The Identity Paradox: How to Attain Self-Stability While at the Same Time Evolving with Agility?

“What got you here is not going to take you there” – says Herminia Ibarra in her article The Authenticity Paradox[1]. That is the case of a manager we recently coached. Let’s call him Joe.

Joe is a hardworking, giving, dedicated executive, who is great with people and excellent at managing his team. He takes on more work than he can possibly handle, he’s so driven to attain successful solutions that he goes out of his way to help his colleagues and other departments with their workload. But…Joe is up for a promotion, he is on the threshold of the next step up, which he desires. Unfortunately, it seems that he lacks strategic vision, fails to head towards a broader direction and hesitates to immerse himself in company politics. You may or may not recognize yourself in Joe, but the point is: he is very proud of his work as a manager, he has incredibly good qualities that he doesn’t want to jeopardize since they have enabled him to move forward until now. He identifies with this image of himself and he LIKES it.

But this time, it seems that he won’t be able to attain what he wants. He needs to change something.

Inspired by Joe’s story, we may ask ourselves two questions:

  1. Is it possible to be true to yourself, respect what you perceive as your identity, be “authentic”, and “play the game” to reach your goal?
  2. Is that promotion really suitable for him? Will he really be fulfilled once he gets it?

Let’s start with n.1

Authenticity: Disambiguation of the Term and Difference Between Values and Strategies

The term “authenticity” comes from the Greek “authéntēs” which means “lord, master”. In its original meaning then, to be authentic means to be the master of ourselves, to become our own work of art. As we know, a work of art needs a process, a work in progress, through which we will create something original.

Far too often, however, especially in recent literature, we are encouraged to find and define an absolute sense of self, this “authentic” self that weighs on us like an armor. The thicker it is the more it makes us feel strong and protected, but it also increasingly hinders our movements and prevents us from moving forward. We are brought to perceive our sense of self as constant, unchangeable, set. That’s what we know about ourselves, and it is working, and it is me, and I know who I am. Oh boy, we do love certainties!

But what looks like a stable, set being, is, in its original and deep meaning, a process, a flux, a progression through which we continuously create something unique, as our Ancient Greek friends have taught and keep teaching us.

Does this mean that our core identities are in continuous flow and therefore, unfathomable? No, it just means that there is a difference between who we are at the most profound level, which are our deepest values, what matters most to us, and the strategies we can adopt to honor these values.

Core Values and Strategies

Your Core Values are your little satchel of personal truth. It speaks to you and there you find your most profound aliveness. Being aware of your values and being able to tap into them, expressing yourself in a way that’s unique to you, brings about greater fulfillment, energy, passion, motivation and commitment. Our core values are what we deeply care about in the long-term, and being able to identify them, beyond all judgments, beyond all categories of good and bad, beyond external influences, constitutes a treasure that will accompany us in building a fulfilling life. Oftentimes, when a goal isn’t met, it is because the goal is not linked to a core value.

So yes, honoring them is fundamental for our happiness, and it’s worth taking time to explore and see which ones we can put in that little satchel, that will give us clarity of vision and direction in life.

Usually, however, we very often confuse Values and Strategies. A Strategy is a series of actions through which we plan to attain a desired outcome; it is the way we behave, that at its best reflects and honors our values.

What we often tend to do though, is identifying our values (which are pretty stable in the long-term) with our strategies, and therefore stiffening in rigid behavioral patterns in order to be true to ourselves. We stick to behaviors and ways of being that were useful to us in the past as a way to honor our values and needs. Or maybe we stick to them because they’re the only thing we know so far about ourselves, the only kind of behavior we’ve ever adopted and, since it was giving us the desired results until now, why change?

Well, because we want different things, and to get them we have to face different challenges and be adaptable, so as to learn and grow.

Over identifying with our established behaviors and in general within rigid categories, may bring about unwanted consequences. The more we see ourselves as fixed beings, the less we will be able to face new challenges openly and creatively, moving forward in our personal journey and our career. Everything around us, life itself, is constantly changing, our business landscape is constantly transforming, technology is turning what we knew upside down, but fortunately, as human beings, we have an incredible capacity to adapt and find new solutions. We have the capacity to evolve (that’s what got us here, right Darwin?).

The Story We Tell Ourselves

Dan McAdams, a Northwestern narrative psychology professor, describes identity as “an internalized and evolving story of the self that reconstructs the past and anticipates the future in such a way as to provide a person’s life with some degree of unity, meaning, and purpose over time.”[2]

We constantly work at editing past, present and future to write a story about ourselves. That’s a very natural and human way of processing the complexity of our life. But too often we stick to, and get stuck in, our story, letting it define us instead of us being the authors (remember the Greeks?) of it.

So, as Herminia Ibarra says: Don’t stick to your story. Most of us have personal narratives about special moments that taught us important lessons. Consciously or not, we allow our stories, and the images of ourselves that they paint, to guide us in new situations. But the stories can become outdated as we grow, so sometimes it is necessary to alter them dramatically or even to throw them out and start from scratch.”[3]

Play with It!

Once we are aware of our core values and we get rid of the rigid behavior that we overidentified with, we will discover that we can have fun, playing with who we are. Within the newly found pillars of our identity, we can creatively experiment with our capabilities, take risks, accept new challenges, try out different “hats”, expanding our view, broadening our possibilities and finding new results. We can make discoveries about ourselves and be flexible because we know what really matters – our core values – and we are not going to touch that; an alarm would go off if we did it and we would be ready to listen. Some things may work, some may not. It’s only with trial an error that we will find out.

Every time you find yourself saying “No” to something, try to ask “Why not?”. Evaluate the answer, it may surprise you!

Conclusion

Stretching yourself beyond what you already know will also help you build self-confidence, make you aware of your capabilities and widen the opportunities that you see for yourself and your life, and it will give you some more ink to make edits to your personal narrative, or – why not? – add a few new pages.

Written by Anna Gallotti and Selika Cerofolini

[1] “The Authenticity Paradox”, Herminia Ibarra, HBR, January-February 2015
[2] McAdams, 2008; McLean, Pasupathi, & Pals, 2007
[3] “The Authenticity Paradox”, Herminia Ibarra, HBR, January-February 2015

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