Long ago, when I was in college, a not-very-distinguished member of our school’s basketball team lived across the hall from me. He was put into a game for garbage time — we were ahead or behind by 20, and it really didn’t matter what happened on the court. He took a 28-footer.
“What the heck were you doing taking that shot?”
“My name’s gonna show up on the scorecard, one way or the other. One for one and three points. Or oh for one and zero points. Whatever. If I played, my name’s gonna show up when they write about it.”
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Shooting for the sake of having taken a shot.
I think we occasionally see speaking for the sake of having spoken.
On the quarterly analysts’ call that I now listen to, analysts sometimes ask phenomenally silly questions: “Can you give us a little more context on the earnings per share?”
What the heck kind of question is that? A six-year-old could do better.
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Unless you’re asking the question solely to have asked the question.
Your name showed up on the transcript! You therefore must have attended the call! And paid attention! And the CEO selected you to ask a question! (Well, not really. You just put yourself in the queue with the operator. But you feel special, anyway.)
It must serve some purpose — either with your employer, or your clients, or your psyche — to have spoken. So you speak for the purpose of having spoken.
How about theater reviews? I saw one recently for “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” (which actually was a pretty good show). The reviewer wrote that the musical made “the earth move under my feet.” Now, I admit, that’s a pretty clever way of describing the Carole King show. But maybe the reviewer had an ulterior motive: Maybe, if you write that the show made “the earth move under [your] feet,” your words are more likely to appear on a banner outside the theater — accompanied by the name of your newspaper! So you help the show attract a bigger audience, have your words appear on a banner, and publicize the name of your newspaper — thus providing real value to your editor. It’s irrelevant whether the show truly made “the earth move under [your] feet;” you had another reason for speaking.
You certainly see speaking-for-the-sake-of-having-spoken at corporate meetings of all types. If you have a meeting with the very important person, then many people think they should speak. What they say doesn’t really matter. Speaking helps with audience participation; the sound of multiple voices makes the meeting less tedious; the fact that you spoke proves that you were present and paying attention. It doesn’t matter if what you say is insightful or intelligent; you’re speaking for the sake of having spoken.
I think I saw this less frequently at law firms.
I concede that I saw plenty of sucking up to the managing partner. At the annual office dinner, for example, everyone hung around until the managing partner took off. Once he left, the crowd thinned out pretty quickly.
But I don’t think I saw people waving their hands in the air at the partners’ meeting solely for the purpose of having spoken.
Maybe that’s a function of size: Although I worked at a large law firm, the law firm was not as extraordinarily large as my corporation. Maybe you feel more anonymous as an entity grows in size, so you feel more compelled to prove that you matter.
Or maybe it’s a question of politics. At a law firm, it’s likely that the “points committee” — or, by whatever name, the committee that sets salaries and runs the joint — will discuss you personally at least once per year. That conversation might be brief, but most firms commit to discussing individually what each partner’s draw should be. (Some, but not all, firms even have annual performance interviews with each partner.)
At a corporation, the situation’s different. Corporations can be too large to discuss every employee — or even every important employee — individually. Remuneration is thus left between you and your supervisor, and maybe you feel that you have to do something else — like speak at meetings — to stand out.
Or perhaps I’m mistaken. Maybe people speak for the purpose of having spoken at law firms as often as they do at corporations, and I’m just getting more sensitive with each passing year to people seemingly asking questions solely for the purpose of having asked them.
Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now responsible for litigation and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].