The Center Of The Universe

I enjoyed this turn of phrase, particularly since I had recently read about a cable outage in Fairfield, CT that resulted in numerous 911 calls because it occurred in the middle of an episode of β€œBreaking Bad.” You are not the center of the universe. Never has this concept been required more.

This article first appeared in IMPO's September 2013 issue.

A few of IMPO’s regular readers do a fantastic job of providing us with feedback. Recently, one of these readers – we'll call him Paul – sent me an email lamenting some of the big business-big labor tensions that had been peppering IMPOmag.com’s news section. Paul’s point was about compromise, and how give and take was the necessary component to everything β€” whether it be tense negotiations in the workplace, or even a discussion with your family about how to spend your Saturday.

β€œA lot of your magazine’s articles have an underlying theme that says when people get together and work as a team, they can accomplish amazing things. I totally believe that premise; I have lived it in several arenas of my life,” said Paul. β€œPeople write books about making teams and crossing adversarial boundaries. And it is a really simple premise that makes all this work: You are not the center of the universe.”

I enjoyed this turn of phrase, particularly since I had recently read about a cable outage in Fairfield, CT that resulted in numerous 911 calls because it occurred in the middle of an episode of β€œBreaking Bad.”

You are not the center of the universe. Never has this concept been required more.

More to Paul’s point: Teamwork is an underlying theme to much of what we cover in IMPO. I don’t see any way around it. An industrial facility doesn’t function without a team of people working together and, since that’s the foundation to its efficiency and profitability, the relationships between co-workers are arguably the most important threads holding things together.

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