(2025-1)
Early on in my 40-year career, I was aware of the power of job titles. At Chevron, key words gave an indication into salary grade. As I grew in my role as a leader, job titles became less important to me. That’s probably a good thing, because I’ve had some crazy job titles. The most Dilbert-like title was “Manager, Strategy Development and Opportunity Identification.” One of my daughters asked, “What do you do, look around and point to something and say there’s an opportunity?”
My favorite job title, and its evolution, is the name my grandchildren call me. Before I was blessed with my first grandchild in 2017, I decided that if or when I became a grandfather, I wanted them to call me Scoobs. For the most part, that has remained. It’s had a few different evolutions by four grandchildren since 2017.
I got the nickname Scoobs in London and Paris in 2001 as I was wrapping up my Executive MBA studies. I took my family to London for a few weeks before my study week in Paris. One morning while we were heading to the Tube to sightsee, I strode out at a faster pace than my wife and daughters. I recall that I was mad for some reason that I don’t remember. My wife called out to me, but I didn’t hear. I was hell-bent on keeping some silly schedule. At some point, all three of them were shouting at me, shouting “Dad,” “Mike,” and “Henson.” I finally heard and turned around and said, “Why don’t you just call me stupid?” My older daughter didn’t quite understand and turned to my other daughter and said, “Did he say call me Scooby?” Eventually, I got over my anger and we all laughed at the story and new nickname.
Later in Paris, our family joined all the other EMBA family for a tour somewhere. While on the bus, my daughters told the story to my classmates. One of them started calling me Scoobs. My nickname hasn’t changed since 2001.
Sixteen years later in 2017, my first grandchild was born and the family formally started calling me Scoobs in her presence. When she started talking, she referred to me as “Dew.” What we didn’t know at the time was that she was having trouble hearing. After she had tubes put in her ears, she still called me “Dew.” I didn’t mind, because I was smitten by her. Actually, I’m smitten by all my grandchildren.
My second grandchild, my first grandson, was born late in 2018. Since he had an older cousin, he easily followed suit by calling me either Scoobs or Dew. Dew was easy for him to start with, and he switched to Scoobs shortly after learning to talk.
The names Dew and Scoobs were interchangeable for the next 2-3 years. When my third grandchild was born in 2021, he continued the evolution of my grandfather name. He easily learned Dew but insisted on adding a strong “k” on the end of it. I was known to him as “Dewk.” A couple of times he called me “Dewkie.” Of course, this gave the entire family a few laughs.
The name evolution has continued with my fourth grandchild, my third grandson who was born in 2022. He could hear his sister and cousins calling me Scoobs, but somehow it came out “Gooch.” Of course, I didn’t mind.
As I reflected on the various names my grandchildren have called me, I learned two key things:
- The calling matters, not the name. I love being a grandfather. My life has been indelibly changed and improved with these four little humans. There was a time when it looked like we wouldn’t have grandchildren. Now I’m blessed with four amazing children. And yes, I gladly embrace my bias!
- What matters is the relationship. I have developed a different relationship with each of them. I treasure my time with them all. I’ve decided that I really don’t care what they call me if they love me and know I love them.
During my career, these same two lessons are applicable. I rarely cared what my title was. I felt a little self-conscious only when one of my direct reports called me Mr. Henson. I preferred Mike. I had one employee who insisted on calling me “boss man.” I thought that was funny, so I didn’t mind. Other than that, the important thing was knowing what my job was and how to develop my team into a high-performing unit. I utilized the relationships I developed with my team members to create or add value for Chevron.
In looking back, I should have insisted on business cards without my title. It would have prevented explaining weird or obtuse monikers!
How about you? What are your thoughts on job titles? Let me know what you think by commenting on this post.