Taking the Keys Away from Ego

One of the culture mottos at the place where I work is to park your ego at the door. It is something that people take very seriously around here. I appreciate that the company recognizes that this could become an issue and that they remind the team members often of the importance of doing this. I also believe it is one of the reasons that the company has become so successful.

Sometimes I find it hard to do this, though. And, I find it kind of amusing that I grew up in the household that I did and have this issue. We aren’t the best at tooting our own horns in our family.

The problem I have is that I sometimes feel like I’m forgotten when it comes to some discussions. For example, I’ve been the lead on one particular federal program for the past several months. It probably wasn’t ever appropriate for me to be the lead, but it just happened. So, today, I find out that others put together a white paper that was used in some discussions at the federal level. This paper was on a subject that I don’t know anything about, so that isn’t the issue. The problem I have is that this white paper was used in discussions with a program that I’ve been the lead on. The white paper was never shared with me, nor did I know of its existence. That is, until I came across it by accident in our electronic files.

So, my ego raised its ugly head. I found myself becoming angry and internally tearing apart the grammar/typos in the document. This isn’t fair to the guy who wrote it. I’m sure he received the direction to put together the document by his superior. He did a good job of it, too. And, the document was used to successfully negotiate some changes with our interaction with this program.

To be honest, I was somewhat ashamed by what I was feeling. I was outraged that I wasn’t even informed that this was happening. I was thinking only of myself, not of the overall best interest of the company. It was a good life lesson for me to reflect on my feelings in this situation. Sometimes things move forward without us. We can’t take it personally when we get left out.

So, I’m thankful that I kept my feelings to myself and didn’t fall into the trap of making some snarky remarks to others around me. I have reparked my ego at the door and will hopefully leave it there for awhile.

That said, I feel the need to point out that another one of the motto’s at the company is to over communicate at all times. Hmmm…seems like someone needs to reflect on this to see if they truly did over communicate the existence of this document to me! Sorry, clearly I need to LOCK UP and throw away the keys to my ego instead of just parking it…