Embrace the chaos – success doesn’t mean being a eunuch in a suit
In this guest post, marketer Cathie McGinn argues that the professional world has more to learn from the happy toddler in the BBC blooper than her stressed dad in his suit
Last week a man had a bad day at work. Trying his hardest to interpret a complex political situation on international television, he is interrupted by his adorable children. A momentary embarrassment. But it’s caught the attention and the imagination of the connected world.
Not only was the story of Korea expert Prof Robert Kelly covered by every major media outlet in the world, it has spawned a bewildering array of think pieces (and here’s another!) on what the video reveals about everything from racism, the patriarchy and the thanklessness of working in academia, to child abuse. There are memes, parodies, tweets. First we loved it, and the inevitable backlash followed swiftly.
The reason this video struck such a powerful chord was not about parenthood, or the peculiar myopia of people less familiar with mixed-race families than having nannies: what unfolded tapped a mainline into the collective unconscious.
It perfectly depicts our daily struggle between the free, untrammelled, unfettered self (pictured here in a jaunty yellow jumper) and the imposition and limitation placed upon us by convention (symbolised by that dreadful tie).
The tensions playing across Professor Kelly’s face play across your brain, every day. No matter how much you love your job, no matter how well paid or fulfilling or status-enabling it is, somewhere in your heart beats a fierce desire to flip the table and moonwalk out of there, perhaps waggling your arms like a happy little duck.
We watch his face with the shock of recognition. What we saw was the moment when the mask slipped, the moment when the carefully constructed professional persona was revealed to be the fraud we secretly know it to be. We all wear those masks at work, different ones again at home, and we know that they sometimes chafe. It was a moment of pure jubilation to see someone, someone relying on a cultural shorthand we well understand, struggle to keep his securely attached.
And it was in part because we’re so familiar with, and so tired of, the particular tradition to which Robert E Kelly cleaves: the white male authority figure in a book-lined study, imparting selected extracts of the knowledge to which he is the gatekeeper – that made the undoing of that construct so delicious.
With fake news abounding, and the meteoric rise of DIY content, it’s clear that the fourth estate has changed beyond recognition, and the insistence on adhering to outmoded signifiers of eminence is increasingly ludicrous.
The question is why we insist that professionalism and authority looks like this. White House spokesman Sean Spicer wears a poorly cut suit and an ugly tie. It doesn’t demonstrate his integrity. What professional and influential ought to look like, in 2017, is something more real, more truthful.
To be informed, educated and highly capable shouldn’t mean a denial of your humanity. We loved Robert Kelly’s kids because they broke through the veneer of respectability to remind us of the glorious, joyous spirit within us all that we try so hard to compartmentalise during work hours.
In the immortal words of Jeff Goldblum, “life finds a way.”
In any case, relying on people in suits to interpret the world for us plebs is not working. Marking the 28th birthday of the internet this week, its inventor Tim Berners-Lee outlined three major threats to the future of the web: one of these was his belief that “it’s too easy for misinformation to spread on the web.”
What we ought to be worrying about is how we tackle misinformation and “alternative facts,”: how we ensure we, and future generations have the skills we need to navigate decentralised and proliferating data sources, and find the nuggets of truth amongst the sludge.
What the video calls into question is why we continue to create and maintain structures which require us to pretend that the person is invisible, and the professional (an idealized eunuch-person, with no children, partner, or love or chaos or joy in her/his existence) is the optimum worker. Does it make us happy to position our personal and professional lives in binary opposition? It does not.
It makes us less productive, results in a lack of diversity and imagination in our creative industries, and it creates painful internal struggles that compromise both work and home life.
Why do we view success as “wearing a suit without interruption”?
I will not deny the existence of myself as a messy, whole person, who may be, by-and-large, excellent at her job, and whose children are mostly healthy and happy, but can barely keep all the plates spinning much of the time. I don’t want to #LeanIn. I want to get real.
The lesson is LET GO AND BE THE HAPPY LITTLE DUCK.
The biggest question of all will, I expect, remain a mystery: was Professor Kelly wearing trousers?
- Cathie McGinn leads marketing and communications for the Australian College of Midwives and is a former Mumbrella journalist
Best opinion piece on mumbrella….ever.
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Superb scribbling.
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Terrific piece. Share broadly, people.
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Ah, you clever lady. Thank you.
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Made me smile.. thank you for this
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Through the years I have learned that the people who dress in a suit and tie to do business are the ones that I avoid doing business with.
‘Dad, I’m considering a career in organised crime!’
– ”Government or private sector?’
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Wonderful, positive words about what shouldn’t be a divisive moment!
In a follow up interview alongside his wife, he mentioned he was wearing pants. Although they could have been trakkies.
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Yep… Nup.
This was an expert discussing the impeachment and ousting of the South Korean President, in the midst of North Korea’s (seemingly) escalating aggression. I need the commentary to be on point. I don’t care about the commenter’s familial circumstances, I only care about their expertise in the matter at hand.
You couldn’t script and direct this scene for funnier. The jaunty walk, the punchline upon punchline of the second child’s entrance… I haven’t laughed so genuinely in quite a while.
But this sort of intrusion on my news would soon get tired.
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Great article and a wonderful avenue to take off the video. The veil between the professional and the person is far less apparent in our industry I believe. But when you look at corporations and politics there is undoubtedly the belief that the more real you are as a person then the weaker you are as a professional. When of course the exact opposite is true.
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No need to analyse guys. It’s simply something we all know. Don’t make a big deal about it.
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Terrific column, Cathie. And as someone in a mixed-race family who immediately spotted the kids were halfies and the woman was obviously the mum and not the nanny or mail order, it’s nice someone else noticed the elephant that also bounded into the room.
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Agree Adam, so agree. Here’s to real life. Loosening the suit might even make us better at our jobs.
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Thought this was going to be another cliched article on “what marketing can learn from….” Left with a new perspective on ‘bringing yourself to work’. Good read. Thank you.
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I don’t think anyone is suggesting that this happens frequently, but rather that when it does, we should embrace it.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLMSoD1riE0
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@Hmmm. Don’t know which article you were reading, but I was reading the one about the professor who was called a eunuch and a fraud. Because he wore a suit and tie and was trying to focus on delivering his opinion in a professional manner.
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Thanks “And This” – I’ve added that updated interview with the family into Cathie’s piece.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
There is nothing wrong with his tie and there is nothing wrong with owning books and displaying them for the world to see. – Burgundy Tie Owner.
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There are thousands of people who are constrained each day by the required dress code including ties and suits and they don’t enjoy it. They don’t have the freedom to wear ironic t-shirts and faces of tragic stubble along with thongs and jeans….that’s just inside the ad industry bubble. If they work from home like this guy, you dress as expected. I’ve had many a skype meeting at home wearing board shorts but dressed in many kinds of clothing up top to suit the occasion. On very few occasions a suit and tie was appropriate. I’ve seen some dress in board rooms where the attendees could justifiably be asked to sit at the kiddies table rather than the board table. Getting the balance right whilst maintaining your own personal identity can be tricky but it is important.
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brilliantly crafted coverage on a wonderful family doing its best in industry and at home
bless you all
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Everyone knows that Tim Berners-Lee has never sought credit for inventing the internet, right?
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Love the article Cathie and the sentiment about the different masks – too true. I love spending time with my little one every evening – mostly because it’s one of the few times during the working week when you can 100% relax, be silly, waddle like a duck and be entirely care free!
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So well said.
Masks is the key here for me. We learn them early and according to gender. Great analysis thanks.
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Cathie writes “relying on people in suits to interpret the world for us plebs …” She’s a journalist who “leads marketing and communications for the Australian College of Midwives : I’m puzzled as to how she identifies as a pleb. Anyway, nice piece .
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That was so f*in good – BE MONKEY
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