not only in your own categories system but in the ordinary way.
http://forbes.net.ua/woman/1381896-lyudi-dela-i-lyudi-pontov
Tags: Career, Psychology, Self-education, Work