The Right Mans

If you are not watching, or have not seen, The Wrong Mans, your enjoyment of life is about a quart low. The understated gem, available for binge watching on Hulu+, is the funniest work on television since Christopher Guest's Family Tree. The second season is as fall on the floor brilliant as the first.

I raise the point because the work is wonderful, and a welcome respite in our action-packed work world, and because Season Two opens with our intrepid anti-heroes working in logistics as a feature of their witness protection status.

As you will not be surprised to learn, the skills acquired in their new profession become vitally important as the plot advances. Now, there's a sobering notion, that the demands of our world, the imperatives created by bosses and customers (not always in alignment), either allow or force us to develop capabilities that are broadly useful in a number of scenarios.

This makes us vulnerable to poaching from other functions or organizations, at a time when we are already perilously short of talent. In the TV show, the wrong mans (yes, that's the correct title) are ultimately found to be the right mans. So it is with us, as we grow out of awkward and marginally useful rookie status into capable and talented resources, driven by circumstance, experience, some luck, and necessity.

Of course, moving out and up into broader responsibilities is not at all a bad thing when progress is part of our personal plans.  But, we - and our organizations - need to guard against prematurely taking us out of roles in which we are both needed and growing.