Motivational

Rule 66: Talk of ‘we’ rather than ‘i’

November 15, 2016

Herbal Clinser Expert & Therapist, Dr. Quincy Ayodele of Quincy Herbals with hubby, Engineer John Ayodele

I
once worked for a boss who asked who we worked for. We said:

·
Ourselves
·
Our
families
·
Our
bank managers
·
Our
self esteem
·
Our
boss
·
The
management
·
The
company board of directors
·
The
customers
·
The
inland revenue
·
The
government.

He
said a polite ‘No’ to all of
these. He explained we worked for the
shareholders. That’s it. That’s who you work for. Now go and buy some
of your company’s shares. Now you work
for yourself. Now you can start to say ‘we’ and ‘us’ instead of ‘me’ and ‘I’ and that sort of thing.

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You
are now a shareholder so when you have to talk about company procedure you can
think how it will affect us, the shareholders – and not them, the staff (of
whom you used to be one, not so very long ago).

“IF YOU GO
TO MEETINGS IT IS SO MUCH MORE GROWN UP (AND COOL) TO TALK OF WE INSTEAD OF I”.

It
you go to meetings it is so much more grown up (and cool) to talk of we instead of I.

‘If we are going to implement this new
procedure, we need to appraise the junior staff’s reaction first’; instead of
‘I think this sucks’.

‘We
ought to prioritize some time for talking about the exhibition’ – instead of ‘I’m panicking, this bloody exhibition is
only two weeks away and I’ve done nothing’.

(Excerpts from THE
RULES OF WORK by Richard Templer Read “How to walk the walk” from The
Rules tomorrow on Asabeafrika)

Rule-to-Work Series