Morphing

My colleague and friend John once said that I had a better ability to adapt to different company cultures than almost anyone he knew.

In different schools of thought it is called morphing or shape shifting.

I have experienced some fairly divergent corporate cultures over the past years and have evolved my ability to morph to a high level. I have done this consciously and of my own volition. I have also done this over and over again. It is my gift.

Beware of the gifts that the Gods bestow on you. They are always a double edged sword.

I think there is price to pay though. Morphing can mean going against your true self if you have a higher goal. Lawrence said (I am paraphrasing) that he often had to go back to Cairo to be British again and to keep from going mad. This was during that 1916-1918 period where he heavily involved in the Arab Revolt. After the war he went back to help Churchill hammer out the new boundaries of what use to be the Ottoman Empire. Then he never went back again. Lawrence exhausted himself handling people. It used him up. In the end he buried himself in the low ranks of the RAF which in a strange way gave him more freedom.

Howard Roark, Ayn Rand's hero from The Fountainhead, would never have tried to fit in. He would have done the work the way he felt was the best he had in himself. He would have thought about people second and the work first. It was not his goal to harm people. In fact it was the exact opposite but he believed in setting a standard for himself and then trying to reach that level of excellence. Roark was rarely at odds with himself but in truth he was a fictional character in a book.

A woman who was enraptured by Ayn Rand characters said that in the end she isolated herself from friends and family. My guess is that she perverted the ideology thinking that unless someone lived up to her new standards, they were not worthy of her time.

But there are times when you have to make choices about who you spend time with but you have to remember that this goes both ways.

I am not an altruist. I believe in the spirit of man. That which resides within each human being. The variations of God that most men worship just doesn't work for me. I have no problem with other people believing in God, just quit lathering all their beliefs over the rest of us.

I often want to help people but it is a selfish act not one generally done out guilt. I am susceptible to guilt. After all it seems to be hard wired into are brains as human being. I accept this but try to resist it as a motivator.

So who am I now? Me or someone else's version of me?

Being yourself is freeing but the price is that others will hate you for it.

Scene one:

I am giving you my two weeks notice.

Why? What's wrong?

I know how to run HR and this isn't the way to do it. This is your department. Not mine.

I have given you the freedom to do what you want.

Yes, within the bounds of what you understand as freedom but for me it is simply not logical or effective so I am going to leave. I wanted you to know so you could begin looking for someone else.

OK, but...

It is really not something I want to discuss. We're just polar opposites in our approach to work. I think it is best that I leave.

I get up, push my chair back and leave the office.

_________________________________________________________________________________

I am up to 34 minutes of running. This morning I got out early before it warmed up. I walked Amber, dropped her off at the house and then ran over to the college, circled the track and came home. I dropped over at Carrows to see who was having breakfast but no one from the club was there. I went on and did some errands.