I just submitted this story for the "Did You Know?" column of the SMPS-NY chapter newsletter...
-----------------------
There’s an old story about
three stonemasons, each of whom is working on a block of stone. A traveler
comes along, and asks the first stonemason what he’s doing. The stonemason
replies, “I am cutting stone.” The traveler asks the second, who replies, “I am
shaping a cornerstone.” When the traveler asks the third stonemason what he’s
doing, the stonemason answers, “I am building a cathedral, which will be an important
place for the people of this community.”
If you’ve ever felt like
you’re on a treadmill at work, that all you do is the same thing over and over
again (say, proposals or presentations or cold calls or whatever it is that you
do), maybe you need to stop thinking about it as if you’re cutting stone, and
start thinking about it as if you’re building a cathedral. What are you really
trying to accomplish by what you’re doing? How does it really help your firm?
Why are you essential to your firm’s business? You aren’t just writing
proposals, for example, you’re building a practice. You aren’t just cranking
out PowerPoints, you’re helping to communicate your firm’s message to your
clients.
I once had the privilege to
participate in a workshop put on by one of Tony Robbins’ affiliates. I have to
admit that I was a little skeptical about the “motivational” techniques that
the speaker was using: getting us pumped up through music, physical activity,
and rah-rah affirmation. But, towards the end of the day, the speaker told us
that we going to close the workshop by breaking boards. That’s right, he had
brought pieces of plywood, roughly 8” by 10” and 1/2” thick, for each of us,
and he was going to teach us to break them with our bare hands.
The speaker asked us to
think of something to write on the board: a challenge that we were facing that,
if we could break through, it would bring us to new levels of success. I
thought about it for a moment, and one thing popped into my head, the idea that
marketing was overhead, a support function. I knew that if I could break
through that, if I could see that marketing is as important as design and
technical expertise, I could take my career further. I wrote “marketing as
secondary to design” on my board.
Then the speaker asked us to
write on the back of the board what would happen if we could break through this
challenge, what the reward would be to us. I wrote “increased influence,”
meaning that if I could see marketing as equal in importance to design and
technical functions, that I would have increased influence in my firm, in the
industry, and in the world. The speaker demonstrated how to break the board,
and all around me, other professionals with other challenges and goals used
their hands to break their boards. Then I broke mine, and I’ve never looked
back.
I believe that marketing is
as critically important to as firm’s success as design ability, or technical
expertise, or project delivery. And if we view what we do as critical, how can
it possibly be just overhead or support? I believe that each of us has the
opportunity to be a strategic leader in our firm. But first, we have to believe
that we are vitally important, we have to believe that we are leaders, we have
to believe that we are strategic. If we don’t believe it, how can we expect
anyone else to?
There’s a quote from Gandhi
that I really like: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” What he means, of course, is that change
starts with you. There’s no point complaining, there’s no point waiting for others
to change. If you want to change the world, start by changing yourself. And
that’s as true of your firm and your career as it is of the world around you.
Be the change you want to see in your firm, and watch where it takes you!
Comments