Corporate Guru’s, Unexpected Cahoots, & Wheel Breaking — A short story

Chris is one human in a mass of 42,000 employees existing within the fortune 50 company I am interning at. He was unexpectedly swept into the company while waiting on security clearance for another job in a different state. During this wait, he was poached by a longtime mentor and Jepson alum, John, to simply take a visit and dream alongside him. To bear witness to the potential and the need for monumental cultural change that they could invoke within such a large company – together. In a step of whimsy, Chris decided to move into the unknown and adventure alongside John to be the change that the companies “uppers” didn’t even know they needed. They embarked on a discreet mission placing Chris in the “marketing” team within the company while working in cahoots with each other to shift culture. The mission was to start evolving the roots of team building, leadership, and meaning-making across the spreading array of job positions implanted in the companies hierarchical structuring. This translated to the development of a program that exists to meet and hear from all employees across the power structure and empower them to not only become the change they desire to see within the company, but also speak truth over the imperative role each and every one of them contributes to the companies story. No easy feat ehh. With lots of obstacles – political skepticism within the company, questions of budgeting for the programming and much much more they were unsure of how far there dreaming would be able to carry them.

Chris is now my boss and supervisor. I like to view him as my guru to the wild workings of corporate America though. My first day he sat me down and discussed the break down of the mass system we work within, with three major company sections — Military Engines (ME), Commercial Engines (CE) and then their Canada workings there was a lot of ground to cover. Within these three overriding sections of the company, there are around four sub-groups that break off of each and numerous jobs that intertwine once there. All employees belong to a team which identifies the type of work they do and then they have the location where they do their work. It’s quite intricate and complex, creating a hierarchical structure of people pleasing, through standardized procedures assigned by one’s supervisor. Thus leaving in its wake deteriorated teams, frustrated notions towards leadership and gross divides between power positions that vary according to where one is in the company. This corporate microcosm exists strongly in the form of a pecking order, where rank is immediately noted and holds weight. However, my guru boss acts as an enigma to these concepts made possible only through his ability to manifest the dream him and John saw many months ago into a reality.

That’s right the powers of quality leadership education and training win again (are we really surprised?) in this heroic narrative. A lot of the roles and dynamics between leaders and followers within my corporate workplace are becoming refined through the work of my guru. Chris operates as a leader to the organization under the unofficial covert title dubbed by John, as “The Professor”. He does this by teaching his coworkers how to establish and maintain effective leadership and in doing so he is radically shifting the meaning and wellbeing of numerous teams throughout the company. Through his programming and teachings, he is leading a revolution towards cultural shifts within corporate America and is slowly planting hope in me that the least likely of systems can be improved through catalyst action.

Specific to me, Chris acts as a leader by being an enabler and a challenger. He is granting me access into the room where it happens — to observe and to participate both within the corporate setting as well as within his programming events. While at the same time he is challenging me through conversation, questioning how I am understanding everything and giving me projects that hold weight to the sustainability of his powerful work. An underlying vein to both of these leader qualities is the mutual trust he sought to establish between us. A trust that has allowed space for mistakes to be made, questions asked and grace to be given already.

Within corporate America, my guru has essentially broken the power wheel (for you GOT fans) and is working with a heart for the masses’. I have already learned so much and look forward to the lessons yet to come.