One of the changes that has been the most hard to adapt to as I have embraced my new position at work is being on the outer layer of "The Know".
There is a "The Know" in every company. It is that group of individuals that is aware of everything that is going on at a site, a plant, a division, the company. They are aware of all of the great challenges and issues, the last minute changes and unexpected events. If something happens, if something changes, they know.
For the last 20 years, I have been in "The Know" - partially because in my role in Quality, almost everything that happens impacts you and partially because at smaller companies, it is easier to be around such information.
But that has changed. Rather dramatically.
My focus is essentially now on one single major project and two minor projects that support it. Anything involving these, I am actively aware and engaged on. Anything not in this narrow band, I have virtually no idea what is going on.
It might sound like not a terribly big adjustment to have to make - "Hey TB, you are free of responsibility" - but it has been a greater mental adjustment than I had anticipated. You are now one of many fighting for the attention of decision makers where this was no longer an issue (and, in fact, you were one of the decision makers). Your meeting schedule has dwindled to very specific meetings. In larger meetings, you are constantly learning new information instead of already knowing the information.
To someone who is used to having such information and to someone who always worries when I have no line of site on larger issues, this is a bit unnerving.
One does what one can: Focus on the project at hand. Try to follow up more, make better tools, drive things to conclusion.
But always in the back of my mind, I now have the following fear: I am tied to a single thing. If that thing fails, my relevance and value completely collapses.
It is not an outcome I had expected.
This is pretty much the way the system is set up, isn't it? And I've wondered, on occasion, if it doesn't inadvertently contribute to a larger sense of disconnect people have from the world around them. They're just a bunch of replaceable little cogs in a large machine and have no big picture, no idea how they fit in to the larger scheme of things, and hence no true sense of personal purpose. Seems like a recipe for discontent.
ReplyDeleteThose who operate at a high level of responsibility are prone to this when things change. It'll kill a man, to up and leave that high level of function without stepping down the load in stages.
ReplyDeleteI'll be praying for you.
I wonder if the POW's in Hanoi dealt with that? Running a complex aircraft as part of a highly functioning team, suddenly being deprived of any information at all other than the bugs in their cell and the continuing torture and interrogation. I'd never thought of that facet of experience before. man.....
Thanks STxAR. I may have had a little bit of luck in that I was effectively stepped down from around May until now. Still, it is an adjustment.
DeleteYou are absolutely right that POWs dealt with it - as does anyone that functions at a high level of skill or talent and responsibility. I have read of studies where retired military officers and CEOs, unless they find another maintaining interest, do not make it for long in retirement. The theory is they miss the intellectual engagement and stress of their former lives.
I was one of around 50 people in a 100% employee owned business for the last ten years of my career. We were all stake holders and yet the number one problem we consistently identified on a yearly basis was a lack of communication. There is something about the type of character of someone who is in "the know" that most often prevents them from sharing that knowledge with those not in "the know". There are a few of us that buck that trend and share everything but we were a minority for sure. Part of dealing with this was the reason I felt I would rather be doing something else, cashed in my stocks and left. Now I'm a full time parent in "the know" and withholding information from my children. I'm a big fat hypocrite.
ReplyDeleteEd, I have always (to the best of my ability) sought to share information as you have, sometimes (perhaps) a little more than I should have because I, in turn, was an employee that suffered from a lack of information. Interestingly, lack of sharing information quite frequently comes up as the greatest challenge a company faces, yet almost none of them actually seek to address it.
DeleteYou are not a hypocrite. Everything is on a "need to know basis". They do not always need to know.
Some knowledge is like a heavy suit case. Little kids aren't ready for it. More of a "not quite yet". Knowing the balance can be a tad interesting.
DeleteWe chose not to do the Santa Claus mythos with the kids. I remember feeling horrible when I found out the truth. So we just told our kids the facts. And not to pass that around. Number one son is about 4, and on our Christmas visit with the cousins, he announces that Santa Claus is DEAD! Chaos, sheer chaos. I think he did it on purpose....