Resist the Urge to Be Average
Everywhere around you are average people. They entice you into being more like them by offering their acceptance and by leading you to believe that everyone else is already more like them than like you.
But the “average person sales pitch” leaves out that you will be sacrificing your goals, individuality, and unique ideas and that you will lead a life determined more by the preferences of the group than by you.
“A person who wants to be a leader must turn his back to the crowd,” says the sign on Ty Underwood’s desk. Ty runs a job placement service that works with laid-off and chronically underemployed workers.
“When I got here there was an attitude that this was all a show to keep the agency’s funding. We’d show up, have the clients come in to fill out some papers, then send them on their way. Nobody behaving as if there was important work to be done, nobody behaving as if there was potential to be tapped here.” His first task was to change everything. To two-thirds of the staff, he minced no words: “Here’s your resignation. Sign it.” Now each day begins with the premise that “Everyone who walks through this door can do more. That goes for the counselors and the clients.”
Two years later, Ty has taken an office he considered an embarrassment and turned it into a model, with a job placement record of 71 percent.
Psychologists have observed that bad habits can spread through an office like a contagious disease. Employees tend to mirror the bad behaviors of their co-workers, with factors as diverse as low morale, poor working habits, and theft from the employer all rising based on the negative behavior of peers.
Having the desire to help others is the calling that brings many into the “helping professions.” For others, it is the day to day service that we do for our families, children and others we work for/or/with. There is a fine line however when helping is not really helping, but rather a barrier that leads to stagnation or worse yet, fosters an unhealthy dependence. Indicators of when helping is NOT helping: 1. When the help we provide is not accepted by others The term I’ve used for years is when helping leads to “help rejecting complainers.” When our helping leads others to excuse themselves of embracing the help, then rejecting it, or avoiding it. This is not a judgment of our help or our intent, but of others’ readiness to change. They may simply not see the same way as you do. They may not value the same things. 2. When the help leads others to make the same poor decisions Any change effort has to be embraced as well as given. It is hard to un...
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