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Inspirational but unseen

Invisibles: The Power of Anonymous Work in an Age of Relentless Self-Promotion, by David Zweig

ONE of the hallmarks of our age is our ability to amplify ourselves. We are able to record and broadcast everything we do and everything we think, no matter how trivial or banal, with the help of Facebook and Twitter.

A 2009 national poll of college students showed that 57% agreed that people in their generation use social networking sites for self-promotion, narcissism and attention seeking.

This makes us similar to that “annoying kid in the front of the class who keeps raising his hand, moaning with distress as he over-tries for the teacher’s attention”, notes author David Zweig.

A Pew survey published in 2007 found that just over half of 18- to 25-year-olds said being famous was their generation’s most important life goal, second only to “getting rich”.

While fame has been a goal for many throughout human history, our era is different. In the medieval period, the peasant girl who lived close to the castle might have wanted power, wealth, and privilege as much as an American Idol contestant. The difference is that she knew she would never achieve it.

The 8th century BC Greek epic poem, the Iliad, is one of the earliest known writings on fame. In it, Homer’s heroes are motivated by status and honour in the eyes of other men. When these heroes misbehave, they do not feel guilt because of their inner sense of morality; rather, they feel shame that others know they behaved badly.

“Fame! I’m gonna live forever. Baby, remember my name.”

Pursuing the illusion of fame

Contemporary culture appears to promote the pursuit of fame as a medium to attaining attention, money and power. However, for most people fame or even just recognition is largely an illusion.

Why do so many people buy pursue this illusion?

Zweig argues that social media and other internet-based communications make it easy to amplify an already intrinsic desire to be noticed. A 2009 national poll of college students showed that 57% agreed that people in their generation use social networking sites for self-promotion, narcissism, and attention seeking.

While every era has had people desiring higher status, it is the paths that are different today. In previous eras the paths to status were education, awards, athletic prowess and wealth. The primary metric of status online is the size of one’s audience.

Against this background, David Zweig introduces the Invisibles, people whose work by its very nature ensures they are unknown. Increasingly, he holds, fewer people with the means to choose their career are pursuing paths like theirs, where they and the results of their work are invisible.

The Invisibles seek success differently and not through external rewards, nor tireless self-promotion and one-upmanship. Invisibles define success the same way as philosophers and religions have for millennia: by the satisfaction derived from work itself, and not the degree of attention you receive for it.

Zweig wrote the book, he explains, because “I was fascinated by people who chose to do work that required extensive training and expertise, that was critical to whatever enterprise they were a part of, yet knowingly and contentedly, they rarely, if ever, were known by, let alone received credit from, the outside world for their labour”.

The Invisibles' attitude to work their approach is near antithetical to that of our culture at large.

You can probably name five movie directors, but not one cinematographer. You are not alone. Movies are a collaborative endeavour relying on a whole ecosystem of Invisible workers. Just a moment’s reflection makes it clear that the quality of our experience lies very largely in the hands of the cinematographer at one end, and the editor at the other. It is they who redeem a botched movie, or enhance a good one.  

Invisibles’ work is not about thankless, mundane jobs. On the contrary, the work of the invisibles is highly skilled, and their roles are critical to their enterprise.

Jim Harding is a “Wayfinder.” This invisible speciality creates “wayfinding” systems to help people navigate their way around a built environment such as an airport, museum or mall. It is the science and art of designing cues ranging from signage to lighting to colour, even the architecture, to enhance the customer experience without them knowing why or how.

If you easily find your way about a complex building, it is because of good wayfinding. The beauty of Harding’s work is that when it's done right, it is invisible.

Julia Wilkins Ary is a member of the elite Interpretation Service at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. It is through the interpreters that nations’ speeches are understood by other nations.

At the Interpretation Service, the practice is simultaneous interpretation, not translation or sequential interpretation. As the speaker talks in one language, the interpreter translates the intention into another language while listening to the next sentence without pause.

Simulatneous interpretation is one of the hardest brain activities to perform which is why these Invisibles work in pairs, in bursts of only 30 minutes. 
In this book, you will meet fascinating Invisibles. Peter Stumpf the piano technician responsible for preparing the instrument for each concert at the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. David Apel, the man responsible for creating some of the greatest perfumes and colognes in the world. (No, Tom Ford does not sit in labs for months with the chemistry to create his fragrances.) Dennis Poon, the man responsible for seeing that the tallest buildings in the world can resist wind forces that could topple them.

There are invisibles in all occupations, and what is common to them all is that they derive satisfaction from the value of their work, not the volume of their praise.

Being invisible might require a certain toughness, but this fades when you seek satisfaction in the work itself, and enjoy your own growth in the process.

“Simply through reading the Invisibles’ stories and witnessing their evident successes and fulfillment, we can internalize the power of their values and advance our own embodiment of them. I would call this the
osmosis option,” writes Zweig.

Readability:    Light --+-- Serious
Insights:        High -+--- Low
Practical:        High ---+- Low

 - Fin24

*Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works. Views expressed are his own.

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