A friend of mine, who is the CEO of fairly large company, introduced me to an interesting phrase regarding leadership philosophy the other day. The phrase was, “moving from ‘I’ to ‘We’.”
This concept resonated with me in a big way, because the more I think about how the world should be run, and how people can rise to a better way of living (not to mention how people can become better swing dancers), there is this relentless problem of moving people out of their narcissistic states and working as a team.
But as my regular readers know, when I encounter a common problem, rather than just looking for a solution to it in response, I’m always wondering what caused the problem in the first place. Why do people go INTO an “I” mode in the first place, if this state is so much less effective than “we”?
Rather than getting abstract or technical, let me explain it with a story:
What I was a teenager, I wanted to be a member of a big orchestra. I urgently wanted to BELONG. I had no real sense of “I”; I just desperately wanted to be one of the “we.” This led to my practicing an insane amount. I was totally open to any and all criticism and coaching that I could possibly get; anything and anyone that might help me get to that state of belonging and being part of that big elegant glamorous team, I was willing to do it.
When I finally got into a big orchestra, I started out being totally devoted to the collective goal of the organization. I was tremendously concerned about anything that affected team performance. I deferred to all people in management above me, and I was perfectly fine with being the third chair bass player.
But then . . . I started the slide into “I.” I started to notice the little extra unfair perks and benefits that could be gained by sucking up to the personnel managers. It became obvious that certain people in the organization were more concerned with their own little compartment of power than they were with the general purpose. Like them, I started to take the overall grand purpose of the organization for granted, as if it were something that would just move along all by itself without any assistance from me.
This movement to “I” was made worse when I moved into a management role. As a manager, I had lost a certain sense of one-of-the-gang belonging. I felt left out, alone, and unappreciated by the people I was managing. In that disconnected state, my immediate reaction was to become yet more focused on who I was, and what I wanted and needed. Every man for himself.
Anyway, to get to the point, “I” is not our original state. Our natural state is “we.” It takes years of training to create a state of “I,” starting with our school systems’ obsession with ranking, testing, and competition rather than cooperation, and then we just “pick it up” from other people who have slid into it.
But then there was always this nagging question, of “what is the purpose of playing this concert?” It had to be more than just “to get paid.” But for that matter, what is the purpose of the company? There is always a pull to lose sight of that and to think, no longer of grand purpose, but in terms of one’s own survival and rise on the power pecking order. I have certainly had to cope with that conflict.
Anyway . . . I love the concept of going from “I” to “we,” but I think a big part of making that transition is looking back at how we went from “we” to “I” in the first place.
© Justin Locke
