Being Harvey Specter (or not)

Last week, we talked about stubbornness, and how it is reinforced by the false maxim of being "true to yourself".  To be clear - overcoming stubbornness means that if you can do something better, or be someone better, change!  It doesn't mean, make yourself like everyone else.  It's great to be unique.  It's great to be different.  As the saying goes, if you do what everyone else does, you'll get what everyone else gets.

I've been reading Youngme Moon's excellent book "Different - Escaping the Competitive Herd". Having had the privilege of being in some of her classes in the past, I can almost hear her voice reading out the text as I flip the pages!  In one particular section, she points out that, just when the likes of Yahoo, AOL and AltaVista were increasingly one-upping each other by bulking up their search pages with news, email, weather, stock prices, entertainment and advertisements, Google turned up and decided that they would be different - their home page would just be their logo, one search field, and no ads.  Guess who won?

Does "being different" work in the workplace?  The archetype of a successful career person is the intellectual yet streetsmart, hardcharging yet sociable, alpha male.  Take lawyers for example - in the TV series Suits, Harvey Specter is the classic representation of who people think a great lawyer should look like.  Rugged, lots of connections, smart, aggressive, ambitious, eloquent - famous for saying, among other things, "That's the difference between you and me.  You wanna lose small.  I wanna win big." and "Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am"!

I remember being part of the selection process for our management associates over a number of years, and yes, the selection criteria did guide us to find people exactly like that - smart, ambitious, outspoken leaders.  But after a while, we realised we had surrounded ourselves with far too many people who couldn't hear us over the sound of how awesome they were :D

So we sometimes went against what the criteria told us.  Smart, but quiet, low-alpha.  Or creative and people-oriented, but ditzy.  Or missing eloquence or stellar academic records, but deeply hungry.  And so on.  And over time, we saw that they could be just as successful as conventionally archetypal leaders.  More importantly, we needed these alternative types of leaders, just as much as we needed the usual type.

I am probably the epitome of the non-Harvey Specter.  I am skinny, not broad-chested.  I am distinctly uncomfortable with hob-nobbing.  I don't have a First Class Honours brain.  My first instinct is to quietly get on with things, because I'm not much of a showman.  And yes, I sometimes run into difficulties because of this, because some people expect me to be Harvey Specter, and some circumstances call for it.  As I shared in the last blog, I realise that in some circumstances, I have to learn to be more than I naturally am.  So I intentionally work at things and practise - whether it be making social connections, or being a more take-charge choleric than I naturally am.

But.

By the grace of God, it is entirely possible to be an excellent lawyer without having to be a Harvey Specter.  People can choose to help me, because I try to play nice.  People can choose to trust me, because I'm plain and honest.  Asking "please?" can work when "do it!" won't.  Being able to say a quiet "trust me" can work when a song-and-dance "look at this!" won't.  I'd probably be better if I had lots of high society connections, a naturally magnetic personality and a great suit!  But being different, and not being Harvey Specter, still does the job in a way that works well.

I think the same principle of being different can apply in lots of life situations.  At work - it used to be thought that keeping long hours and making personal sacrifices were necessary to show the boss we were the hardworking sort.  Quality work is essential.  But if we can do quality work in lesser time, why should the amount of time expended matter?  We don't have to conform to the long hours, my-work-is-my-life lifestyle to have a great career.  We can be different.

At home - it used to be thought that working parents wouldn't be able to have as good a relationship with their kids, and we'd end up with angsty teens and distant parents.  But if we regularly pray with our kids, and intentionally spend time to know them and what they care about, why should that be?  We don't have to accept that teens will be angsty or that we'll be distant parents who just bring home the pay cheque.  We can be be different.

With colleagues and friends and neighbours - they say that birds of a feather flock together.  But if we break the ice and make the effort - senior colleagues can humbly reach out and learn from junior colleagues; white collar condo-living yuppies can comfortably and unpretentiously hang with blue collar rental flat neighbours.  We don't have to resign ourselves to stratification.  We can be different.

I don't know if you are facing any of these situations.  Where we can be better, we work to make ourselves better of course.  There is such a thing as being objectively deficient!  If I am a poor lawyer, or a poor husband or dad, I can't say, oh that's who I am, too bad.  I have to get better.  But I don't necessarily have to go about doing things exactly how convention tells us.

Psalm 139:1-4, 13-14 says:

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
For you created me in my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

God made each of us uniquely.  He completely understands my strengths and weaknesses.  He looks at me and says - wonderful!  Yet He loves me too much to simply leave me the way He found me - and so He helps me, if I am willing, to be transformed, day to day, more and more into his likeness, so that I may fulfil all the good works that He has designed me to do, in my own special way.  Thank You Jesus that You love me like this!

For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  Ephesians 2:10

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