Everything needs a hashtag now right?

Crazy how explosive this has been. Hashtags were created as a way to connect with others on a topic. Now I know why. People must really like getting together on stuff. Hashtags do that. They pull people together.

We were talking in one of our offices recently about the difference between a Me/I perspective and a We/Us perspective. We actually built a Prestige Pyramid modeled after John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success months ago. The foundation holds our internal Core Values, one of which is Teamwork. Everything hinges on us being great at those 5 Core Values. Teamwork and Together are good friends.

Together we’re learning what together really means. I think of two of our best examples at Prestige that model this for us. For fun, let’s say their names are Doug and Ted. If we had a Most Popular at Prestige superlative, it would be a photo finish. It’s amazing to watch them and we may have landed on their secret: they operate 100% from a together perspective. That’s it! Their colleagues go out of their way to praise them with admiration and respect. So much that their middle and last names could be Is Awesome because we hear Doug Is Awesome and Ted Is Awesome all the time. They don’t throw out a rope when someone is sinking; they jump in the water. As a result, their influence is bigger than planet Earth. They inject energy and hope into every situation, never sucking it out.

I overheard a guy talking in a restaurant a few months ago about a business he seemed especially proud of. He said “I” so many times I thought he must be an ophthalmologist. He wasn’t. The words we, us or together never came out of his mouth. He didn’t strike me as a jump-in-the-water kind of guy or as someone I’d want to work with.

Fortunately for us, we’re lucky to have more than just a few (insert name here) Is Awesome people on our team; approachable, dependable people doing meaningful work from a together perspective. They decide every day to pull up their chairs and sit on the same side of the table as the people they’re working with. They use phrases like “let’s take a look” and “how can I help you with that?” They never criticize or judge or make you feel dumb. Their relationships are based on mutual respect and have nothing to do with tenure or title or who sits where. These team members have incredible relational equity inside our walls.

Now we know why. They’re walking hashtags. They put #together at the beginning and end of every interaction. And they’re teaching us a lot about how awesome that can be.