A wall to paint!
A (bit weird) fable to relate think about.
Once upon a time, there was an establishment.
It was not much, but it was enough for The Builder. Now, this person had big dreams and one of those was to decorate the outside-facing wall.
Yes, that’s right. He wanted to paint the wall.
Why though, you might ask. You see, the builder saw the potential the establishment has to offer and knows the kind of people who work on it day in and day out. The innovator wanted a way to not only spread the word out loud, but to also create growth opportunities for these insiders by demonstrating the work of a collective.
And so began the annual ceremony of decorating the wall. There were several creative minds on board and everyone added to the art work being displayed. It did attract the attention of folks from near and far — for this was one of the first of its kind.
Following years, the ideas became more creative and more people joined the establishment. They did gain lessons internally, but the wall painting ceremony was when they truly applied their skills. Not only did they challenge themselves to explore new options, but also they developed their confidence and team development skills.
Now, The Builder retired and felt proud looking back at those younger than him who are sustaining the legacy of his idea. In fact, directly or indirectly, many other institutions began to realize the importance of painting their walls — to make themselves look appealing externally and to develop the quality internally.
However, when you are the first of your kind, it is only a matter of time before competition rises and the pressure to innovate hits harder. What was once perceived as fun was starting to take a toll.
With every generation that retired, it added more folks to the advisory board. Everyone wanted the wall to look great, but many cooks risk spoiling the broth.
As years became decades, the wall was indeed well respected but the expectations kept escalating each year. And in time, the time frame to nurture new talent begins to diminish.
But not everything looks gloomy! Over the years, new walls were created at different sections and this meant more opportunities for insiders to develop their painting skills. But the prime wall demanded the best of the best to attend to it.
Also, the wall became bigger and bigger with every passing year. However, the number of painters stayed the same. So now we have a situation where demand is more than supply, and the institution has to make do with the best painters that they have.
But how do these painters rise to be so talented? They went over and over — to different walls to paint thus making themselves better equipped to paint another wall.
However, due to lack of bandwidth to train every enthusiast, the insiders who did not try hard enough to get a chance just quit and sat inside — continuing to do their work.
Those who did paint were made to paint a variety of designs — cross domains and patterns. This molded them to be better leaders of tomorrow.
But let us now pause and take a minute to examine — how did we get here?
Now the situation is that there is a lot of pressure to excel, the chief painters are challenged on time to create better teams to better train their painters. However, it cannot be ignored that on the positive side a bigger wall meant more scope to train the multitasking painters who go on to become chief painters, this unnecessary stress can take a toll over time — especially when you consider the rest of the insiders are not involved because no one is encouraging them enough to step out of their shells.
Now preparations to paint the wall began from as early as 9 months. This meant that a lot of the attention span of the insiders is being directed to painting the wall when they could have been focusing on adding value to themselves and institution through work. Somehow, the wall became more important than the work it enclosed within.
Performance quality of the insiders began to diminish with every passing year but the college was dearly revered due to the laurels brought by its past workers — who have retired and moved on in life. Some of those folks went on to build world renown institutions themselves and so the source institution of their origin was always appreciated. However, the future insiders would rely on the value the present insiders add to the institution and that encompasses work beyond painting a wall.
Don’t get me wrong — the whole idea of painting a wall has a lot of plus points that can definitely not be neglected but to keep it in the forefront is a bit difficult to sustain — given the small number of painters. Yes, a smaller pool means more learning scope but when you are made to stay on and continue innovating for the wall, it is difficult to add value in the internal matters.
Today, there are more futuristic walls out there that exist due to the resources the institution holds. The wall of the institution of our fable, however, is solely run by the insiders who put on their caps and paint wonders on the wall. This originality is one worth taking note but little do people see the internal struggles that take place — with painters constantly running around, loosing work time in the institution. Yes, chances are that they are doing this on free will and no one is forcing them but one’s aspirations are tuned to the opportunities that are offered and when most openings are to paint a wall rather than to develop a killer product internally by working in the institution, the shift in majority participation cannot go unnoticed.
I hope this makes sense in a weird way.
