Characters We Work With – The Mindy Project

The hit show ‘The Mindy Project’ takes us into a bustling Manhattan medical practice where the doctors, nurses, administrators and patients each bring a unique personality and approach to their work, their lives, and their relationships. Like many of the places we have worked at, we find ourselves surrounded by hard-working, uber-talented people who lead the effort to make the business successful. It not only brings us pride and persona reward, but it is what makes a career, drives our careers forward, and helps us move ahead in an organization. The Win-Win combination we all strive for doesn’t happen by accident, but through our best effort, being a great partner to others, and always finding ways to gain enjoyment and have some fun along the way. The Mindy Project gives us that many times over and why we embrace the hysterical situations they find themselves in. Let’s run this comedic crew through the MRI to see what makes them tick, and just how well they line up to the Characters We Work With.

The Morgan

Our eager newbie who tries his best to get his work done and make a good impression at the same time, we call The Morgan. The Morgan brings enough talent to do the job most of the time, but in his quest to be liked by everyone, he tries to be all things to all people, which is impossible to do. More often the Morgan finds him missing deadlines or producing substandard work, seldom seeing the forest through the trees, thinking his personality and likability comes first, and his work second. The Morgan has dodged his share of bullets despite showing little proficiency and improvement in his work. But his fun, goofy personality proves to make him more a sympathetic, even lovable colleague, and wins enough people over to create a steady stream of people going to the boss on his behalf asking that The Morgan be given one more chance.

The Peter

An over-abundance of people pleasers in a single workplace can be exhausting, yet we have all stumbled into one or two on the road of our career. Enter The Peter, who understands a bit better than others that his work and performance does matter, and what people care about most, while having no less a desire to be liked than other attention-starved co-workers. The Peter has the wisdom and self-awareness to lead with his talent and ability first, but if not kept in check, his fatal flaw may win in the end if he doesn’t grow as a person, and develop the patience to let his likability to improve organically. What the Peter needs to develop is his self-confidence, to believe he is worthy of being liked by others, and with time and continued good work, he can get there. i.e. – The Peter needs to Chill!

The Jeremy

Our relatively new manager who has elevated to leadership is The Jeremy. People sometimes relish the opportunity to have a new manager, believing they will try so hard to be liked and respected that they may get away with more fun, and less accountability until he truly takes command of his position. While it takes a while to develop the right mix of demeanor, coaching and leadership skill, and decision-making, The Jeremy clearly brings the talent and the intelligence to lead the team, and we have no doubt that he can get there as his understanding and big picture view of our business is up there with those in the C-Suite. The Jeremy will make the wrong call on occasion, usually in his reactions to certain situations, over-reacting or treating a crisis too casually, which every new leader does. But we know that with time and experience, The Jeremy will get there and continue ascending through the organization, and may end up in the C-Suite himself.

The Danny

When one of the top performers in the workplace is also the biggest wise arses, you find yourself working alongside the Danny. The Danny brings excellence to his work each day, never leaving a doubt that when a project is in his hands, it will be done right. The Danny defines the word ‘Aloof’, seeming to never really care about his work, or the company’s mission, or even the team. But with time, we learn that this couldn’t be further from the truth. We may wonder from time to time whether his constant sarcasm and jabs towards others are borne out of some level of dissatisfaction with the company or the team, we actually come to believe that The Danny simply loves to bring a little shock value and comedy to keep things light, both for his own balance, and help provide the same to others. Either way, we love having the Danny around, even when it is us who are the target of one of his hard-hitting jabs.

The Mindy

Every stop we make in our career there are people who surprise us. First impressions can take a while to change, but they can, and one such surprising colleague is The Mindy. The Mindy seemed a bit of a ditz at first, spending far more time talking about her personal life, or celebrity news, than she ever did about our work. This put people off at first, casting doubt about her intelligence or ability. This lasts only as long as it takes to watch The Mindy in action, where we see as strong a performer as our top people, able to deliver the goods every time. We suddenly find ourselves with a completely different perspective of The Mindy, seeing her as someone who understands Work Life Balance in a way few do. She gets her work done, never takes herself too seriously, and finds enjoyment out of every aspect of life.  The Minday replaces doubts with envy for how she seems to have life figured out while the rest of us are still lightyears away from getting there.

The Mindy Project gives us a fun, educational take on life, and what it takes to run a good business. We learn that it takes the right people, the right attitudes, and a team-first approach to make a company successful, and its people to keep coming back giving their best. The parallels between The Mindy Project and our own workplace are striking when we think about the high performers, the developing managers, the steady Eddies, and those who remind us to never judge a book by its cover. When we do that, we know we’ve hit upon something special, learning it is seldom about the work we do, and the products we deliver, but always about The Characters We Work With.