How many of you realize that your primary job is to help your organization fulfill its mission ethically and profitably?

They shook their heads and rolled their eyes, annoyed at this exercise in futility. I saw someone faking a yawn. His thought bubble read, What’s the big frigging deal?

“If the job of the team is to win,” I continued, undeterred, “what is the primary job of each and every member of the team?”

“To help the team to win,” someone else said.

“Right again! Do you all agree?”

Everyone nodded.

“Here’s my last question: If the primary job of each and every member of the team is to help the team to win, and if the defensive player is a member of the team, what is the primary job of a defensive player?”

“To help the team win,” a third person muttered, clearly intuiting where things were going.

“Yes!” I pointed to the person who said it. “Please say that louder.”

“To help the team win,” he repeated.

“Okay. Please check the time. It’s been fifty-two seconds since we started this discussion.”

People still looked puzzled, so I explained. “What is the primary job of a defensive player? Is it to stop the other team from scoring or to help the team win? You all agreed with Karen a minute ago that it was to stop the other team from scoring. I hope you’ll agree with me now that it’s to help the team win.”

“What’s the difference?” asked one contrarian.

“Imagine you are the coach of a team that’s losing one to zero with five minutes to go. What would you tell the defensive players?”

“To go on the offensive and try to tie the game,” someone asserted.

“Exactly! So how would you react if they told you, ‘Sorry, Coach, but that’s not our job’?”

“I’d fire their asses.”

“Why? Doesn’t that make it more likely that the other team could score a second goal in a counterattack? If the defensive player’s job is to help the team to win, then going on the offensive is the right thing to do. If his job is to minimize the goals scored against his team, it is the wrong thing to do.”

People were smiling. I could feel the tide turning. I pushed further. “So what’s the job of the offensive player?”

“To help the team win.”

“And what’s the job of the water boy?”

“To help the team win.”

Several people were giggling, but not everyone. “I still don’t get the point about our jobs,” someone said.

“In 1961, President John F. Kennedy was visiting NASA headquarters for the first time,” I replied. “While touring the facility, he introduced himself to a fellow who was mopping the floor, and he asked him what he did at NASA. The janitor replied proudly, ‘I’m helping put a man on the moon!’”

I let that sink in for a moment. And then I asked them, “How many of you told your partner in the opening exercise: ‘My job is to help my company win?’ How many of you realize that your primary job is to help your organization fulfill its mission ethically and profitably? How many of you heard your partner describe his or her job as ‘contributing to increase the value (and the values) of my company’?”

In the now-not-so-icy silence, you could hear the proverbial penny drop.