It’s always good manners and a sign of Integrity to give credit where credit is due.
My boss taught me this, decades ago. So whenever we’d present our accomplishments, we were also careful to mention those who helped us do our task well. Thanks to my boss, I’m quite a stickler for giving credit where credit is due — up to now. I’ve never regretted it.
I know that I’m cheating, that I’m being dishonest, that I’m showing a lack of integrity if I don’t mention who helped me to get the work done; who went before me and started everything; who laid down the foundation on which I stand — so that I could pick up from where he/she left off!
From experience, I’ve seen that establishing start-ups, laying down the foundation for something significant is often an extremely arduous task to do.
It requires planning, strategizing, gathering expertise, funds, personnel and resources. Making critical connections with people who have the authority and power to make things move. Putting in long man-hours to streamline operations, correct glitches, contain and minimize damages.
Finding the right formula for success is always a back-breaker.
Hence, we were trained by our boss never, never to grab the credit for ourselves. Because she would often remind us of this one thing: we wouldn’t be where we are now were it not for the people who went ahead of us. They trained us. They laid down the foundation for our success.
I obeyed her because I believed it was the right thing to do. It was a humbling thing to do but it kept us grounded. It kept us from making our little successes go to our heads!
You know how greedy and deceitful we can be about grabbing credit for ourselves. It’s our selfish human nature. It’s our killer instinct to get ahead, no matter what. It’s our built-in mechanism to stroke our egos.
Well, we just have to fight off those sinful urges. It’s dishonest. It’s shameless. And it’s grossly self-perpetuating.
That’s why, just like my one-up, whenever anything significant was done by my staff, I’d make sure that:1. Our boss knew who made the big contributions.
2. Who spent the longest hours and sacrificed the most.
3. Who went above and beyond their area of responsibility to get the job done.
4. Lessons that we learned — good and bad— which made things work.
5. How we could do better next time. How I, myself, can do better next time.
Of course, during our post mortems, we’d also report those who failed to deliver and why (but that’s another story altogether). No cover ups. No scapegoating.
GMRC at work covers a whole spectrum of things that can be summed up in one word: Integrity.
So if there’s a strong sense of integrity in your team, you are unbelievably blessed. You can sink or swim together — and always be able to look each other in the eye, trust each other, and protect each other.
A team like that will be friends for life.
I know — because I was extremely fortunate to be part of one!
