Are you more like Mr Evolving or Mr Comfort in your focus and actions?

My worry is that he has started spending too much time discussing those who got lucky? 

A Comment by Manager about his team member during talent review meeting made me think!

Everyday we indulge in multiple interactions with colleagues at workplace for work and ancillary purposes.  In our engagement set, includes those who are above and those below us in organizational hierarchy- ie seniors and junior folks.

Similarly, we may classify these folks as more or less competent than us, and this classification is purely personal, based on individual assessment of others competence in comparison to self! 

These two parameters combined puts all the fellowmen we interact with, into four categories.  How and how-much one interacts with people in each category, helps one get labeled as from Mr Evolving or My Comfort camp.

Mr Evolving has his set of friends like Mr Positive, Mr. Enthusiast, Mr. Trusting, Mr. Learning, Mr Curious and Mr. Experimenter, who together share certain set of characteristics when deciding how much time is to be spent with colleagues placed in each quadrant and 

what set of assumptions would drive those interactions.

What is the most differentiating feature is this  camps focus on encouraging and respecting competence across levels with intent to learn and also mostly under-playing the role of luck in driving outcomes. They do not spend effort or energy on arguing too much on so-called system aberrations or difficult to fathom deviations.  

 

 

 

Contrast this to Mr Comfort, who has friends like Mr Sceptic, Mr Justifying, Mr. Precedence,  Mr. Avoidant, would spend most of their time in lower quadrant seeking assurance of their competence level from those below and also presenting oneself as the under-valued, victim of the system, making selective convenient reference to those above in hierarchy.

 

  

Indeed, leaders of both the camps are effective communicators, use good set of examples in support of their PoV and display immense ability to sway loyalty and grow their followers base.  

Unless, seen in the form of pattern, each of the arguments presented by these leaders appeal as persuasive, realistic and worthy of merit. 

Like most of us who say hello to all colleagues, we may also be spending some time with members from both the camp and do attempt to understand their perspective.

But do we really know, which camp is our resting place? For it matters in the long run. And unless consciously resisted, the shift to Mr Comfort camp may happen without much notice.

Is our understanding of position same as that our colleagues associate with us? When was the last we validated this?

Here is a self-revealing exercise:  

1. How is the total time split across four quadrants?

2. How often is luck or system referred to as reason to justify outcomes (positive or negative)?

3. How often have I advocated competence enhancement as step to growth? 

4. How many conversations have been about gaining new experiences with associated discomfort? 

5. Is there NEED to rebalance time allocation and attention shift from Luck to Competence?    

Be in the camp of your choosing and not luck…it matters !