The Unsung Are About to Be Discovered

During a recent podcast conversation, the host told me a story about himself that I haven’t stopped thinking about.

He had written a book profiling people who had influenced and impacted millions. A close friend of his, who had immigrated from Cuba, read it and pushed back hard. Why only them? What about the person who quietly takes care of their next-door neighbor? What about the people who serve wherever they can, in ways big and small, and never make anyone’s list?

The host told me, “He was right. I was wrong.”

I admired him for saying it out loud. Most of us never notice we’ve made that mistake.

The standardization trap, applied to people

What his friend saw is something I call the standardization trap. We build a standard for what significance looks like, and then we only recognize the people who meet it. In most organizations and most of society, that standard is made of titles, scale, visibility and credentials. The bigger the platform, the more the person seems to matter.

There is real value in those accomplishments. I’ve interviewed many people with extraordinary reach, and I’ve learned from every one of them. But when scale becomes the only measure, we stop seeing everyone else. The nurse who stays late to sit with a frightened patient. The manager who quietly develops three future leaders every year. The neighbor who notices when someone hasn’t picked up their mail.

No one writes books about them. Yet they are the reason so many communities, teams and families hold together.

Recognizing them doesn’t diminish anyone else. It simply widens the lens. The greatest opportunity in front of us may be helping these overlooked people understand their own significance, especially those who never had the advantages, connections or platforms others had. When they see that what they bring matters, they start contributing in ways no one expected.

Significance isn’t a scoreboard

The host put the question to himself in a way I found moving. He had recently spoken with someone whose work had helped bring clean water to an enormous number of people. Then he spoke with me about helping teenagers discover who they are. Which conversation mattered more?

The honest answer is that significance can’t be ranked that way. Helping one person find their footing and helping millions find water are both acts of service. The moment we turn significance into a scoreboard, we’ve brought the old standard right back.

I’ve written before about how differently people experience being recognized versus being respected, in Respected, Not Recognized. Recognition goes to the visible. Respect goes to the ones who show up, whether anyone is watching or not.

Why the outliers will be found

Here is why I believe the unsung are about to be discovered.

For decades, institutions rewarded people who were easy to manage and easy to measure. The outliers, the ones who didn’t fit the mold, were often overlooked because they couldn’t be controlled. They asked inconvenient questions. They solved problems in ways that didn’t match the playbook. They cared about things the scorecard didn’t count.

The world those institutions built for has changed. Standard work is increasingly done by machines. What remains valuable is judgment, original thinking and the ability to connect with people. Those are precisely the qualities many outliers have been carrying all along. As organizations search for new ways to think, they are going to find these people, often in places they never thought to look.

And when that happens, something bigger follows. People who were suppressed for years begin to feel that they matter again. That feeling spreads. Teams become more creative. Communities become more generous. I described how often that talent sits unused inside organizations in The Skills Your Organization Has Left Asleep.

How to start seeing them

You don’t have to wait for the world to discover the unsung. You can start this week.

Look past the obvious names. In your next meeting, notice who does the work that makes everyone else’s work possible. Name it publicly.

Ask about the person, not just the output. Find out what someone cares about and what they do outside their role. You may discover a leader who has been hiding in plain sight.

Widen your definition of impact. Before you decide who matters most in your organization or community, ask who would be missed most if they disappeared.

His friend gave him a gift by telling him he was wrong. The gift for the rest of us is the reminder that significance has never belonged only to the famous. It belongs to anyone willing to serve, and the people who have been doing that quietly are about to be seen.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.