Met someone recently and we both ranted and raved about our experiences. How much we enjoyed the environment, the organization we loved to belong to, the learning and the opportunities. I felt exuberant just thinking about the experience BUT… OH YES, BUT why was it that we were sharing this from outside the organization and not inside? He responded immediately and said because the organization makes “EXTRAORDINARY people feel like ORDINARY ones!”
I was immediately reminded of how I had explained to some one recently that an organization is like a coffee mug/cup. I am not kidding seriously an organization is like a coffee mug/cup, helps to hold coffee together, gives the fluid a FORM so one can consume it in a civilized fashion. Think about it… if that coffee was not in a mug/cup we the coffee addicts or enthusiasts would be slurping it from the floor or the table where it would be all spilt. A simple and straight forward analogy! I know what you are thinking, what’s so great about the coffee mug/cup?
The important fact lost in the translation is that every molecule of coffee is treated the same. The one that is filled with flavor is no different from another one that is not? Leaving the more MOTIVATED & FLAVORFUL molecule to break away from the cup and find something else to do? That being said there are plenty of unmotivated and flavorful molecules and an equivalent number of unmotivated and non-flavorful to thrive. There may still be some chance for the motivated and non-flavorful to find their calling, May be not in a coffee mug/cup?