You’ve changed. Or, perhaps more accurately, everyone changed you. And it’s all because you reached your goal. You went from businessperson to “business leader,” and the instant it happened, you became a caricature of yourself. That month of sitting on a rock in your Swiss chalet, growing a beard, resting your chin on your fist and thinking is coming sooner than you think.
Beware the mantle of business leader! Run for the hills when they try to pin it on you! Your life is about to get really strange—as are you—because you’re no longer permitted to focus on running your business. In fact, forget focus. You’re not permitted to run your business at all. That’s for businesspeople. You’re a leader.
You’ll know the moment this occurs. Your picture is on the cover of Metropolitan CEO. You’re interviewed in the regional business journal. And you notice they’re not asking you about stuff like your company’s new products or your market penetration. Instead, it’s stuff like this:
- Where do you see the future of business heading?
- What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
- How do you expect the intersection between private industry and the public welfare dynamic to impact societal norms with respect to upward mobility of transient demographic groups—particularly as displayed in the outlying indicators often cited when social scientists are assessing population drivers impacting leading-edge data?
What makes anyone think you know the answers to questions like this? You make belt loop fasteners. You wouldn’t know a population driver if it showed up to take you to the airport. Get used to it, bunky. You’re a business leader now. Everyone thinks you have the answers to everything.
(Oh, and get used to it you will! The first time you’re invited to address the Economics Club. The first time you’re asked to contribute an op-ed and you have to look around for a ghostwriter. The first time someone suggests you should write a book. The first time you’re asked to consider serving on the board of directors for the Northwestern Southcentral Eastern Regional Quality Institute.)
“Hey!” you think, puffing your chest a little. “People want to know what I think! People need to know what I think! I’m a leader!”
Congratulations! Or not. You think you have a new mantle in society. What you actually have is a new job. You don’t get paid for it, but it’s going to keep you busy constantly. And you can never quit. Well, there is a way, but you won’t like it. I’ll tell you shortly.
First, here’s what’s about to happen to you:
Brick naming. You know that silly little trend where, every time a community constructs a new edifice, they “sell bricks” to people—which means you pay several thousand dollars and get your name etched in the ground for people to step on? Guess what? You need to buy a brick in front of every new building. You’re a leader! If your name isn’t there, people will notice. Other leaders will ask you about it at the leaders’ meetings. Oh, about that…
The leaders’ meetings. You do realize, don’t you, that in every community, all the business leaders get together in a back room somewhere and decide everything? Oh, you didn’t realize that? You haven’t been invited to the back room? You’re worried the other leaders aren’t including you? Oh no!
Relax. There is no back room and there are no leaders’ meetings. This is the invention of a bunch of paranoid gadflies who write six-page letters to the editor and stockpile Hormel’s Beef Stew. The real problem for you is the paranoid gadflies. They now have you in their sights. You’re part of the power structure! They just know it. Expect 50 to 100 phone calls a day from them.
Honorary committees. Since you’re now a leader, people want you to serve on their committees. Many of these are merely “honorary,” which means your name is listed on the organization’s letterhead, but you never have to go to a meeting. You just have to send money. Your name lends credibility to their cause. It helps convince semi-business leaders to give them money, because you did, and if you did, it must be OK to do.
The problem comes when all the semi-business leaders start calling you to ask about the honorary luncheon, and you have no idea what they’re talking about because your PR staff agreed to let your name show up on the committee list without telling you.
Speaking of honors. Do you liked being “honored”? Good! Because it’s going to be happening a lot. Every local organization, cause and charity will soon be wanting to host a dinner in your honor. Why? Because you’re a wonderful human being? Not even close. It’s because you have lots of customers, vendors and other connections who can buy tickets to the event. Business leaders are constantly being “honored” in this way.
When the local paper writes a story about the event, you’ll even have the opportunity to buy a mounted copy of the story on polished oak for $500. What an honor.
All these extra obligations will take up a lot of your time, so the first thing you need to do is hire a COO to run your company for you. You’ll be too busy being interviewed, honored and asked for your opinion on philosophy. You’ll no longer have time for belt loop fasteners. You have to prepare your speech to the Chamber of Commerce. You have to work on your book. You have to go make sure there isn’t bird crap on your brick.
Had enough of this? Want a way out? OK. I told you that you wouldn’t like it, but here it is:
First, sell your company. Then, apply for a job as a dishwasher at IHOP. Next, change your name to Alvin Krumm. (Unless your name already is Alvin Krumm. In that case, change it to Steve Wayfarer.)
The point is, you have to disappear. Vanishing will let you become a normal person again. No more honors. No more bricks. No more letterhead. Believe me, you’ll like it better. Of course, you’ll be giving up everything you’ve worked for your entire career. You always wanted to be a business leader. But then you made it and you found out it was annoying.
A lot of things in life are like that. At least your brick with your name will always be sitting in front of that shiny edifice downtown. Your old name, that is. Scrub hard, Alvin!
