The Big Idea Blog

When you introduce yourself to someone new, does the conversation almost immediately center on what you do for a living? Who you work for?

Do you think of yourself in terms of your current job title? Do you think that title accurately describes what you do? And more importantly, who you are?

Today's blog title comes from a Lao Tzu quote I really like:

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be

There is usually a pretty huge disconnect between what your job title is, what you actually do for your company, and how you get compensated for it. It's one of the reasons why in the early years at BackPack Software we didn't have official job titles and everyone in the company was paid the same salary. In fact when asked I would often joke and say that my title was "Chief Bottle Washer!"

Job titles are bit like Maslow's Hammer -- best known as:

"When the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail."

By thinking of yourself in terms of what you currently do for a living as embodied in your job title, you are creating an artificial lens by which you view the world -- and worse, you're creating a lens for other people to view you. And viewing you in any particular (anchored) way is just another form of bracketing. We might be handing people hammers...

Are we only defined by the job titles we've held? Absolutely not! And yet, that is how we may end up viewing ourselves and actually encouraging other people to see us in the same way. It's really no surprise that this very condition has been studied. It's called The Looking Glass Self -- in a nutshell our identity, or self, is the result of the concept in which we learn to see ourselves as others do. And where do these others get most of the information upon which to see us? Why from us of course!

A friend of mine was complaining about the level of gossip in her company and was getting concerned that her manager at that time was starting to get the wrong impression of her. She was seriously starting to think about leaving the company and opined that she wished she could just go someplace where no one knew her. I went online and found a sign for her to print out that she could hang in her office to remind her:

Don't Feed the Bears

As innocent as her interactions had seemed, someone always found a way to make it out to be more than it was. It was an "a-ha" moment for her and from that day forward she stopped giving people information to use against her. Even though she's since been promoted and changed locations within her company the sign still hangs in her office to this day, and she's relayed that she passes copies of it on to her "inner-circle".

So today's Big Idea is this: "Let go of who you think you are and become what you might be"

And stop arming bears with hammers...

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