Why are people so possessive about other employees?
Have you noticed how many people talk about other employees as if they owned them? “I was talking to my marketing director”, “have you met my lieutenant?”, are common occurrences in corporate speak.
If the person you are talking about has some sort of loyalty to you, then that type of speak may not bother him or her. If there is no personal loyalty, that person probably resents being talked about in that fashion.
But even if there is some sort of personal loyalty – does it really belong there? If you answered yes and your are in a position where other people report to you I suggest that you get a good career counselor, as your world is about to be rocked pretty hard.
The answer is of course NO. An employee’s loyalty should first and foremost be with the customer – no matter what the person’s position in the company is. Next in line are their peers, followed by the product or service that customers are “hiring” from your company. As a manager, you don’t even make it on the list.
Oh, and by the way, just in case you did not get that memo either – those same people don’t work for you either. Hopefully they work for the customer, but whether you like it or not, they work for themselves.
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May 30th, 2008 at 7:39 am
I’m going to have to disagree with your order of priorities here Francois. Although your comment on misplaced possessiveness may be right, I disagree that just because the corporate world has unbundled itself, the brand shouldn’t be a rallying point.
Strongly led and run companies galvanize commitment to the brand and its mission/manifesto/ethos. Although we don’t have too many examples of shining customer orientation, customer or co-worker commitment gone too far may obstruct the inevitable reason why people are in business – to make money.
For strong brands, I don’t think people are hiring your product either – talk to an Apple Genius and that is a foreign a relationship as you can muster for people’s interaction with Apple – love, invite, embrace, pursue but not hire.
As much as I am a fan of customer communities and using wom, user collaboration and customer experience to build business (and not through vacuous mass ads), denying the role that the values embued by the company/brand/service/idea is missing the mark.
May 30th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
In meetings with vendors, a colleague explains his role by saying “I own the application developers.” !
May 31st, 2008 at 10:21 am
@sean – thank you for taking the time to comment on my post.
I do not disagree that the brand can be/should be a rallying point, but that can happen by having everyone focusing 100% on the customer – think Zappos.com.
@sharon – too funny…
May 31st, 2008 at 1:37 pm
While I agree with your point, I fear you may be getting caught up in hermeneutic over interpretation