Conversation

Your title ≠ Your job ≠ Your work ≠ What you do ≠ Who you are 😖 Kegan’s slippery career slope 1. I am my title 2. I am my job, I have a title 3. I am my work, I have a job with a title 4. I am what I do, I have work to do in a job with a title 5. I am, I have doings
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Boyd’s “be somebody or do something” is a 4-5 leap. You can’t do something effectively until you stop being your doings. It’s a form of outcome attachment. Especially when the outcome is your own survival (do or die). To really have a doing you have to let go outcome attachment.
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In general I find the Kegan model to be of limited use due to the linearity of progression (I like the greater expressivity of branching divergence) but it’s a good model for careers because they’re also a linear-progress context. Ladders work on pyramids.
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It’s fine for janitors to be their titles. CEOs need to be at the “having doings” level to really get through their toughest problems. The slightest degree of attachment turns into a liability under big-problem stress.
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I’m a bit wary of using Kegan language in this particular corner of twitter because it’s a “Maslow for cool kids” level trope without being fully acknowledged as such. I’m more comfortable using Maslow language because at some level everybody gets that it’s a cartoon.
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