20100122

Among My People


One of my first sources of worry about the SDM program was "Opportunity Sets". Not their existence, but their name. The kind of individual who would name a "problem set" an "opportunity set" seemed to me infected by the worst elements of contemporary managerese doublespeak. When I took a break from the corporate world for the academic, I thought I was leaving "learnings" and "incent" behind. Did this mean that I would be surrounded by suit-wearing phonies who actually believed in their golf-themed Successories posters?

Turns out that it's not a problem. My colleagues are My People, engineers and scientists with a leadership-oriented bent. They are honestly interested in solving real technical problems. They have accomplishments from aerospace, civil engineering, IT, consumer electronics, the military, and even the food industry. They have all seen Star Wars. (Except one. We're working on him.)

That said, we all learn the most from people who are different from us. It's comfortable to be surrounded by people Like Me, but I may have to stretch myself a bit to try new things. Does this mean that I may end up in the Sales Club? Stay tuned.

But no Successories posters, please.

1 comment:

  1. There's a lot to be learned by people who are different. Sometimes, the learning is that the system is set up to let certain kinds of people succeed even if they add no value to the system. So the learning is more about the context in which those people reside, rather than learning anything that the people have to offer, themselves.

    I will be diplomatic and give no specific examples.

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