Why Do I Do What I Do?

When I was a young, junior officer in the Royal Air Force, I was called a ‘social gadfly’ by an old boss of mine. I wasn’t sure what he meant at the time and, as we didn’t have instant access to the internet (yes, it was that long ago!), I just assumed it meant something along the lines of a social butterfly. This was a fair assumption given the total of my Officers’ Mess bar bill each month and the occasional high jinks I found myself involved in… but never assume, right?!

At my next performance review, this ‘gadfly’ word arose again. Whilst it turned out I was indeed a social butterfly, a point also raised in my performance review, my boss said that, as a gadfly, I was a contrarian thinker and had challenged him, fellow operators, and our ways of working a lot in my first few months on the squadron.?Here we go, I thought, he’s already identified me as a young drunk with a rebellious streak, now I’m a trouble causer who challenges too much! My long-planned military career was about to become very short-lived, and there was no Plan B. Bugger!

...he’s already identified me as a young drunk with a rebellious streak, now I’m a trouble causer who challenges too much!

Turns out I couldn’t have been more wrong.

When asked why I challenged so much, I replied that I’d arrived with a fresh pair of eyes, I was an officer with the associated responsibilities — however junior my rank — and that I wasn’t the sort to go along just to get along. If something could be improved, we should look to improve it, especially in our line of work where we were dealing with multi-million-pound equipment and lives were at stake.

“Good, keep it up,” he said.

What did he just say?!

Not only did the boss tell me to keep it up, he told me to do more of it!?

“Broaden your scope and look at everything”, he said, not just my primary role but the whole operation. I was then to report back at our new fortnightly update meeting with a list of potential improvement areas.

As my sweating palms began to dry, I realised I would no longer need to call Mum and give her the bad news that her son would be back home 20 years sooner than planned, and I walked out of the boss’ office feeling a whole lot better than I had walking in.

I learnt a lot from my first RAF boss and junior role.

I learnt to always be myself and stand by what I believe in — from whence came my Rule №1:?Always do the right thing.

Always do the right thing.

Just because you are junior or new in an organisation doesn’t mean your opinions or views are invalid. In fact, that may give you a unique and valuable perspective. Mediocrity can often set in, or you may face the ‘We’ve always done it that way’ brigade, and the Status Quo bias. That doesn’t mean you should accept it or not challenge it.

I also understood that my boss was right about branding me a ‘social gadfly’. When I finally did get access to the World Wide Web, many years later, I read that a social gadfly is a person who interferes with the status quo of a society or community by posing novel, potentially upsetting questions, usually directed at authorities.

Who knew?!

Fun fact - the term gadfly was originally associated with the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. During his defence, when on trial for his life in Athens, Socrates declared: “If you kill a man like me, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me.” Arguing that his role as a gadfly was “to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth.”

Socrates was the original critical thinker and is one of my favourite contrarians, but that’s for another blog on another day…

If being social gadfly is your thing, learn more and join a thriving community of like-minded contrarians – send your details to [email protected]

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