The Cost Of Telling Others What You Do

What are we doing wrong when we try to meet people, and assign roles?

Whenever I find myself in a group of new individuals, my learned behavior forces me to ask the dreaded question: “What do you do?”

This question gives me fear anxiety and loathing of existence. That might be a bit much, but it did sound surprisingly similar to “Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas”, so I am going to leave it here. The thing I don’t really want to hear, and without fail I always do, is the answer: “I am a partner at a VC firm” or “I am a manager at Accenture”, or “I am a CEO of a healthcare startup”. Whatever the answer might be - there is very little that I actually learn about the individual in front of me.

This answer gives me almost no information about the human in front of me, and it does not allow me to connect to them on any meaningful level.

What kind of person are they? How much have they learned about themselves? Where are they on their journey? What bothers them, and what questions are the ones they are struggling to answer?

Not only that, but it does not even help them to get anything out of our conversation. Most likely we will both be bored to death and go our separate ways. No dialogue. No connection. No freedom to express ourselves.

That is not the only problem. It is also the problem of trying to squeeze an infinite personality into a box, such as a ‘job title’. People are complex beings, and many of them are extremely good at a multitude of things, sometimes these things do not have an obvious connection, and definitely would not fit into any single “title”.

For instance, I am pretty good at creating engaging workshops, but - I also think I am an excellent organizer of physical spaces, a decent martial arts fighter, and a mediocre comedian who would love to go on stage at some point.

If someone were to hire me for a full-time position (I would immediately say ‘I am not for hire. Nope, never.’), and for whatever reason I would accept - they could never get the most out of my skills in their organization, because they would only want me to perform a very specific duty, such as “Marketing”. Although it is a very broad area, they would not even try to figure out other things that I could and would love to do: organize the office, create martial art training sessions for the whole team, run personal development workshops, and much more. Why? Because they stuck me in a box.

So, why the rant? Well, because I am urging you to STOP IT. Stop asking: “What do you do?” or “Where do you work?”. Stop thinking of people you work with in terms of their position. Stop answering the above question with some non-whimsical answer.

Instead, let me give you some pointers that may (or may not) lead to some fun conversations, unforgettable moments, and possibly some weird looks.

How To Host Introduction Sessions

Now, whenever I host an event, whether it is a workshop, a tea ceremony, or some random event at a startup conference - I always ask this beautiful question: “What is it like to be you?”

This makes people think, fear, quiver, and sometimes: run away. However, it is never boring. Especially if you lead by example and tell them everything about what it is like to be you, in intricate and personal details, explaining all of your fears, strengths, curiosities, and general pointers that you have discovered about yourself. If you open with it, they are likely to follow.

It’s like an ice-breaker, but not those awkward ones from kindergarten. It actually works.

Should you encounter the most boring question in the galaxy: “What do you do?”. Do not give in. Do not let them win. Do not become an automaton that shares nothing. You are not a robot, you are not your title, you are a living, breathing, beautiful soul full of interdimensional beauty and complexity. You are not a “Marketing Manager”, you are not a “CEO”, you are not a “Waiter”.

Surprise them with: “Nothing. There is absolutely nothing I do. My life is not about doing, but about being. It is about connecting to the deepest parts of myself and trying to feel ‘my being’ and explore what my body and soul call me towards. Sometimes it means I can’t stop myself from doing a tea ceremony, doing martial arts, or making love to my wife. Occasionally, I have some stupid-crazy-idea such as The Nothing Program, that I am starting in January.”

This last part might be a bit too salesy, but I actually do have a fun program I want to start in January, and if you want to check it out - well, then check-it-out. Do it. C’mon. Really. We need 30 people to start the journey, and there is no cost to you, except your own desire to change your life for the better. It is not a program. It is ‘The Nothing Program’. If this was too strong of a pitch, please let me know, so I can learn from my mistakes.

Coming back to our horses. When I meet people, I try to sneak in as many weird things about myself into the conversation as possible: hobbies, beliefs, ideas, thoughts, and things I currently want to have a dialogue about. This leads to amazing results. For instance, after talking to Paul from ti.to about his events tool, he invited me to the most amazing conference to host a tea ceremony there, just because I mentioned that I do tea ceremonies, in an otherwise very serious business call.

When you are yourself, the world opens up doors of opportunities.

If Not Titles, Then What?

For those of you running a business, or perhaps having at least some say in the organization you are working for - what do we do with titles then?

Well, delete them, destroy them, make them perish, and burn with intensity. They are not helping you. Go, do it now.

Done? The ashes of the old ways of thinking about work are in front of you? Well, then it is time for The Phoenix to arise. It is too easy to criticize, without giving you anything to fall back onto.

One thing that I found out that works wonderfully, is to split your company into a large number of different roles.

Roles, unlike titles, are small bits of work needing to be done, that a person is best fit for. They are small, and usually sound like a responsibility (I find this most effective).

Therefore each individual could have between 3 and 20 roles in a company. For example, I might have the following roles:

“Ensuring engaging copywriting on the website”
“Enabling personal growth through dialogue”
“Organizing all surfaces in the office”
“Closing problematic deals”
“Starting new initiatives”

If you play computer games, roles are a bit like character traits in RimWorld.

Tools like Maptio can manage this, deeper explained in books like Reinventing Organizations and Sociocracy 3.0, and codified in Holacracy. To make it all work, you can use many tools, but I prefer Maptio by Tom.

What Was This All About?

This rant/article/dialogue is ending, and as with any good story, it must have some sort of long-lasting statement that will stick in the minds of the readers. Here it is.

Nope, it is not coming yet. However, they say that when you have writer’s block, just keep writing and trusting the process, so here I am - writing and trusting the process.

There! Found it! This is it. This way of writing, this way of expressing my thoughts, this way of being transparent, quirky, funny, possibly annoying, and definitely breaking all the rules of writing - that is what it is like to be me. It is important for my being to play, to break things, to experiment.

This entry is really about not being afraid to be yourself, and finding to break social norms, in a way that supports your being and your true calling. Now, go out and do something about it, and report back with all the successes (and failures). Over and out.

Dmitri

Off to W3N in Narva this week. If you are around, ping me, or find me serving tea in the tea-ceremony area.