The Ego at Work - Some Solutions

The ego is a fact of life. People identify with their thoughts, beliefs and perceptions and will staunchly defend their resulting identifications. The core of the ego is attachment, resistance and separation. In the context of organisation development, we have to deal with the ego as it is. The solution to the ego at the organisational level, is facing up to it and developing the organisation in a way that recognises the ego and its downsides. A similar approach works at an individual level. This may be simple, but is far from easy. There is no soft option of being aware of others' egos - there only one ego (that displays itself in different ways) so if we are serious about addressing the implications of the ego at work, we need to look at the ego patterns within ourselves. They are there, the only issue is whether we have faced up to those patterns. Indeed, a fast track approach is to operate from the belief that perception is projection, that what we perceive in others reflects to some extent the patterns within ourselves. (This is not something that can be "proven", rather it is a helpful operating belief). As Byron Katie says: "everyone is a mirror image of yourself, your own thinking coming back at you."

There are three keys to addressing the ego at work: awareness, acceptance and depersonalisation.

Awareness

The more we are aware - moment by moment- of the ego and its programmes, the more we can begin to transcend its behaviour patterns. The challenge here is that intellectual awareness is not sufficient, only mindfulness moment by moment is sufficiently powerful to overcome the deep set patterns of defending the ego's identifications.

It helps to be aware that the ego will always look to create a sense of separation, between itself and the rest of the world, and also between other things in the world. So the ego will identify itself as the victim of "unfairness", "the economy", and others' behaviours, thereby placing itself as being at effect of circumstances. It will even blame the behaviours of the person it considers itself to be on circumstances, if those behaviours are considered undesirable. Yet, the ego is happy to claim to be at cause when it wants to claim its successes, its "amazing results", its positive behaviours. So the ego projects the cause of what is undesirable outside itself, and claims the cause of what is desirable as itself. It is willing to alternate between self-pity and pride, whichever bolsters its sense of separation.

The sense of separation is also maintained by comparison. Most people would associate a sense of being "better" as egotistical. But the ego can also juice subconscious satisfaction from being "poorer", "disadvantaged", or the loser. The ego can maintain its sense of self by being angry, being afraid, or even though hatred. It can use moral superiority, a sense of being elite, or even "not being part of the elite". Negative emotions tend to make us pay attention to negative aspects of our situation, which then makes us perceive even more negativity. A lack of gratitude for the positive things we have means we are less likely to hold on to them.

The ego will also maintain the sense of separation, by regarding its beliefs, memories, thoughts and experiences, as not just "mine", but "me". The ego's purpose is to preserve its idea of "me", therefore it will resist anything that challenges that sense of self. So if it is is identified with (and thereby attached to) a particular strategy, it will resist changing strategy until the evidence is overwhelming that this needs to happen. By then, the business or career may have suffered immense damage.

In order to hold on to the sense of the familiar, the ego will hold on to "clutter". This may be physical clutter (often based on an unconscious fear of lack). Or often it is the clutter of holding onto patterns, even though they don't work, because they seem familiar and because we are afraid of what stillness and silence would reveal. The ego is reluctant to let go. Yet letting go is at the heart of all growth. Even money only get its power as it is circulated and let go of (e.g through investment or wise spending) rather than hoarded.

There is a positive path in awareness too. This involves the realisation of what is deeply obvious, but often forgotten moment by moment. The awareness in "others" is as subjectively real as the awareness in "me". We are not the centre of the universe. The ego, however, is identified with the content of the awareness of each individual, rather than the impersonal awareness in which thoughts, beliefs, memories etc happen. The more attention is placed on the awareness in others being as real as that in ourselves, the more effective we are at teamwork, influence and customer service.

Acceptance

What we resist, we make stronger. Fighting the ego simply feeds it. We have to be, as Jesus said, "subtle as serpents, innocent [i.e. open-minded] as doves". If we operate from the perspective that perception is projection, then we can understand that what we perceive around us, both "positive" and "negative" reflect some aspect of what is within ourselves. It therefore makes no sense to be "against" what we perceive, rather it makes more sense to focus on how we would prefer things to be, whilst accepting that what is before us now is the starting point for any change. If we resist the starting point - i.e.what is before us right now, we cannot promote effective change. For example, an individual or a nation can defend itself more effectively if they simply acknowledge they are under attack and deal with it, rather than wallowing in denial, anger or self-pity.

Acceptance, therefore, does not mean passivity. Denial tends to result in delay and paralysis, whereas acceptance creates the space for a solution. Our idea of how things "should" be is just a hypothetical idea. The hypothetical is not the real. Rather than wasting energy on how things "should" be, it is more effective to deal with things as they are.

Depersonalisation

As a training consultant, when running sessions on how to give effective feedback, I always emphasised the importance of focusing on behaviours, not identity. People inevitably will defend their sense of self. (So for example, telling your boss "you're a bad manager" is unlikely to help their behaviour, or your career!) I would explore with delegates how best to give feedback in a way that sold the benefits of changing behaviour, rather than criticising the person.

So part of an effective strategy for minimising the impact of the ego, is depersonalising discussion of behaviours. Indeed, this can be just as important for positive behaviours as for negative. Certain attitudes, behaviours, and strategies are more likely to result in success. By depersonalising the process, by focusing on the ingredients of success rather than a mythical separate "me" you can think in terms of attitudes, behaviours and strategies that can be shared with others. Those around you can learn from the approach you used, which means they will be more successful and help you be more successful in turn. It is also important to be aware of the context in which the attitudes, behaviours and strategies worked. They may be less effective (or more) in a different context.

It is wise to value the contribution made through you by the behaviours, attitude and strategies you use. But that is different from using your success to bolster the idea of a self independent and separate from the world around you.

Having a goal that is "bigger than us" e.g making progress on addressing a problem in society, can help manage the ego. However, the ego is more than capable of of identifying itself with the larger cause, using the bigger cause to emphasise the difference between itself and others. (This is a root of fanaticism of all types and the attitude that the end justifies the means.) We can practice impersonal devotion, devotion to the universal values of growth and truth, rather than to our particular way of living out those values.

Conclusion

As we become aware of the ego's "tricks" (covered in more detail in my article at http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/the-ego-at-work-eight-ego-beliefs-tha... ), and accept how those tricks operate both within and around us, we can begin to diminish the ego's hold by depersonalising how we think about behaviours. We are then more free and open to explore what really works for us and our colleagues.

Copyright Tony Cash 2010