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February 05, 2012 at 12:29 PM
I was having dinner the other night with a friend of mine who works in human resources for a non-financial company. We got to talking about my work with employees at advisory firms, and she asked me this question: “How do you develop a business mind in employees, who are afraid to admit that they don’t have a business mind, but want one?”
I didn’t have to explore what she meant for long before I realized that she was talking mostly about herself. And I was surprised to find that this poised, successful woman (who has an MBA) actually had very little confidence in her ability not just to understand the basics of business, but in her abilities as a manager.
Her question about developing a “business mind” in employees is a very good one: one that requires a lengthy answer, which I’ll address in future blogs and perhaps a column or two. But I’ve found that her insecurity about her ability is such a widespread problem among employees that it needs to be addressed first, before employees can learn about business principles, or even learn to do their jobs well.
In my view, the basic problem is that most of us are afraid to take an honest look at ourselves for fear that we don’t measure up as well as we think we should. Sometimes this is called the impostor syndrome, in which people are sure they don’t deserve their current role and/or live in fear that their boss will eventually figure it out, and show them the door. (By the way, many studies show that the impostor syndrome is equally as common among very successful people as the rest of us working stiffs.)
