A lesson in support and collaboration 

“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed” – Maya Angelou

I recently recommended, developed, and executed an associate engagement hackathon at work.

(Hackathon: 24-48 hours to develop design thinking or problem solving solutions.)

My boss (who is a badass in STEM if I’ve ever seen one! We should all aspire to be her) when giving her update to the CEO and board of the company gave credit to myself and the marketing team. 

At first my reaction was “what the heck? This is my initiative!” 🤷🏼‍♀️

 (shhh, I don’t need your judgement, I’m human) 🤦🏼‍♀️

 Then I quickly reminded myself that “even a one man show needs support,” the marketing department was integral to the success of the challenge. They sent my emails to the entire company and added the challenge to our internal homepage. They offered to send out the “thank you” swag and create a graph of all the entries for the executive update. 

Essentially, they rock 🎸and I’m so appreciative of their help and support. 

Yes, I may be the lead, writer, and director of the show but without them my show would have no lights, audio, or audience. 

I’d be standing in the dark, projecting at the top of my lungs, to an empty house. 

Here, real life emulates theatre in that no matter the show, no matter the size of the cast, creating an excellent product always takes a team. As an actor you are not more important than the tech team, you are a piece of that team which is creating something magical. 🧚🏼‍♀️

You can’t do it without them! 

The same life lesson applies to business. No matter what level you are, you are part of a team and the faster you realize that the more successful you’ll be!

So be supportive, be kind, and be grateful!  You can’t do it alone. 

Side note: I was recently told a story by a friend of what they witnessed at the concert of a major musician (think RocketMan).  The musician lost his cool over something on stage and started screaming at the tech crew. This is not ok! No matter who you are, you can not perform a show without the crew. They deserve to be respected. I’d love to see this musician run lights, sound, and perform in a major arena all on his own. To the crew he yelled at; try shutting off his mic and lights next time until he apologizes (you’ll probably get fired if you do this but maybe it will remind him of your incredible value).

Make sure you subscribe to stay up to date with “The Balanced Theatre Brat” series.

[mailpoet_form id=”2″]

Please follow and like us: