If there’s one thing that cheeses me right off about Godzone, it is that nasty little evil beast lurking beneath the surface of all true-blooded kiwis, just waiting top rear its ugly face in a nano second – The Tall Poppy Syndrome.
The Tall Poppy Syndrome (a.k.a. the devil in disguise) is a trait of New Zealand culture that goes back generations. Exerting social pressure on its victims, it tempts the unsuspecting into thinking that “nobody else has a right to succeed, certainly not more than me, anyway!”
When a sportsman starts to achieve more than his teammates, the jealousy gets hold of us and we’ll pull him back to size – our size that is – with negative remarks, jokes, put downs and other immature behaviour that attempts to belittle. Same thing with the successful in business, or the good looking, or anything where someone is successful really.
It drives me mad. How dare we knock some other dude because he’s got more talent, or opportunity, or a better work ethic or attitude than we do? Actually it doesn’t drive me mad, it makes me livid!
I’ve spent a lifetime teaching (I was a professionally trained teacher in my early career), mentoring, coaching and motivating others to achieve, and it is a real joy to see others get their act together, spread their wings and fly in business, or sport, or missionary work or whatever their passion happens to be. One of the reasons I’m so motivated to do what I do is because I had a noticeable lack of “positives” in my formative years, and so I know the value that a good, timely, motivating word can have.
In the last year or two I have been spending a lot of time encouraging my friends, staff and colleagues to “back themselves” and “Go for it!!”. The slogan I use in the Internet UNMASKED!! books is “Go For it!!” The message I give to my staff is “You can do it!” and then I try to support hem so that they can. Yeah, sure occasionally someone drops the ball but I’d far prefer to have a team of people around me who are committed, thinking, caring, motivated people and the occasional “oops” every now and then, than a team of pencil-pushers, robots and goons who are just waiting for the end of the week, and are looking around for a better job.
Two new arrivals to our team testify to this positive supportive environment – Harpreet Kaur, our new Accounts/Systems girl at Go Kiwi Internet, and Rob Laidlaw, Go Kiwi Internet’s latest appointed Christchurch web design Agency.
Harpreet considers the work atmosphere we’ve created a real breath of fresh air. She hails from India, which is a cutthroat work environment with employers squeezing their employees and employees responding in kind, just “doing the job”.
Rob has a lot of business and work experience and loves our positive team atmosphere and the support that we give our people.
Both of our new friends have every opportunity in their own fields to be a Tall Poppy and I for one want to see them do really well for themselves. When they do shine in the sun, if they cast a little shadow on some other neck of the woods, good job – I for one will be trying not to cut them down in size.
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