Be Careful Who You Work For
Author: Michael Reddy
Marketer and business thinker Seth Godin just wrote an interesting article called Be Careful Who You Work For. He says the single most important marketing decision you can make is who you work for:
“Think about this for a second. Your boss and your job determine not only what you do all day, but what you learn and who you interact with. Where you work is what you market. Work in a high stress place and you’re likely to become a highly stressed person, and your interactions will display that. Work for a narcissist and you’ll develop into someone who’s good at shining a light on someone else, not into someone who can lead. Work for someone who plays the fads and you’ll discover that instead of building a steadily improving brand, you’re jumping from one thing to another, enduring layoffs in-between gold rushes. Work for a bully and be prepared to be bullied.”
Yet, most people tend to go into this decision with eyes closed. They try to fit into what they think an employer wants rather than looking if the employer is right for the. Seth completes his blog with:
“If you want to become the kind of person that any company would kill to have as an employee, you need to be the kind of employee that’s really picky about who you align with.”
August 12th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I agree with the article wholeheartedly. I worked at a large bank and was not allowed to talk to the person with the information I needed to do my job. My boss didn’t like him and, of course, that made my life more difficult. At another, small company I talked and worked with everyone on a daily basis. The comraderie made it a pleasure to go to work.
August 12th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Yes – it sounds like that smaller company was more the kind of place you wanted to align yourself with
.