Working with other business people, my team and I get very involved with how people work. Working with those business people’s money, we often have to figure out how they can work better.

David Zweig’s book The Invisibles also looks at how people work and says we can find the best ways to work by looking at the people whose work we never see.  Zweig hypes the premise that “receiving outward credit for your work is overrated.”

People who work that way, those “Invisibles,” all share three traits in Zweig’s opinion, and I think it is best to let his words speak to them before commenting on them:

“[T]he first of the Three Traits-an ambivalence or even indifference toward recognition for their work. … If there is one underlying message of this book, it is the value of reaping reward from the work itself, not recognition for it.”

Then there is being meticulous:

“Several meta-analyses of studies on personality and job performance conducted by the Notre Dame business professor Timothy Judge, along with others, show that conscientiousness-which in the studies is defined as being ‘cautious, deliberate, self-disciplined, and neat and well-organized,’ in other words meticulous-is a core predictive trait for successful business people.”

And finally:

“[P]eople who want responsibility, who truly revel in it, are more likely to move into leadership roles within an organization. This desire for and even savoring of responsibility-the third of the Invisibles’ Three Traits-is apparent in nearly every Invisible I interviewed.”

All of these things sound like great things to find in a worker, but they also seem rather obvious. Working with other businesses, after all, leads to hearing horror stories of bad employees, so sure, we would all love all our hires to embody those three traits.

So what is Zweig really doing here?

I think that he is starting from a view that everyone is seeking celebrity and placing that over the value of work.  As we travel through the age of reality stars and the accessibility of social platforms like YouTube, the availability of, and grasping toward, fame is greater than ever before. We may then sometimes see people who we feel are undeserving of reaching great heights. However, I don’t think that this means some of them have not worked hard or that it is driving many others to not work as hard because they feel huge fame is an easy destination

It seems that the concept of recognition lies behind all this discussion. Sure, there are plenty of Invisible workers out there, but are they really only working for the work? Even those who work behind the scenes are receiving recognition of some sort; seeing the completion of a project, watching it enter the world, even just getting an ‘atta boy,’ or receiving a paycheck are recognition of work.  Not everyone wants to be on the cover of People, but no one wants to feel useless.

Let me now try to wrap up a lot of these ideas. First, for those of you reading these who are in positions of power, let those who have you helped you get there know that you appreciate their part of that journey. Let this also be a time to give personal thanks to our clients and express appreciation for being part of that journey together.

Personally, even as a public part of a business, I understand that I am an invisible piece behind many other (often much more prominent) businesses. There is much to enjoy in this and it is very fulfilling. All of our team takes pride in doing what we do, but more so in doing what we do well.

Now in the midst of tax season, we all are forced to engage with a bevy of numbers that quantify our work. Here is to hoping that what you do is fulfilling and brings you happiness. Otherwise, those numbers may feel quite daunting (though, sure, we can help with that, too).