making status (symbols) accessible

One of the things I appreciate about a team at work is the way that social tendencies we have to critique or avoid out in the world can be turned to humane use. Work is a contrived environment. That contrivance can be dull and dulling. Or it can be energizing and propulsive.

There is much sorting by status out in the world. It’s naive to assume this sorting won’t happen on your team, too. As a leader, and especially as a founder, you influence the creation and allocation of status. This is a cool power to wield, share, and refine. It’s often cheap to do so, too.

As we often say around here, public praise from you, the leader, costs zero dollars yet carries great value for the recipient of that praise and everyone else who hears it. You raise the recipient’s status, right there and then.

There are many other ways to allocate status. Awards, specialized swag (yes even a T shirt or a lapel pin), ceding/sharing a stage normally reserved for you or other leaders, specialized cohorts with custom names — these are just a few.

This is one of several areas where your deliberate action probably behooves you and the team. Ideally, the way one gets status on your team is through values-driven action. Doing the stuff that contributes to your shared mission, no matter what status that stuff might confer outside of this contrived little world of your team. Ideally, you make this clear. Unlike the world beyond, status around here isn’t inherited or randomly assigned or driven by looks, wealth, zip code. Status and its symbols are accessible. Around here, status is a good and it is abundant.

-eric