I distinctly recall the day I realized that one of our CI members was not engaged. For her it was a job, one she was grateful for, and she truly liked us and even enjoyed working for the company and with the team. But there it was, nonetheless, the sudden indicator that alerted me that she was not “in”.
And it was really a small thing, but one that cannot be overcome with training or skills development: she spoke about our work in the third person. “I still don’t really know what you guys do.” As much as I appreciated her honesty in admitting that she wasn’t clear on our services after a year, as soon as she said the phrase “you guys,” a warning bell went off in my head.
While I am not well-versed or formally educated in organizational management, I know that for our business to thrive, the internal sentiment has to be “we”.
When one member of the team achieves success in their work, we as a company achieve that success. When someone within the firm makes a critical error that negatively impacts a client, we as a company have made that error. In business today, deeply personal and individualized achievement is often the focus of conversation and team inspiration. But to me, a healthy company also exists with its own identity, which is forged in the sentiment of “we”.
Even sole practitioners frequently rely on some semblance of support staff, so can they credit their success solely to their own initiative and activity? Of course not! I cannot think of a single business or life circumstance where anyone achieves 100% on their own.
Why is this? And why can it be so challenging to share success? How can a team share ownership of a company’s activity?
Consider the ongoing business challenges that arise from the concept of “you” versus “we.” I find that there’s a fine line in working with clients, approaching the you versus me or you versus we mentality. Our clients provide their own services autonomously, which you would think makes them a they.
But because our objectives are aligned with our clients, to communicate their stories and businesses in any context relating to a marketing initiative, they become “we.” And “we” is inclusive of our team, our client as an individual, and our client as a company.
The pronouns we use articulate our mindset toward the business we do daily. Does your marketing firm think of you as you, or does it feel like you are in it together as a “we”? If you have experienced more of the former, I invite you to give us a call to discuss how an approach utilizing the latter may benefit your business. We welcome the conversation.
