Saturday, November 03, 2012

Create more options to reduce EGO

What am going to write in my blog is something which  very common in the our day-day life.

Choices.

Lets take for example a typical client - agency discussion. When a client gives a brief and when he views an output, he tends to expect for more options.  The argument in favor of the client is that they would need options to decide on the right approach. The same is true for strategy of a company to lunch menu for guests. We all expect options in whatever we consume so that we get a chance to choose the best.

For once I decided to look from the perspective of the provider of the service. Are they happy about giving many options? Not really. Going back to the first example of client agency discussions, the moment the client says that he needs options the agency guy starts to sulk. Why does he sulk?  For long I was thinking that reason for this attitude was either because of too many projects and less resources or he was lazy to give more options.

When I put this problem to my work scenario I was curious as to why I ended up sulking when both my hypothesis weren't true. It turns to be a reason which is completely oblivious to a surface level thinker. The reason is EGO.

I figured out that for a particular brief,if I generated one output then I end up placing my capabilities closer to the output. So when a person rejects the one output, I end up thinking as though they have rejected me. When there is only one option then it becomes a reflection of my capability. When somebody rejects it, my ego gets hurt.

Take another example.. Lets says your taking some food for pot luck. Naturally, you might take just one dish leaving the rest to others. I bet , at least for starters, one might be very nervous to get it right for the same reason stated above.

How to handle this?  Atleast for your own sake, try and create more options so that you don't attach your EGO to one thing. More the merry. With time you will realize that it is OK if your work is criticized  After all critics don't get statues in beach. You can benefit from somebody's criticism.

Go for more options.....