And it’s not that I don’t like people. It’s that I don’t like working with people when the medium is “ideas”. If we’re building a canoe, I’m happy to help sand, and get help lifting it to the water. If it’s a battle, please be on my team, and I’ll cover you, too. But how rare is it, really, that professional work groups are actual “teams” with truly common objectives? And how frequent is it, instead, that the objective on everyone’s mind is personal gain and advancement.
I like new ideas, and I like learning, and obviously we need each other to have our best ideas, and to be inspired by the great ideas of others. That’s all self-evident. What I don’t like are meetings– those strange assemblies of humans where all the worst traits of fearful, striving and ambitious humans– the drama, the egos, the strategizing and positioning– slowly take shape and dominate. I hate seeing people trying to exert influence over others when their goal is self-promotion.
But there’s one thing I hate most of all.
There’s a thing that happens often here, though I’m fully aware that this perception might be my own, something I’m overly sensitive to, and that perhaps the same thing happens to everyone else round me. But for right now, as it’s so incredibly on my mind, I’m going to assume it’s a real thing and not a problem of my perception.
What happens is that, in private, I’ll be asked to have a conversation, or a quick meeting, or a quick question. Sometimes the person just wants to chat about something they’re working on, sometimes it’s a particular question, sometimes it’s feedback on an idea, and sometimes it’s because they’re looking for ideas. When people come to me hoping for that kind of interaction, I’m very happy to do so. I like those conversations and I’m glad to be able to offer suggestions or ideas that might help.
But what happens so frequently is that when it’s time for a bigger meeting, and perhaps senior management is there, and maybe there are 5-10 of us, or in the case of a staff meeting, about 40 of us, the person who asked me for ideas will offer those same ideas to the bigger group as if they were his or her own. They will throw out a suggestion, or an idea, offering it as if they’ve been thinking about it and it suddenly, without cause, it occurred to them: “I’ve been thinking that…” Despite the fact it didn’t come from them, and was in fact offered to them from someone else.
If it was a good suggestion, they then get credit for it, and when they get recognized for it by senior management, it becomes a bigger deal. Despite how petty this might sound, little monkeys, it can be quite a big deal in the scheme of things, and if it happens frequently.
“Why not just take it as a complement that they used your idea? Don’t you know it’s the highest form of flattery?” Little monkeys, in some contexts that is surely the case. With your friends, your family, even outside groups if you have nothing to lose in the scheme of things. But in a place like mine, all of that b.s. actually matters very much, and maybe it’s the same way in your work environment, too. People are jockeying for postion constantly, trying to get noticed, trying to get raises, trying to look smart, and evidently even if the tactics show a lack of integrity, even if it’s all a fake display, their image in the group, whether legitimate or not, carries the most weight.
I suppose that’s likely the case everywhere you go, and probably most working groups are this way. That doesn’t change how I much I dislike it.
It seems like some people are more comfortable taking credit for the work or ideas of others. Maybe to them, it’s how it’s supposed to be. Maybe for them that’s what working life is like. Maybe they learned that in school. Hell, maybe that’s how they made it through school… by relying on the work or answers of others and learning how to use it as their own. Maybe they haven’t even thought about it. Maybe to them it’s just natural and they’re completely oblivious to it. Maybe they assume it’s what everyone does and it’s just part of “collaboration”.
One possible partial explanation is that they forget where their ideas came from. Maybe in the heat of the big meeting, when all eyes are on them, they can’t seem to add that little “…this is actually so-and-so’s idea, but I think it’s a good one, so if he doesn’t mind I’ll share it…”.
Another possibility is that many of them assume that the person whose idea they’re taking credit for already gets enough credit. Maybe they think that person doesn’t need to be recognized for it because they have enough recognition, and that they themselves need it more than he does. That’s possible, though in my case I’d say it’s a terribly false assumption. As a person who chooses to listen more than speak at large meetings, I’m not sure senior management really knows who’s coming up with what.
A solution would be to stop providing my best suggestions or ideas when asked. That’s not a good solution– it’s paranoid and sneaky and unhealthy. But it is an option.
Another solution is to try to document my ideas as soon as they’re offered. That could help, but the problem with that is where that documentation would live and who on earth would ever read it, or why.
Another solution is to pounce first at large meetings when there’s a chance someone will use my wording or ideas as their own. That solution sucks because I hate that shit. That is the atmosphere I’m rejecting and refusing to be a part of, and is exactly why I don’t flex myself (if you know what I mean) at meetings: it’s what everyone else does and it sucks. I hate it more now than when I first started.
I think I just don’t work well with others. There are practices in group work that many people seem fine with, that are OK for them, that they are able to handle and navigate, possibly even enjoy. Perhaps the most social of people look forward to the strategizing and navigating and so on. I’d be happier without meetings and collaborative idea proffering. Happier without needing to self-promote at every chance. I’d be happier building canoes. Happier rescuing a hostage. Happier finding something out and writing it down. Happier not having to deal with competitive people who, if it were a real competition, would be dead, but who for now I must leave alone to think and enjoy what they will.
When it comes at my expense, I can’t help but think about how incompatible I actually am with the above model of human “collaboration”– the drama and scheming– and how frequently our various enterprises and systems have evolved to reward those skills and tolerances above all else, mostly because the leadership of those same systems moved into their positions by using those same absurd skills, and expect everyone else to desire to do the same.
Group work can take its place in the realm of the fake and the false, like so many other things in modern working life. But it would be awesome to get the canoe out on the water today.
