Last week I was looking through the ad trades and saw a mediocre headline about CMOs. I don’t subscribe to this trade, so I was scrolling past. Until I realized the picture of the CMO was a picture of me.
I was a fractional CMO during the pandemic, but I wasn’t in the press in that role. I zoomed in. The haircut, the glasses, the face, were all mine. But the ears were wrong, and I don’t think I actually look that jowly, do I?
What is it about us that is essential, not replicable? I’ve spent so many hours over the last few years in virtual meetings, virtual coaching sessions, that I got used to that almost uncanny valley. There were executive coaching clients I didn’t meet in person for two years of deep work together during the pandemic. And when I did, finally, meet them, after the inevitable comments about height, there was that human, specific connection. I know what their hands look like, how they sit in a chair, what their walk is like. And it matters.
