Own the team, not your idea
I’ve always found it interesting when people would say not to fall in love with your own idea. It did not make sense to me the first time I heard it. I would understand it and go even deeper on it later in my life.
I had never had a good experience working in teams. I had never put much thought into it, but recently, during João Ferreira’s talk in a Braga.Product meetup, I may be closer to understanding the reason why — and how I can improve my current team-situation. It has to do with individuality.
Sharing ideas is a personal locus exercise. Whatever content comes out of your mind, it has its own individuality and that’s what makes it so valuable for a team. Otherwise, teams with be a one-person-game. We benefit from diversity of thought and processes.
But it’s important to remind yourself, as another day of meetings or sprints goes on, that individuality has its own role during teamwork, but it should not dominate the process from top to bottom.
My already mentioned bad experience with teams is something I do not consider to be applied today. I’ve had multiple teams and they teached me a lot about how to interact with them and getting the most out of the diversity experience that can derive from a team.
One thing I learned is that, above all, your contribution should not be focused on the individual aspect, but rather use this individual creativity to foster a group goal.
It’s never about you, but the goal of the group.
Sometimes the goal of the group will unveil something you did not expect: your individuality, in this case, is not helping. It is not enough. It is not in the same direction. It is simply not working.
I am only a body, hopefully equiped with some skills that add value to a team, contributing to a team goal. If my input turns out to be far away from the team objective and direction previously defined, then I should just accept it and move on to another solution.
This will probably make you feel like you did not do your job. You might as well be not working, the result would be the same. Wrong. Accepting your input will not bring the best result, will make you the best professional you can ever be. On top of that, feed your hunger for a new solution and things will work out.
Take your ego to an art exposition and run while it is admiring a Miró painting and thinking “lol, I could’ve done that”. Just get rid of it. It won’t feed your work, but only cloud your vision about your individuality.
A good professional is the first ripping his/her papers and starting over. If it happens so, remember that staying unconditionally in love with your own idea won’t lead to a love story, but rather a divorce where you wake up with a bottle of the cheapest whisky under the pillow and wander in pyjamas all day, dialling afternoon TV shows hoping to win a full set of stainless steel tableware.
Hey, welcome Mel, Mark and Johnny aboard.
I’m inviting them to share some of their insightful experiences in many fields of life throughout my posts. Let me know how they work out for you.
