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Something Worth SharingManage ‘I’ For The Good Of ‘We’
I’ve spent a number of weeks deep-diving into the subject of ‘belonging’ and as a consequence have had some fascinating conversations with all sorts of people. I won’t be going into all this with you now, but I did want to share a bit of a ‘stand out’ to me that overlapped with my ‘Kindness Project’ (6 years of daily acts of kindness). When we teach people to become self-aware, and to put their own oxygen mask of kindness on first, there is a regular pushback that we hear: “but isn’t that selfish?“. The difference between selfishness and acting with self-awareness and kindness is a deeper intention. Acting with self-responsibility is managing ‘I’ for the good of ‘we’. Selfishness is managing ‘we’ for the good of ‘I’. In my experience, the root cause of selfishness is often (certainly not always) because of self-preservation - which can include a lack of trust or stability - rather than anything malicious. But that’s for another day! The best performing teams understand managing ‘I’ for the good of ‘we’ - encouraging accountability and growth. This is part of belonging. Poor performing teams and cultures tolerate managing ‘we’ for the good of ‘I’. This will feel like arse-covering, a fear of vulnerability and wasted energy trying to avoid mistakes.
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