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I have been reading “Tribal Leadership” that talks about the five stages of workplace culture. This is from an interview with Dave Logan (one of the authors):

  1. At Stage One people believe “Life sucks” and they cluster together, expressing hostility, such as in a gang.
  2. At Stage Two people believe “My life” sucks. They feel they are surrounded by people who have power, but they themselves do not.
  3. Stage Three is “I’m great,” which implies “You’re not.” It’s a culture of lone warriors.
  4. At Stage Four the “I” turns to “We” as those lone warriors group into value-based relationships.
  5. Stage Five is “Life is Great” where there is no “they.” These are the history-making groups that have excelled beyond competition.

I was reading the more in-depth version in the book that lists the characteristics of each stage. I think I am in Stage Three, but thankfully didn’t display most of the symptoms except one very surprising one! It was that people at this stage obsessively manage their time and track their time. Oh goodness me! I have been logging and tracking stuff since I was born. When I was in college (in India), I had to hitchhike from one end of Delhi to the other (buses were no good as they took 5 hours and you were just groped and mauled all the way over). So I kept track of every hitchhike I took over two years. I also tracked what I ate, how much I spent, how much I studied, how much I ran, which books I read and in how much time – in short, everything that could be tracked. And the data came in useful. My mom used my hitchhiking log to make a case to the Principal of the college to open the residence for girls.
Anyway! very interesting point that Stage Three leaders also track stuff – but mostly to show off. Oh dear. I dug deep into my soul and I think its partially true. I just love logging the numbers and seeing my graphs rise (I have one from Iridescent from way back when), but its also to show off 🙁 Oh well. will be more mature from now on!
P.S. This is the girl’s residence hall that was opened up thanks to my tracking.