Corporate Egos: When to Stroke and Poke
We generally misunderstand Egos and their true contribution. They are amazing veneers to personalities but are awful at hiding people’s real selves
Conventionally, team members and employees of large organisations are told that the senior folks have big egos. And, their big egos need managing. Their egos need validation. They need stroking and massaging along with a certain ‘calming down’ of your own ego while dealing with people with big egos.
But I think, we misunderstand egos and their true contribution. I think Egos are amazing veneers to someone’s personality and they do such an awful job at hiding their real selves. And, I believe that you can benefit greatly by stroking someone’s ego and alternatively poking it at the right time.
Big egos are easy to work with, you can arrive at understanding their intent fairly early in a conversation, they are malleable because they want to ‘achieve’, they have an appetite to take risks and can be great allies if you’re on their side. They also actively participate in getting things done and on time.
Whereas, on the other hand, weak Egos are that much difficult, because they conceal their real intentions well, they are hard to decode and hence harder to collaborate with. Interestingly, women are lower on ego and can make incredibly easy OR excruciatingly difficult allies while working on a project, so it may be worth the effort to know their personalities while forming a critical team.
Once you know the ‘range’ of ego someone operates with, it might show you how secure or insecure are they at work. Big egos can exist because they may be hiding their insecurity or their need and attachment to power. Whereas, Small egos are deceptive and could be a barrier or a weapon of choice for effective and influential executives, but this also means that you will deal with them for longer and accomplish lesser in comparison to working with stronger egos.
I have seen that understanding egos can answer a few pragmatic questions like:
How trustworthy is this person, How straightforward will their approach be, How quick will they be, How direct will they be, or, Are they going to second guess and oscillate between Yes and No!
In my field of work, the ability to understand and deal with various people is considered a definite asset and though I’m still learning the ropes of it, my time in the industry has taught me to see beyond the obvious, and uncover the ‘WHY’ behind the obvious faster.
As a marketer, me and my teams engage with various stakeholders, demanding customers, creative partners, executing vendors, and a diverse lot of people.
So, let me break down how you can manage egos with large industry partners (and their equally disguised egos) :
When it comes to decoding behaviors and egos of large corporate and creative partners, it is important to understand that some people will behave the way they do, because the folks above them incentivise a certain behaviour and are themselves good or bad at it. Thereby, they encourage the immediate resource below them to either complement their weak areas or mimic their strong areas and thereby winning their confidence.
Once I worked with a large music licensing organisation and it took me some time to crack open the reason for an unexplained hostility between us, and it was because his manager viewed the world with a lens that operated on distrust and placed ‘catastrophe as the highest possibility’ in each conversation and transaction. We were trying to close an important deal, and working on the contract was proving to be more tiresome, and once I was able to relay that I wanted the partnership to happen either way, it became easier to work with her and she turned out to be very different than what I thought she was.
On the same project, I worked with another person who was reluctant to commit to even the smallest of details which has far lesser commercial impact or otherwise! I later learned the reason for his incompetence to be closely connected to the same manager (who herself wasn’t very good at delegation) and it was primarily because she did not empower him to take even the minutest of decisions on his own.
Managing Egos at workplace (and within a sporadic, remote, diversely skilled team members):
The great and QUIET superpowers of any team are ofcourse the ‘Low Ego’ or high EQ team members. They are relatively easier to manage because their incentives and motivations are easier to understand and align with. According to Susan Cain, they are more interested in personal growth and balance and tend to seek growth through competence, autonomy, and positive social relationships.
I’ve seen most of such people to be easy to work with and extremely coachable to achieve the common goal, hence making work more pleasant and fulfilling for everyone else as well.
However, working with high-performing (and equally difficult) people is a balancing act that I’ve seen as a marketing executive over many years in many companies. High performers often have egos to match. Oftentimes, and for worse, they understand this personal leverage and ensure that everyone else understands it as well. I loved reading this comic account by Mitch Brown on certain ego archetypes in the workplace and how to deal with them.
Here are my 3rules for handling high-touch high-performers:
1. Set a role model: Your typical high performer team member might think they don’t have a match or worthy peers in your company — and they might be right. If so, find a role model for them to live up to, even if it’s far-fetched idea of a person. For example, I once heard a colleague in Product marketing team draw personal inspiration from CatWoman (extremely self sufficient, a challenging contender and someone who readily teams up with others for better outcomes). It was funny, memorable and added a fantastic layer to how she approached problems at work!
2. Clarify the bigger picture for them: High performers demand clarity from their leadership and often need to see the vision — or the higher goal, so that they don’t obsess over a goal that they setup for themselves, and rightly so are aware of their own limitations as well.
3. Show them they are contributing: High performers need to know their expertise is acknowledged and their contributions is appreciated. So make sure they know that they are heard and understood — in explicit ways. Even if they don’t get their way, make sure they know that they still have a unique way to contribute by sharing their recommendations. Let them shine in ways more than one.
Lastly, a bonus tip:
- Provide some competition: Outwitting and out-doing the nearest competition is a strong motivator for high performers to feel at ease with their goals and expectations. Finding a way to remind your top performer that there’s someone in the competing brand — or in an adjacent industry — who is a few steps ahead, is a sure shot tip to get him/her motivated!
If you liked this breakdown of human behavior and psychology, please let me know by a comment below.
