GET YOURSELF MISSED
[A friend recommended Baltasar Gracian's The Art of Worldly Wisdom. Gracian was a Spanish scholar of the 17th century who set forth a series of maxims for ethical action. From time to time I'll write about one of his maxims.]
Gracian notes that if you do your job well and behave agreeably, you will reach the point where you don't need your position, the position needs you, you will be missed if you leave. He also notes that a poor successor, who makes a predecessor look good, doesn't create this need, he or she only creates a desire to be rid of the successor. This is another maxim which we should think about today. I'm sure we've all seen this: Someone leaves a job, a position of honor, a club or a sport and we soon forget him or her. Another person leaves, and we genuinely miss them, we think about them, we refer to them, we wish they were there, even when a successor performs well.
Gracian notes that there are two things we must do to be missed when we leave: Perform well and behave agreeably. Good performance is different from situation to situation but there are some common elements: Effort, training, enthusiasm, skill, recognition of the needs of the job will all lead to good performance. They're the same elements which make a job enjoyable, which lead to raises and bonuses, which produce honors and office in clubs, which lead to fond farewells upon retirement. But they aren't enough to make one missed.
To be missed, you also need to behave agreeably. How often have we all seen an unpleasant, but highly skilled, person depart and greeted the departure with relief, if not joy? By contrast, how often have we seen a pleasant person, who is not, perhaps, the best at a job, depart and found that we miss the person, that we grieve at his or her loss? I find that people are willing to cover for a pleasant person, to do his or her job, to keep the person in the position. We will go out our way to enjoy the company of a pleasant person.
In fact, I could almost say that we will always miss a nice person whether he or she does a good job or not. I don't know whether this is because we want to judge a nice person favorably or whether in most situations a nice person does an objectively good job. But one thing is clear: If you perform in a way that will make you missed when you're gone, you'll enjoy your situation more, you'll do better and you probably won't leave to test whether you're missed. Do the best you can in whatever you do but do it pleasantly, be a nice person, do everything you can to help others, and you may not be missed because you'll flourish where you are.
12-04-00
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