Fine, I'll admit it. All this enthusiasm about Texas? Yeah, so it stems just a wee bit from my fascination with Friday Night Lights. That's right, the cheap Abercrombie eye candy trick worked, okay?
But apart from the handsome Taylor Kitsch proffered by the series, FNL also hit home with its portrayal of the political tensions and dynamics that go behind the scenes at the school and district levels regarding Coach Taylor's performance and his tenuous tenure at Dillon High. Unfortunately in life, especially in the corporate world, you have countless scheming, self-absorbed "Joe McCoys" running amok, making life hard for the "Eric Taylors" who are focused on doing right and being fair.
As I slog through the Corporate Governance section of WINKIE, my mind keeps getting sidetracked and pulled into dwelling on how corporate governance and transparency have gone down the proverbial loo in my current professional environment.
I had promised myself that this blog would only focus on the "pull" elements of liberation, rather than the "push" factors that are also an important driver for my decision to take a leap into the great unknown. And, for the most part, that is what I will do. However, I just can't help but feel keenly disappointed with the way things have turned out. While I tend to manage expectations (including those of my own) fairly conservatively, I did have high hopes for the "little start-up that could." It's not even the fact that I relocated across the country to take on this opportunity. What is truly disappointing is that, by starting with a clean slate, this little start-up really had potential. The leadership could have chosen to not get bogged down by the industry's inherent conflicts of interests and schmarmy-ness. And yet, that's exactly what they have ended up doing, while denying it along the entire way.
On the positive side, this has been a tremendous learning experience about credibility and why you should do all that you can to avoid getting dragged down into the swampy pits of "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours, even if you're an unethical SOB" philosophy. And it is exactly that sort of mentality which, when combined with the "old boys club" environment, is a recipe for frustration and glass ceilings in this industry.
So in sum, this quest for liberation is also in part a search for a home / career / lifestyle where merit matters. Although Malcolm Gladwell skeptics will scoff, reading his book Blink really resonated with me throughout all the recent corporate turmoil, especially when thinking about how much of the history of humankind has been so deeply steeped in nepotism and favoritism. I think it's about time for a paradigm shift - don't you?
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