Enlarge the round hole
to include the square peg.
In lesson #30 from Career Advancement Up / Career Backlash Down, I tell the story of a coworker who was threatening to me. We worked in a regional U.S. Census Bureau office for 9 months in 2000. A coworker told me to never be alone with Fitzgerald because of the terrible things he said about me. She was afraid he would attack me if we were alone in a room. I told my boss Terry Bauer what my coworker had said about Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald was a square peg. His test score for employment with the Census Bureau fit basic hiring policies. It did not fit Census Bureau promotion policies. Terry looked for a way to enlarge the promotion round hole to include square peg Fitzgerald. He identified a task that no one was doing. The office had forms that needed to be updated and organized. Terry assigned that task to Fitzgerald. Not only did Fitzgerald like the task, he was good at it.
To Fitzgerald, his new position felt like a promotion. If anyone needed anything from the forms, they went to Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald reported directly to Terry Bauer. Fitzgerald didn’t get a financial raise, but he did get an emotional raise.
Enlarging the round hole doesn’t have to mean changing rules. It does mean looking for opportunities to make everyone feel included. It also means being creative. See my website below for resources to help you open doors creatively. Terry Bauer recognized what Fitzgerald needed and found a way to give it to him. Fitzgerald was a High C Conscientiousness behavior style with Position as his First guiding value.
© Paula M. Kramer, 2021 to the present
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