How to be the court of first and last resort for clients and colleagues.

I was doing a workout in a much sought-after health club –?The Solomon Fitness?Emporium?– so exclusive it has just two members, Roberta and me; its location, our garage – when I felt something pop in my left shoulder.?The injury – rebellious, stubborn, chronic – refused to heal, so, I made an appointment with a doctor.?Not a specialist, but rather the general practitioner we routinely see.

That office visit and its aftermath prompted the expected steps:?an exam and a preliminary, possible diagnosis followed by physical therapy, then a visit to a shoulder surgeon, an MRI, and, ultimately, months later, a final, definitive diagnosis:?

“You have a full-thickness tear of your supraspinatus tendon,” said the surgeon.

“In English, please,” I replied.

“You have a torn rotator cuff.”

Torn rotator cuffs require an operation, then a long and perilous rehabilitation that would mean my left shoulder — the side I write with, shave with, do everything with – would need to be fully immobilized for weeks, if not months.?I asked about pain:?“On a scale of one to ten, it’s ten,” warned the doc.?“That’s kill-me-now pain; you’re kidding, right?,” came my disbelieving reply.

“I am not,” was the answer that brought conversation to an end.

Notwithstanding my imagining pain beyond comprehension, I went ahead and booked the surgery, then had second thoughts, so I made another appointment with my GP.?I asked questions; he spoke; I listened.?I cancelled the surgery, booked more physical therapy sessions, and set about to preserve the remaining three tendons that keep my shoulder working, if not perfectly, at least functionally.

Apologies for this too long, too boring, and too seemingly irrelevant pre-amble, but truth be told, this isn’t really about my shoulder; it’s about working with clients and colleagues.

It can be hard to describe what Account Managers and client service people do.?My friend?Kristi Faulkner?likens us to “a ringmaster, a quarterback, a shrink, a cheerleader, a peace negotiator, a political strategist, a public defender and a field Marshall all in one;”?others take a more sanguine view, seeing us as general contractors, or maybe architects, or even orchestra conductors, whatever metaphor is apt.?

All of these work well enough, but I think of us differently, as?general practitioners, having?written?about this before.?

In the shoulder business, my GP was the first person I saw.?He was the last person I saw.

In our business, I want to be?the person?a client or colleague turns to whenever there is a problem that needs rectifying, an opportunity that needs to be exploited, a question that needs to be answered, an anxiety that needs to be calmed, an anger that needs to be defused, or an account that needs to be saved.

Just as it is with medical care, we still need specialists in our business – the Planners, Producers, Media people, Analysts, other experts – those with more knowledge than most of us likely have.?

But when a situation arises with a colleague or more importantly, a client, I want to be that person, the one they rely on for whatever it is they need.?That is the surest way to prove your worth to colleagues, and even more importantly, to clients.