You can’t help but create real and lasting value

There are certain employees who possess a unique set of qualities that make them extremely rare and valuable.

They can’t help contributing all over the place, making a difference in many parts of the company.

Some startups jokingly call these people unicorns, with their mythical qualities to bring joy and magic to those in their presence.

But that’s just a name. Without the executional force backing it up, there’s no value.

Rango, my favorite cartoon chameleon who found himself in the grip of an identity crisis, comes to mind. His spirit guide gives him some great advice:

These days, they’ve got a name for just about everything, but it doesn’t matter what they call you, it’s the deeds that make the man.

Any of us can have this kind of impact at our organizations, even if the people we work with don’t call us unicorns. Here’s an example from my career. After outgrowing my origins as an entrepreneur, the corporate world came calling for me. Or maybe it was the other way around.

Either way, my goal was to start working for companies where I could see myself as a contributing individual holistically. Job titles didn’t mean squat, it was all about creating the opportunity to create value in new and exciting ways.

An innovation studio hired me as their strategist to create marketing ideas for pitching big brands. It was essentially a business development role. Which was fine with me, but it only consumed about thirty percent of my bandwidth.

And so, my side project became creating and operationalizing an accelerated strategic framework that the whole team could use with any client. Having spent the previous ten years facilitating marketing workshops with companies around the world, it was the perfect marriage of my skills as a communicator and a creator.

As expected, the first few months garnered a lot of weird looks. Other employees and even a few clients looked at me like some sort of madman. Although, to their credit, I was walking around the office wearing an orange jumpsuit and drawing twenty foot tall whiteboard murals. They weren’t far off.

However, something inside told me to keep my project moving. To follow through on this crazy idea, long after the mood had passed, long after everyone else was bored with it. And to only stop when it stopped working.

Over time, though, these thinkmapping sessions led to great results for our clients and notable work for that agency. What started out as a bit of a stunt actually became a communication ritual and winning presentation style that expanded our ability to engage our audience.

Fast forward to today, years after my work there is done, that agency still uses my thinkmapping process as part of their service offering. Their website features it as the energizing kickoff phase of their design process that helps jumpstart collective innovation.

And that makes me proud. It reminds me that when you only do the things that only you can do, you can’t help but create real and lasting value.

It doesn’t necessarily make you a unicorn, but it does make you unique.

Are you delusional, or is everybody just not able to see your gifts yet?