Gottu or Gettu

The title of this article might make you initially think of “names of bizarre animals” or some other sorts of weird categories you might find on the game show, Jeopardy. When I consult with my clients and work with them toward establishing effective HR policies, I offer them the following caveat: Hire for attitute and train for aptitude. But before we go too far afield, let me tell you what the title alludes to: at a recent networking group, the speaker asked each of the members of the audience after he had passed out stickers for each of them to wear, “So what are you?” We all were wearing a sticker and one said Gottu and the other said Gettu. No one knew what the heck he was talking about and that’s what made his presentation even better. Of course, he had prepped the group with some ringers to make his point and that’s OK since he went on to make his point with incredible effectiveness.

He proceeded and asked a second series of questions. “What are you expecting to get out of today’s session? Who would like to go first?” Then he pointed to someone (a shill) and said, “Come on Joe, why don’t we start with you?” The expected response was, “Oh, man do I gotta go first.” The speaker stopped him and said “No, that’s OK Joe, not to worry,” turning to another, he asked, “How about Mary, why you don’t start?” Mary (the second shill), leaped to her feet and said with great enthusiasm, “Great, now, I gettu go first.” Can you see the difference, and allowing for the grammatical assault, his point was made.

Quite simply put, some of us are Gottu people and some of us are Gettu. Many of us are frequently thinking, “Oh boy, I’ve got to do this or I have to do that,” and it really colors the way we go about doing things and it makes us in almost all cases that much less effective. Others cannot wait to sink their teeth into new or even every day projects and frequently and conversely exclaim, “YES, I gettu start working with this client, or I get to finish up this project.” Ask yourself, who would you want to spend any time with if given the choice? That’s right, the gettu people every time. Do you think anyone chooses to work with those Debbie Downers of the world? No “expletive deleted” way. As you can imagine when I write this or any of the articles you are reading, I can’t wait to get to them. Hopefully you’ll think about this the next time you need to do something because, here’s the beauty of all this, you get to choose who you are going to be each and every day. Why not make it the most effective choice you can make?

Brendan J. Cunningham, President
www.excelleronconsulting.com