Denny--that's a great question. I dont know that I have experience with having to stifle egos (I've had experience with dealing with egos, but not necessarily managing a team with big individual egos)
The way I look at it, is that I believe the teams described by the book are looking to create the collective "we" without stifiling the individual "I". I think too often we are told to stifle the individual "I" that we all have...we're told that we should put aside our selfish interests for the selfless good of the team. I agree with that to an extent, but i think these teams were good at embracing individual's selfish desires, and using them, manipulating them to better the team as a whole.
additionally, i think one piece of this that we havent necessarily discussed, is that all the virtuoso teams listed in the text had a virtuoso leader of sorts...someone with a large ego, who was able to set the tone for the group as a whole.
i think we're nurtured against the "take no prisoners--get the job done" attitude, but sometimes, if managed well, it has it's merit.
thoughts?
2 comments:
Shailen - The "take no prisoners" perspective is exactly the one I've generally rebuffed. It just seems so harsh. Besides, it leaves a devastating aftermath of other unfulfilled promise. What I really want to do is learn to be comfortable with the egos all being right out there but with the overarching commitment that no one will abuse or demean anyone else. I think this is what is repeatedly described in "Virtuoso Teams" as trust and respect.
Specifically in the Miles Davis chapter, the authors talk about Miles' commitment to getting people to talk honestly and directly so that everyone could really dig deeply into their ideas. Miles had a scheme that he provided for general direction and then he let everyone rip from there. Although I value harmony in relationships, I really like the description of how Miles Davis created the structure within which trust and respect allowed everyone to offer their best contribution.
Any other thoughts on how to make this work?
Denny,
I see where you're trying to go with this. I think it might be a matter of acknowledging the fact that everyone has an ego, and that managing your own ego in respect to other people--making that a part of the entire process.
I think too often, especially in student affairs, we believe we must be overly humble in our positions, and stifle our own egos as it relates to getting things done...but basically we're avoiding dealing with it because it might become a problem--that feels like a very reactive approach. i think acknowledging individual's needs for validation, and talking about it ahead of time could solve a lot of problems.
i think it's especially important within student affairs because i know that i identify with my work--i put a lot of myself into everything that i do, and i think that's the case for many in this field. i think knowing that, we should expect for feelings to get hurt, for egos to take over and get bruised...i think we shoudl address that as part of the brainstorming/project management cycle...as opposed to avoiding it through passive aggression.
does that make sense?
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