ego and talent
When our ego is not larger than our talent and we leave our ego at the door, we are able to help others to learn while helping ourselves. We open our mindset for other ideas to grow and for new talent to complement ours.
People want to know whether we are a big ego or whether there is vulnerability, an open mind and if we are receptive to others. If we want to lead the transformation we need to allow new viewpoints. With a open and collaborative mindset we allow innovation to flourish. It is the mindset that matters, regardless of age or occupation. With an open mindset we develop, we are less stressed and more creative. Trying to be creative as an end goal is not the right way to go. Setting the right conditions is what should prevail. Be open minded and see the world ahead as one full of opportunities and learnings. Allow others to fill and close your talent gap.
Too little ego, and you waste your potential; too much and you waste everyone else’s.
Learn – this is what you’re great at, learning with an open mindset. Communicate with colleagues, across departments, look outside your own environment and ask for advice from professionals, consultants, millennials and mentors to grow further. If you are a start-up then learn from the incumbents, traditional organisations, as they have experience, customers, shareholders and scale strategies.
Keep your eyes open and be an optimistic realist. Start doing some reverse mentoring with the Millennials and Generation Z. Open your mind and be receptive to new things. It’s lifelong. It never ends. Be curious. Start spotting trends and find people who have seen a lot and have mastered being healthy and mature. Find the Dualarity heroes.Digital seeing will need to be an everyday play.
Try to reinvent yourself and surround yourself with new talent. Have an open mindset and challenge your own reference framework of thinking. Ask your family, friends and colleagues how you are doing and see feedback as a gift. Ask for a 360-degree review at work and listen to your customers. Don’t try to show you have answers to everything, but ask open questions and answer questions with ‘I don’t know, but let’s find out’.
In Leading from the Emerging Future: From ego-system to eco-system economies, Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer advocate that we change from an obsolete ‘ego-system’ focused entirely on the wellbeing of ourselves to an eco-system that emphasises the wellbeing of the whole. Instead of having a lot of egos competing, create a sharing, collaborative environment. When we remove the egos and ask people to contribute, they can learn from others.
This is the century of we, not the century of I where EGO ≤ TALENT.
There is a unity in the Dualarity.
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Olivier Van Duüren
As international Public Speaker, Trend Sensemaker, Executive Whisperer and Author, I help businesses to take the pain out of their personal and business transformation, leaving them with a regained sense of spark.
