Episode 16: How Big is Your Ego?

[00:00:00] James: hello, I'm James.

[00:00:04] Jimmy: Hi, I'm Jimmy.

[00:00:05] James: Welcome to A Job Done Well,

[00:00:08] Jimmy: the podcast about the world of work and how to improve the daily grind

[00:00:13] James: Good morning.

[00:00:14] Jimmy: Good morning, James.

[00:00:15] James: What are we talking about today then?

[00:00:16] Jimmy: Well, today we're going to talk about working with egos.

[00:00:20] James: Ah, that must be a subject, you know, an awful lot about

[00:00:23] Jimmy: resident expert. So why are we covering this subject? Well, it's really a follow up to our workplace politics episode because it's often the underlying cause and it has come up in a few of the coaching discussions we've had since.

We think it impacts both performance and engagement, which is what this podcast is all about. And it happens everywhere to everyone at some point.

[00:00:45] James: some point. . . So I'm going to try and talk about this without getting cancelled.

[00:00:49] Jimmy: subject of expertise.

[00:00:50] James: you for the feedback. So what we're going to do is just explore how we see it and ways to manage it both in yourself and others. And it's something that's talked about lots, but we rarely think about what our own ego is.

So those are the angles we're going to take about it. But before we get into that, how was your week?

[00:01:07] Jimmy: to take about it. But before we get

[00:01:14] James: you're delighted at it,

[00:01:16] Jimmy: how has your week been? Well, I bet you're delighted, are you? Absolutely. And I just want to highlight again, we've talked about this in the past. The people that we dealt with, both of us, on multiple occasions, were tremendous.

Absolutely passionate about doing the job, passionate about helping, about sorting out problems, really amazing. But the processes that bog them down make their jobs almost impossible to do at times. So now, I read

[00:01:50] James: I read something interesting that I thought was interesting, maybe a sad day, but I read something about, it was in the 90s, they were talking about the amount of bureaucracy in the health service in the States versus the health service in England. And they were saying that there was about 25 percent bureaucracy in the States and only 5 percent in the UK.

I wonder if that's flipped around now.

[00:02:10] Jimmy: I think you're definitely a SADO, and it definitely has flipped around now.

How's

your week been anyhow?

[00:02:16] James: Well, I had a very good weekend. I went, well, I went down to the deep south, the far side of London. But it was quite interesting. I drove down, I drove past such delightful places as Slough and Horsham.

But I had a couple of sliding door moments because I've worked in both Slough and Horsham. And I just sat there and thought to myself, well, what if I'd done something

[00:02:34] Jimmy: different?

About if you were still making Mars Bars in Slough?

[00:02:37] James: I'd be about 24 stone by now.

So,

what do we mean by EEO? . , as usual, I've got my dictionary out. And I've got a definition for you. Ego is a person's sense of self esteem or self importance. And it was a concept which really came about in the early 19th century and comes from the Latin for I.

Sound educated there. An important part of psychology, Freud was a pioneer and he used to talk about it as a sense of self.

But actually speaking as a geneticist by training,. Evolutionary, it's really important. What gets you out of bed in the morning is that whole sense of self belief and why you as an individual matter.

What

[00:03:17] Jimmy: what we're going to talk about is our interpretation, and it, it sounds really simple because it is a throwaway line that's used a lot, you know, it's their ego talking. Ah hang on, he's got an ego

[00:03:28] James: Ah, hang on,

[00:03:29] Jimmy: he's got an ego

[00:03:29] James: you couldn't puncture with an elephant gun

 

[00:03:31] Jimmy: Or, they've got an ego the size of a small planet,

.

but it's just, it is a throwaway line. But , as you say, James, really understanding it and then Working at how you actually manage it, either your ego or others ego, is really, really complicated.

As we've discovered as we started to have a conversation about this. It is really about how you show up. And to what you were saying, self esteem versus self importance. I think over the last, , 20 years, it's become much more focused on self importance than it has in self esteem over recent

[00:04:05] James: years.

[00:04:06] Jimmy: , also, it's about How you show up to others and how you feel about yourself. So often, I think, people mask their insecurities with, , ego. With being overly confident and, overly self important. It's just a mask for insecurities at times.

[00:04:24] James: big impact as well?

So you've got the, sort of, the impact in the here and now, but you've also got an indirect impact. So over time How do people perceive you? And how do they see your ego? Can have a huge effect on the way people manage.

[00:04:41] Jimmy: moment and relationship over time.

And as we were talking about, it's not talked about enough. So we're going to try and understand a little bit more about how you learn about your ego and how you manage yours and others. And

[00:04:59] James: it's

also worth, I think, talking about balance of ego because it can go both ways, can't it?

You can have a huge ego and that can be

[00:05:07] Jimmy: can be problematic,

[00:05:07] James: but also having a small ego can be a problem as well. So it really is complicated. Where's the right point?

and

[00:05:14] Jimmy: And I think that's one of the things that makes it such an interesting subject. Because it is all about balance. It's not just you do X and you get Y. It is about, more or less, you know, trying to find that sweet spot.

And that's tough. So, ego in terms of too much. Some of the things you might see from people who have too much ego is they want or demand the credit for every idea. They have got the monopoly on good ideas. They'll often talk about I and me instead of talking about we and us.

[00:05:47] James: thought there then.

.

when you go in for one of those interviews, or what they called

[00:05:51] Jimmy: Behavioural

[00:05:51] James: yeah, those, they they often ask you, well, don't talk about we, talk about I. So it actually promotes ego, doesn't

[00:05:58] Jimmy: It does, but , how many times did you go into those interviews and start talking about yourself in terms of we? What did we achieve? Versus I did this, I did that. I don't think it's

[00:06:09] James: and me.

I'm a team player where you're Mr. I, I,

[00:06:12] Jimmy: of course. But I think also, they will

people

about how great they are and how senior they are and how important they are.

Ultimately, they stop others from expressing their ideas and they are favourable

to people who support them and often negative to people who don't support them. So often it can be associated with bullying or trying to exert power. You don't really have sometimes.

[00:06:39] James: exert power. You don't really have sometimes. It just shows up as a lack of drive and motivation. And a lack of ideas and input. And that's not to say the person doesn't have any ideas and input. It just means they are run roughshod over. Easy for me to say. And just a general lack of presence.

So it is, as we were talking about, getting the sweet spot.

[00:06:59] Jimmy: So if we talk a bit about our experience of ego , when we were doing this we talked about, , understanding our own ego and how we were impacted by and how we work with others with ego. It's quite difficult because when you start to think about how does my ego show up and how does it get triggered in particular which drives certain behaviors, it's quite hard to figure out.

Anyhow, I came up with a couple of things often. I'll show up with a lot of confidence, and I always felt that if you were confident about stuff, it would inspire people. , they would feed off that confidence. But actually, too much of that, and it can intimidate people, and it can stop people from, from challenging you.

[00:07:41] James: you.

What was it they used to call Brancliffe? Or Big Ed? Yeah,

[00:07:45] Jimmy: ,

you've

got to remember the the classic Cluffy story.

, he once was in an interview, the interviewer said to him, do you ever disagree with your players? Yeah. And I said, yeah. He said, yeah, yeah. You know, well, I, I disagree with him regularly.

Said, well, how'd you deal with that? Because he was famous for, for the size of his ego. Yeah. He, well, what we do, he is, we sit down and for 20 minutes and talk about it, and then decide I'm right.

Classic, fluffy,

[00:08:11] James: it and then decide I'm right. Classic Cluffy. Not one

[00:08:15] Jimmy: not one We would recommend. But I think another way my ego shows up is that I want to be seen as somebody who knows their stuff.

So then I think you can easily feel that you've got to show your knowledge too often. So you can go into too much detail, some of it being irrelevant, some of it's unnecessary. And I think that's, how my ego shows up. You want to be seen as competent, but actually it can have the opposite impact.

So it stops challenge, or it can make you seem that you're caught in the weeds, or just showing off. All those things you don't really want. They're not the impact that, you know, I'm personally trying to have.

[00:08:51] James: You sit there thinking, I wish this person had stopped banging on. Yeah.

[00:08:56] Jimmy: on. , if I then think about when I've worked with the ego of others, one of the things that really always triggers me is when people feel the need to take over and they.

Just feel the need to show that they're the cleverest person in the room. And never mind whether you're making progress on the subject. You can have an awful meeting, get nowhere, no positive outcomes. If they've shown that they're clever, tick the box. It's great. That always winds me up. No, no end. And often the other thing I find challenging is working in predominantly male dominated environments.

Because , Senior male dominated environments full of self importance. Yeah. Just always people are just trying to show off how important and how clever they are. Well,

[00:09:41] James: yes, and maybe an argument for diversity

[00:09:43] Jimmy: diversity there. Definitely. of stories that highlight this. I remember when we were working together the new CEO decided he had a master plan.

 He wanted to. Closed one of the sites that we had and I said to him, you know, that won't work. You don't, you can't do that. So what did he do? He brought in our colleagues from McKinsey's.

[00:10:05] James: At great expense.

[00:10:07] Jimmy: Yes, at great expense. A number of months later, they told him he couldn't close that site.

[00:10:11] James: um, Say I told you so to him?

[00:10:13] Jimmy: No, I didn't. But funnily enough, that did help me realize that that was the sort of environment we were working in. And that wasn't the sort of place where I wanted to stay.

[00:10:22] James: to stay.

Yeah, a

[00:10:23] Jimmy: And another, another example where I actually did manage to keep my ego in check for once was I was presenting a claims forecast to our regulators and I was going through it, it was during COVID and , on their system, you couldn't see who was on the call all the time.

So anyhow, I'm merrily presenting away, showing that I know my stuff and then Get a question piped up from an Andrew Bailey He's the,

[00:10:49] James: the

guy who's got his name on the bank

[00:10:51] Jimmy: Yes, he is the Governor of the Bank of England. So he knows his stuff. So he asked me why I thought the claims forecast was the way it was.

And my answer should have been about the macroeconomics of the country, and explained to him about the trends and all that sort

[00:11:07] James: trillions and that sort

[00:11:09] Jimmy: I just said, I said it's based on

[00:11:13] James: historical forecasts. I

[00:11:14] Jimmy: I just wound my neck in. I didn't feel the need to show that I knew my

[00:11:18] James: him that I knew my stuff.

It

[00:11:21] Jimmy: It can be. It's a good career move.

But we'll come on to some of the hints and tips about managing ego in a second. But what's your experience of working? Because whilst , you're blaming it all on me James. , you've got an ego to match at

[00:11:34] James: times.

No, that's not true. Interestingly, I started to have this conversation and I thought, well, I don't really have much of an ego. But then I started to think about the occasions where my ego has been punctured. And there have been a couple of times when that's happened to me, on both occasions. It was when I was doing a job, and I

[00:11:50] Jimmy: doing a good

[00:11:51] James: and it was taken away

from me for whatever reason. Clearly, I wasn't doing a good job.

But that punctured my ego, because it was really, it was an assault against my competence. Because I like to think, right, you're wrongly, that I'm a man who can figure out how things work and can fix it. And if somebody takes that away from you, then they've really got at the heart of you.

, and that was really quite tough. And then that got me thinking, well, so what happens when I get triggered?

And I think, for me, what's important is we're constantly getting better and improving things.

 

[00:12:22] James: So when I get triggered, it's when, really when people aren't interested in improving things, or aren't listening to what I've got to say.

[00:12:29] Jimmy: And

[00:12:29] James: at that point, I can get a little bit dismissive. I think people are

[00:12:34] Jimmy: You dismissive, James! I

[00:12:35] James: I am yeah, there was one occasion where somebody once said to me, Oh, we can't say that it'll make us look like idiots.

And I thought to myself, well, if the cap fits, but it doesn't help me, does it? I can also

make more extreme comments to hammer the point home.

 You've got to think, well, what is the outcome I want?

And does my behavior get to that outcome? So it is that real balance of fluffing your ego versus getting the outcome you want.

And when I get triggered it doesn't get me the outcome

[00:13:08] Jimmy: But to your point, James, you get into either protecting your ego or trying to attack other people's egos, and the outcome gets forgotten about.

[00:13:17] James: and all logical thought goes, doesn't it?

[00:13:19] Jimmy: Yeah. So if you think about how you work with your own ego, as we've just discussed on ours, it was quite a complicated thing to understand, but actually, , and it does depend on your individual context.

But some of the things that we found useful was awareness. So just having a think about what your ego is and how it shows up. And do you understand yourself and the impact that you're having on others? Yeah. So does your intention and impact match? Yeah. And then also, to your point, knowing what and when you get triggered and seeing that difference in your response.

Because as you said, You now understand things that trigger you, and you know what your response is going to be. When you've got that awareness, at least you can then start to think about what do you do about it.

[00:14:09] James: because you actually can feel the triggering moment, okay? But when it's done consciously rather than subconsciously, you can do something about it. So I had a look online to say, well, what do you do about that? So you are getting triggered.

Things were recommended and they came back with four points, which I thought were quite interesting

So the first one was just be very aware that you don't know everything and you can always learn something new

Sound advice a couple of great quotes for you one that comes from Einstein Which she was that ego is one over knowledge You have to think about that a little bit But the point is the more knowledge you have the less of the ego Whereas the less of the knowledge The more the ego, and I have worked with some prize idiots with some phenomenal egos.

So that one made sense to me. But then another one, as this one's from a physicist called John Wheeler. But as he said, this is very

deep, this is profound. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance. Oh yeah and

then you've got other things to think about really.

Try and get out of Complaining, it's them, they're all fools, it's not me. Because it's really about thinking what you can do about the situation. And also not comparing yourself with others. Because ego needs to you need to feel like you're the best. But if you haven't got anything to compare yourself against, then that prevents the problem.

And then the final one is just surrendering your need for control. Because quite often what I find out is that when I do get triggered, and I get into a fight with somebody,

It's invariable that it's something that's ridiculous, tiny, it's a storm in a teacup, and if you can get over that, you, you know, choose which battles you fight.

[00:15:52] Jimmy: One of the things we were discussing is I always found that you were really good if a discussion was going the way you wanted it to go and the outcome was going to be a positive one. You didn't feel the need to get involved.

[00:16:03] James: a bit pointless.

[00:16:04] Jimmy: didn't feel the need for control. Yeah. So you were getting what you wanted and the outcome was going to be a good one.

So I

[00:16:09] James: So I only kick off when I'm not getting what I wanted. Good. .

Yeah. Bye. but I think being able to adapt or leverage your behavior to have a positive impact on performance and relationship is really important. At times when you start to think about ego, back to my original point, which was it's often to hide people's insecurities. When you start to unravel that, you might need some help to do that, whether that's from a mentor or a coach.

[00:16:39] Jimmy: Or even a counsellor,

[00:16:40] James: Oh, I just work through your personal insecurities. Yeah.

[00:16:42] Jimmy: Because you can't just say, Oh, I'm not going to have that insecurity anymore, and therefore I'm not going to behave this way. It's not that simple.

So

[00:16:48] James: about working with your own ego. Now, what about some of the egotistical people you've worked with in the past? How do you deal with them?

[00:16:56] Jimmy: Well, one of the things is to protect your own energy. Don't let them rob your energy. And that can be your time. So think about the interactions that you want to have, don't avoid them, but don't just pander to , their whims around communication, make sure you are optimizing communication with them and don't let them, , live rent free in your mind because I bet you, if you're dealing with somebody who's got a big ego, you've got to send them an email.

You take twice as long as you need to.

[00:17:25] James: Yeah. Just,

[00:17:26] Jimmy: Just, it doesn't, it won't make that much difference. Don't let them take your energy. Get to know people a bit. Okay. Get a greater understanding of them as people. I think that can often, , make them seem , a bit more human. And

another piece of advice that was given to me was allow people's people's egos the space to retreat intact.

Don't feel that, , you've got to destroy their ego, punch their ego. Back to what we were saying earlier, punch their ego triggers a whole set of behaviours you don't need. Yeah, but

[00:17:59] James: but it is fun. it

[00:18:00] Jimmy: is fun. Yeah. And then a couple of things you can do actually is find out where the

[00:18:14] James: in order to do that.

Yeah, another couple of things you

is find out where the win win is with the person, so build an alliance with them, because you're never diametrically opposed to people in totality, there's always something. Or alternatively, you could look at the people around you and start to build alliances with them.

Because if it's about insecurity, then actually these people want to be liked , and realising that everybody sees something differently will have an effect.

And I suppose the final thing to do is just don't take it personally, right?

This is about them, it's about them taking control. And , you can't do anything about it. You can only worry about your own response.

[00:18:53] Jimmy: so , control the controllables. Very good, yeah.

[00:18:55] James: So, where does that take us?

In conclusion,

I think the first thing to say is egos are inevitable. Everyone has one. And it's got its place in everyday life and work. And actually, ego is a healthy thing.

[00:19:09] Jimmy: It's worth considering your ego, how you work with it, and how you work with others, as it influences both performance and relationships.

[00:19:18] James: and own

ego, especially when you get triggered, is really quite powerful. And when you get triggered, are you having the impact that you want? And what could you do to change

that? So make

it explicit in your own mind.

[00:19:34] Jimmy: mind. And how does the ego of others impact you? How can you control your response?

Build alliances, disengaging with them at times, getting to know them. Don't let them take your energy.

There are some of the key ways of managing the ego of others.

[00:19:50] James: you don't insecurity building an insecurity in you. And a final thought, I've discovered it gets easier as you get older.

Well you wouldn't being a senior citizen yourself. But reality is

[00:20:03] Jimmy: you would say that being a senior citizen yourself, but the reality is, , it's not just age related, it is just get comfortable with yourself. Then you don't feel the need to show off and show yourself important.

And if you want to think a bit further about this and , read something about it. I There's a great book called The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters.

[00:20:26] James: to be my wife's maths teacher, did you know that? No.

[00:20:29] Jimmy: know that? No, I didn't. And he's now Ronnie O'Sullivan's sports

[00:20:34] James: Yeah, it should have been a bit of psychology on my wife.

[00:20:36] Jimmy: my wife.

 It's a great book for understanding about how people behave in certain situations. So hopefully you've enjoyed today's episode. We actually have got a couple of questions this week, James. Alright, cool. Well, firstly, we have had lots of feedback through all sorts of channels about the quality of what we're doing and the value that it's adding to people.

So thank you for that. It really does make a difference. We talked recently at one of our episodes about recognition so recognition of. , the fact that that's working really makes a difference.

And also, people have been very generous in sharing the episodes. And when they share it, online or, or directly, we can see a real spike in the number of listeners that we get. So, if you share it with your network, it really does make a

[00:21:23] James: Yeah. And it makes, it helps with our egos as well's. See what I did there?

[00:21:27] Jimmy: I like

[00:21:28] James: Very clever. Now the other question we got, which was a very sensible question, was Yeah. And

[00:21:34] Jimmy: and thank you. Thank you to the, So the

[00:21:38] James: the question was, your website is called a job done wealth.com.

[00:21:43] Jimmy: com Why

[00:21:45] James: Why did you do

that when Jobdonewell. com,

[00:21:50] Jimmy: memorable is

[00:21:51] James: more memorable, is available? The answer to that is very simple. It might be available, but it costs two and a half grand, whereas a Jobdonewell. com cost us 99p.

[00:22:03] Jimmy: Sensible economics, James.

[00:22:05] James: tight.

[00:22:06] Jimmy: So, please feel free to send in any comments, questions. Hope you enjoyed this week's episode.

[00:22:12] James: Yeah, remember, like and subscribe and build our egos.

[00:22:16] Jimmy: Thanks everyone. Have a great week.

[00:22:17] James: Cheers now.

[00:22:18] Jimmy: If you'd like to find out more about how James and I can help your business, then have a look at our website at ajobdonewell.Com.