I don’t remember where I heard this story, but it stuck in my mind to this day. It goes something like this:
A doorman is guarding the entrance of a very important corporate building. He lets people in and out based on their badges.
One day, the owner of the company arrives. As she approaches the door, the doorman asks for her ID.
The owner’s secretary says, “Don’t you know who she is? Let her in!”
The owner of the company hands him her ID, and he lets her in.
The doorman’s boss was baffled and said he would reprimand the doorman.
However, the owner of the building stopped the boss and asked him to promote the doorman instead.
When the boss asked why, she said, “He did his job exactly as he should.”
I like this little story because sometimes we forget what our actual job is. When you and your peers have clear expectations regarding your roles, no action taken to fulfill those roles should come as a surprise.
We get paid to execute tasks and transform the time we invest into “proof of work.”
It doesn’t matter what you do for a living; you will produce something. It could be a set of documents, code, or even maintaining specific metrics.
The secret, as mentioned before, is having clear expectations. Without these, your job becomes like a plastic bag in the wind, lacking true goals or proof of work.