In a talk I gave last week about community management, I chatted about five different faces that these kinds of positions wear. One of them was that of a builder. A bricklayer, the person tasked with actually putting the pieces together to make the visions and ideas into reality.

Then the hard question: How do you motivate the bricklayers? How do you make them want to be builders instead of architects?

It seems that being a bricklayer isn’t glamorous. That its only sexy to be the Big Idea Person and stun the world with groundbreaking thought leadership. But what is that big idea worth, really, if all of its substance dissipates in the air after its said aloud?

There is beauty in bricklaying. In taking an idea or a problem and laying out all of its pieces and parts, mapping out a solution, and putting it in place, piece by piece. I’d actually be willing to bet that those of us that spend a lot of time bricklaying actually relish the hands-on part of the work, the tangible results that we can see and feel.

But I think the breakdown happens because of our tendencies to put everyone’s responsibilities in a hierarchy instead of a web. Instead of looking at the symbiotic nature of different roles, we’re compelled to rank them in order of imaginary or perceived importance, putting ideas above execution. Visionaries above builders. But is that really the right way to look at things?

We bricklayers depend on the idea people for the inspiration. The visionaries need the architects and the builders to realize their ideas. But perhaps we’re doing a crummy job of letting the bricklayers see and feel the true impact of their efforts. We’re not communicating well enough that their role is mission critical, and as important as the idea generation itself.

Is that it? Why do we all want to be the ones with the big ideas, and why do we somehow think the execution work is less important?

Is it because the idea people are the ones we put on stage and in spotlights and give book deals and fancy titles? Is it that the bricklayers aren’t fierce enough to own their role and its importance with confidence and be their own champions? Are we not doing a good enough job communicating among our teams, sharing in both success and failure, and pointing to collaborative results?

I’ve really been chewing on this, and I’m going to do so some more, but I want your brainpower. There’s beauty in bricklaying. So what would you say we need to motivate the bricklayers to embrace and own their role as builders?

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