Indiana Jones and The Corporate Menagerie

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the hero Indiana Jones stands helplessly tied-up while Dr. Belloq and the Nazis open the Ark.

Arguably, none of Indy’s actions, heroic or otherwise, had any effect on the main outcome. With or without his involvement, the Nazis find the Ark, open it, and experience horrific supernatural deaths.

Are you Indiana Jones at work? ?

If you removed yourself from what you do, would the company have the same results that day? Week? Year even?

“I have people skills!” growls Tom Smykowski from Office Space, defending his interfacing role between customers and engineers, to the consultants in Office Space after they asked famously, “What would you say you do here?” In a movie satirically filled with more than one Indiana Jones, Tom humorously and depressingly stood out from the rest.

If you look in the mirror today and see a bull whip and fedora in the reflection, you’re not doomed (or in the Temple of Doom). You’re just admitting there’s opportunity to be more efficient. If you optimize yourself first, you get to be impactful like Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade and less like Tom Smykowski who ended up fired by “The Bobs.”

It’s rare that junior contributors face this issue – early careerists across industries are likely producing tangible work from start to end of the day. In my former career, I couldn’t secure an embassy without rifleman and machine gunners and you can’t create software without the developers.

Mid-careerists often face this issue of mattering. Call it middle management, call it senior management before you hit C-Suite. As organizations grow, or mature and iterate, there are human linkages that conceptually were designed to optimize but in practice may not. Going back to my former career, does the Major – the “middle manager of the staff” of the Army Brigade, fall susceptible to this? They do not – not in functioning Army commands.

They are empowered by their senior commander to exercise disciplined initiative within broad left and right limits to achieve a higher intent. They power down that initiative to their Captains, Lieutenants and Sergeants who serve as well on “Staff.”

The default mode of an Indiana Jones ‘linking-leader’ (as I prefer to call a middle manager), is receiving reports and relaying reports. If this takes up most of your time, you are definitely wearing the fedora and bull whip right now and it’s a matter of time before someone asks “What would you say you do here?”

Get ahead of it. Be proactive. Identify true gaps in the operational efficiency of the organization and move to fill it. In the Army, we called this exerting influence beyond your immediate team to improve the greater organization. That’s a top-performing ‘linking-leader.’

But if all else fails, for humor’s sake, just remember for every time Indiana Jones was out adventuring with no impact, his thankless TA was back at the University grading papers and covering in class. ?

Disclaimer: Indiana Jones is great and Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade are magical pieces of storytelling and film. Can discuss merits of Temple of Doom or latest iterations over a beverage.