Does Your Company Expect You To Be Super Human?

At work, do you feel like you’re constantly expected to perform heroic feats or pull off the impossible?

Does it seem like the organization expects you to be a Superman or Superwoman, or an action hero like Jason Bourne?
​
As someone who coaches and counsels professionals, one thing I’m constantly hearing is how much corporations, business advertising, and just as often, the business advice industry reinforces the expectation you should be able to leap tall buildings at a single bound.

Take the case of this new ad for McGladrey, for example, the nation’s fifth-largest accounting firm that is rebranding itself as RSM. In the video spot, we see a business person overcoming a “gauntlet” of challenges as he hurtles across the corporate landscape. 

In the Ad Age write up, the agency ad manager says:

"We wanted something that would resonate with our clients, showing the big challenges and unexpected things businesses can face, and how we can help them move nimbly and quickly…. The big obstacles and over-the-top moves help to reinforce this message."

If these scenes and those over-the-top moves are supposed to be motivating, however, how much is it really helpful or inspiring, and how much is it built on driving home beyond-human expectations?

 It seems the message to the business person today, one so common and consistent that people sense it continually, has to do with the need to constantly go beyond. It's that demand to go ever-higher and ever-faster, to be “super human,” that is depicted here as cool, as heroic, as motivating. But it isn’t motivating. It’s actually demotivating. And still more troubling is how it causes you to measure your co-workers and, especially, yourself, against those Jason Bournes.

If you would like to get really clear about your value and your own expectations, I’m offering a free evaluation meeting via video Skype. Contact me here.