Estimated Reading time: 4 minutes
We all have a colleague at work who never contributes anything; his steps around the office are silent, discreet and more often verging on the anti-social. In the case of technical skillsets, we often find ourselves with subtle variants called Asperger Syndrome, but when the work that needs doing is sales or customer service related and the colleague has no trouble communicating, we find ourselves facing a true genuine “Lone Ranger”.
Here is a case:
I usually have a good relationship with everybody in the office, including those that do not talk much. I also refrain from making negative or sarcastic comments to anybody. For this reason, that morning when I saw Juan with an awful look on his face I dared to ask.
— Excuse me Juan, are you feeling all right? You usually look quite well and today, frankly you don’t look too good.
— I have been up for almost 48 hours in order to finish a report for a client, I’ve spent hours putting together information from the Internet, annual reports and all the databases I could possibly access. But I finally did it, the market research is done.
— What market research? The one about the 5 cities?
— Yes
I raise my eyebrow, surprised.
— Didn’t you hear that a client asked for a report practically the same a couple of weeks ago, a team in Bilbao, Madrid, Seville, Gijon and Barcelona were working on it together? The report they did is great, they even did a case study because the information on the usual channels was not up to date. Everyone followed it and contributed a great deal, information from Valencia and Vigo was also added, it is all available on Zyncro.
There is a look of horror on Juan’s face as he takes his hands to his head.
— It cannot possibly be better than mine, I am the best at that, that’s why I don’t share my work, everybody else always wants to copy me. I’ve been the best consultant in the company for years and I’m not going to give my knowledge to everyone else, it is my most valuable asset.
— I’m sure you’re the best but lately the recent technologies are taking over from you, just look at the Zyncro documentation and let’s discuss it,
Half an hour later, Juan turned up at me desk looking sorry for himself.
— F***, you’re right, the report was definitely better, even the graphics were more attractive than mine.
— Well, you can still be in time to include what’s on Zyncro in your report.
— Yes but even with all those people working on it, there are still things in my analysis that are better!
— OK, so why don’t you share with everyone on Zyncro?
— And what do I gain by that?
— You’ll be the person to convert a great job into something absolutely sensational, you’re the kind of person the company needs, and with your contribution we’ll be able to commercialize the study to hundreds of clients all over Spain. It will be the best study the sector has done to date.
— This time you’ve convinced me about this Zyncro and the story about sharing. But you aren’t turning me into a convert, I’ll use it if I think it will be useful.
After updating the report, Juan did not only receive congratulations from the client, but also from the CEO of the company as well as many colleagues who saw what he had done via Zyncro. Since then, we have seen Juan being a lot more collaborative and active, above all on Zyncro where he can see recognition for his “guru” status within the company.