Are you at your Camelot job? I’ve been asking people this question for years in seminars and training classes across the United States. A Camelot job is that ultimate job. That job where it’s not a 9-to-5 kind of grind, but instead this extraordinary experience where you and a band of like minded people are making a difference in the world. It certainly transcends those people who have “just” a job .
Camelot, of course, is a reference to the city and court in the Arthurian legend. It was where chivalry flourished. Where the heroes embarked on great adventures. Where, together, all of the inhabitants, regardless of station lived and worked toward a common good.
My Camelot job was many years ago. We were building a small company that did technology training (This dates me: one of the first few classes I ever taught was in DOS. That cool new thing, the laser printer, hadn’t even been created yet). We would travel the country teaching people how to use technology in their jobs. As we were starting up, we had no money. When we traveled, we would share hotel rooms. It would be 1:30 a.m. before we finished setting up for the 7:00 a.m. class. We wouldn’t eat at hotel restaurants, we would eat at the gas station across the street. But we were on a mission, so we didn’t care that we didn’t have a lot of money. We didn’t care about the hours. It was more about what we were doing. We were making a difference in people’s lives. We were making them smarter, stronger and faster.
Not too long ago I ran across a fascinating TEDTalks video on YouTube. The author, Simon Sinek, was talking about what makes mythical companies mythical. He said that these companies understood what their ‘why’ was. Companies that understand their ‘why’ are more innovative, more profitable, command great loyalty from employees and customers. It wasn’t just that their CEO felt this way, but it was that everyone understood the ‘why’ and that they were working on something bigger than themselves.
Looking back at my old training company and my Camelot job, I know realize why we loved it so much. We all understood the ‘why’ of what we were doing. We were making people smarter, stronger, faster. It wasn’t a mission statement, it was what we did. It’s what got us up in the morning. It’s what we thought about before we went to bed at night. Everything that we did, all day long, was about that ‘why.’
So today, I can be a bit more specific when I ask people about their Camelot job. I can say, do you understand your company’s ‘why?’ If you’re a manager, do you know your company’s ‘why’? If you do, do your people know? The ‘why’ can’t just be“…to make money.” Yawn. That very easily creates the kind of
company that Enron was or the kind of person Bernie Maddoff became.
The bigger challenge of money being your “why” today, is that there are only so many people that are going to be attracted to just that. Matter of fact, as you read the articles and the studies being done today, younger folks (who probably don’t even know what DOS is) are looking for something more meaningful in their lives, rather than just their paychecks. So today, your why needs to be something bigger.
So what’s that ‘why’? What drives you? If you’re an employee, do you understand the ‘why?’ of your company? Ask if you don’t know. If you’re a manager and you don’t know, ask your boss. If you’re a CEO and don’t know the ‘why’ of what you’re doing, then I’m willing to bet the people who work for you don’t know the ‘why’ of what you’re doing.
I’m fortunate today that I get to work for my second Camelot company, because at Marketing Architects, we have a ‘why’ that’s bigger than selling ads or putting ads on television and radio. Our ‘why’ is helping entrepreneurs succeed when the odds are stacked against them. We help people take a small idea off the back of a napkin and turn it into a national brand. That’s fun, and that’s exciting. I’m fortunate. Most people don’t find one Camelot job in their life. I’ve actually had two.
