I read somewhere that in most organizations, the share of people doing the real work isn't 80-20. It's closer to the square root. Out of 100 people, maybe 10 are carrying it. Out of 1.4 million government employees, maybe twelve hundred. Out of the entire global development apparatus, a few thousand quiet ones holding the whole thing up.
Almost everyone I admire in this work is a square-root person. The senior who trusted me before I'd earned it. The producer whose calm under deadline taught me what professionalism actually looks like. The director who stayed late not because the brief required it but because the cut wasn't right yet.
I haven't named them here. The list is too long, and any list is unfair. But you know who they are if you've worked with them. They carry the load that the rest of the room often mistakes for its own.
I work hard to be one of them. I work harder to find them and stay in their orbit.
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