Where Should Your Loyalties Lie?
Would you jump into another project to help it out?
We love our soccer in Europe, and there is a story of how a player on loan from another club saved the day for a club about to be relegated to the lower league. If you saw another project in trouble and really thought you could help, would you offer your services? Over the years in IT, I’ve seen more loyalty to immediate teams than to meeting wider company objectives.
This video by Dr. Jim Anderson asks many good questions about loyalty, a subject that every IT worker faces. How loyal are you? We work for companies, but how much loyalty is there to a company? Is your loyalty only to yourself, your test team, your project, your manager, your company friends, your work colleagues, the company—or several of these? Are IT workers more or less loyal than other company disciplines like finance, marketing, or operations?
In Employee Loyalty and Its Impact on Firm Growth Jasna Auer Antoncic and Bostjan Antoncic describe how loyalty by staff can impact the profitability and performance of a company. Clearly loyalty is an important issue for companies. IT workers need to ask themselves the question: What is the price of loyalty? Not just in monetary terms and career progression, but how do you perceive yourself? Donald Trump thinks loyalty is a test of character.
So, is it better to be loyal to the company or to yourself? Donald T. Regan said, “You've got to give loyalty down, if you want loyalty up.” A company must give to receive. The best measure of loyalty is to look at what you would do if you got a new job offer for a few grand more. Would you stay in the current position because you are loyal to the team or the company? I know there are people who would. Are you one of those people?
This all brings me back to the story of the soccer player, Jimmy Glass. Clearly he initially had no affinity to the team he was seconded to, but in the heat of the moment he demonstrated what is important—to give your all to the team that you are in. He will always be remembered by the club he saved because he thought of the players and supporters surrounding him on that fateful day.
The vast majority of the people I’ve met were committed to the project on which they were working and the people with whom they were working. However there are usually more projects going on in a company than just the one you are working on. Maybe stretching yourself to help others in the company achieve their goals shows loyalty to the company, but more importantly it shows your colleagues your loyalty to them as well.
Loyalty to your immediate team is important, but maybe we should look around the office once in awhile and ask, “Would you like some help?”
