"The Fried Egg Org Chart"I just can't. I mean, I look at org charts and my brain goes all white noise. On the first sheet of paper, you've got the top level - the Big Kahuna. Then you have the Mini Me Kahunas under him (it's usually a "him", let's be honest). And then you have at least three or four more sheets of paper with the people who report to the people who report to the people who report to the people! By the time you've gotten anywhere, you're already done. Or should I say I'm already done. I just can't use them to understand things, especially if everyone is listed as a title that I don't even understand! See, my new job is in the Learning Department. That's not the official name, but it'll do for now. And under that department are three other departments which relate to one another, but they are so closely intertwined, it's just impossible to "get it" in the three weeks I've been there! I gotta tell you, when I'm looking at this collection of departments, and people with all kinds of titles, and I don't know who they are yet and I don't yet know what they do...it's beyond daunting, it's laughable. But I've been keeping up by studying those damn org charts. At least, that's what I was doing until about three days ago. Every day for two weeks, I tried looking at the org chart, and matching the people up with my notes from meetings I've had with a lot of them. I was trying to put the puzzle pieces together. Bits and pieces started to fall into place, but I still felt like I was running along behind everyone like a dog behind a vanishing car. I had to do something. I had to do something to encourage these puzzle pieces to come together with more cohesion in my overloaded brain!!! So I took the four PowerPoint slides with all of their information and I started putting it onto one slide. One. I figured if I could see them all on one page, I could understand the relationships! So I threw circles on a page and I started playing. Like this:
And my previous boss walks up behind me and starts laughing, and telling me it looks like fried eggs, and I should change the color. So I do. And he dubs it "The Fried Egg Org Chart", which when said too quickly also sounds like "The Friday Org Chart", confusingly. And I spend the rest of the day pulling people over to look at my work of art (which is actually far less equally laid out than this example, and therefore far more impressive). I'm inordinately proud of my efforts, and I'm beginning to be able to put the information together in my head! Not quite all the way there yet, but what a difference it makes to see the connective tissue. And then my new boss comes to talk to me. He completely makes my day when I show him The Fried Egg Org Chart (I just like saying it, what can I tell you?) and he just stares at it for a moment and then says with his customary showman-like flair and a slightly flat affect - indicating that he's stunned, I tell you, stunned! - "I. Am. Just. Obsessed. With. You. That's incredible." And then turns to the other women in our little piece of this eggstravaganza (sorry) of a department and he says, "Why did I say I was going to hire Lori?" One of them says, "Because you said she's really different." I burst out laughing. She adds, "You said she thinks really far outside of the box." This is so true, I've never fit into a corporation ever in my life before. "What else..." says my boss. The second woman says, "You said she sees things really differently." "What else..." he says. "She will be able to connect with people and really help with the connective changes we want to make." He pushed them for still more information, all of which I have forgotten because by this point I was just sort of goggling at him, like "whaaaa'?" Like, what's happening here??? I like it, but ohmygod what IS this? And he turned his gaze back to me and said, "See?", and made sure I understood that this alien - this Lori creature that has always been the Ugly Duckling - is wanted for exactly who and what she is; she may in fact have become the swan! Perhaps all of that is just my way of saying that I can now embrace and celebrate and be proud of - right out loud...at work!! - my way of seeing things. I'll never again apologize for being me. And also: I will never ever again do a traditional org chart. ©2019 Lori Kirstein
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AuthorWorking in Sales at a Call Center for one of the biggest stores in the country should come with hazard pay. Archives
December 2019
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