So many people cheer for “the underdog” to win against bigger and better opponents. They cheer for the underdog generally unless they are someone who has something to lose, i.e., a position, award, status or championship – because nobody likes to be outdone and see somebody else take their glory. For Alabama football fans, it has been a very long time since being called or even considered an underdog. But going back not too long ago, things were quite different and there was not such a position of dominance. I love how you can correlate just about anything in life and business to football, even though my underdog story for this week has nothing to do with football.
In an organization, especially one like mine with a lot of “high need for achievement people,” you have egos larger than Alaska, and you will meet a lot of people who have never been wrong about anything… ever. But, every so often, someone or something comes along that knocks the “top dogs” off their positions high above the podium of “how great thou art” and steals a little bit of the glam.
I cannot go into specifics because then there would be no secrets to protect the innocent “high need for achievement people” with this story, but I will cover it in broad strokes. Take a person who has never been the same as the others and may have even caught a little flack for being a little different and working at their own speed. This person came in and did something that few of the top team (you know who – the “high need for achievement people”) have been able to do. It absolutely mortified everyone and left people in awe over what had just happened.
One of my favorite quotes in the world is this: “There are three types of people in the world; those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who stand around and wonder what just happened. Which one are you going to be?” This quote is evident in “the underdog” who went out and made something happen, and even though I wasn’t in the office, I am willing to bet there was quite a bit of wondering what had just happened.
There are a lot of times where people tell me, “I don’t envy being in your position.” But this is one time where I love being in my position because getting to sit back and watch this all go down just makes me grin. It makes me grin because I see an underdog who just had a big win and it makes me grin because I know everyone is about to work a little bit harder to get themselves and their “high need for achievement” personalities back on track.