<span style="font-size: small;">A small group of us had labored for months on a project to improve morale, performance and slowdown turnover in a particular facility. This assignment had been layered on top of already full task lists, yet it was a labor of love for most of the project team. Who can resist the lure of freedom to create whatever is needed to mend something so tattered and broken?</span>

<span style="font-size: small;">Several months into the project, improvements in metrics first trickled in, then surged. Employees were smiling again. Recruiters were less frenzied.  The project team was – as they say in corporate America – cautiously optimistic that our mix of solutions had generated the right alchemy for a turnaround.</span>

<span style="font-size: small;">Then came the company management meeting. The day when “I” slammed into “we.”</span>
<div class="mceTemp"><span style="font-size: small;">In his opening remarks, the president showered rave reviews on a woman from the project team, highlighting all her great efforts in turning around a troubled facility. He read the email she had sent to him. The email was full of “I” phrases:  I discovered, I researched, I thought, I did, I, I, I. There was no mention of her other four team members. (Bad on the prez for not doing more research.)</span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">Could this be you? Have you tooted your horn yet forgotten the orchestra that accompanied you?</span>

<strong><span style="font-size: small;">Credit-Taking Rules for the Road</span></strong>
<ul>
	<li><span style="font-size: small;">Using “I” is appropriate when you’ve <strong>single-handedly done the work</strong> and the end result is stupendously good, not-so-good or just plain stinks. </span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>You’re not alone.</strong> First there were six, now four-and-a-half degrees of separation between us in a world becoming ever more connected. You just never know when you’re going to bump into and/or need that someone you once threw under the bus.</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>But you’re gonna work alone.</strong>  No one wants to partner up with or even help a glory-grabber. What’s the point in signing on to be invisible?</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: small;">You’ve <strong>written a bad story about yourself</strong>. It doesn’t get any more powerful than word-of-mouth praise…or condemnation. You’re in the driver’s seat as to which story people will tell about you.</span></li>
	<li><span style="font-size: small;">The <strong>“gotcha’s” will get you</strong>. Someday when you least expect it, your boss or some other pooh-bah will ask you – in a very public venue – for details of “your” terrific work. That’s when your career path hits a dead-end, and you won’t hear the applause the orchestra gets for playing <em>it’s about time</em>.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-size: small;">Taking and sharing credit:  it’s your choice, your story, your character and you’re in control.</span>