Hello

My name is Elwin

Vs

I am Elwin

As a teenager I read some pop-psych article that made a claim:

For success one should always chose

the active declaration, ‘I am’

vs the passive ‘My name is’ in an introduction.

I don’t know the truth in this, but I do know that words are important.

Words not only telegraph to others but influence oneself.

A couple companies were on a call, and were going through a round robin introduction.

Julie here with ABC, customer experience

Tom, I work for Jane, and am a XYZ buyer

John, an anthropologist, researcher with ABC

Sam, Sales lead under Ryan.

Pat, I drive the digital products at ABC

Ryan, VP Sales at XYZ under Jane

Ryhea, back end engineer on ABC’s widget project

You get the pattern,

ABC’s people introduced themselves as ‘what they do’

XYZ’s people introduced themselves as ‘where they fit title/role who they work for’

I might have read too much into a simple introduction

But a number of thoughts came to mind (more than can be addressed in 1300 chars)

* It said a lot about the decisioning and culture of the company

* What you say reenforces your own internal identity and sense of place.

* Function based orgs vs Hierarchal

* Alpha leadership vs Beta

Cartoon used with permission

Original linkedin post: http://bit.ly/2uMGWP2