I or We?

Author Tapan Rayaguru, Career Coach at Sunstone Business School

Umpteen number of theories would promote the usage of ‘We’ not only

our vocabulary but also in our way of thinking with the pretext of

promoting teamwork and camaraderie at the workplace.

I beg to differ…

Good places where I believe ‘we’ should give way to ‘I’:

1. Accountability

I have always been skeptical about shared accountability in large

corporations. A group meets together and talks about big issues and

comes up with alternate solutions that people are only half bought

into. When a decision is made, I am fairly certain less than half the

people in the room are really convinced about the decision and are

willing to put in their 100% to see it through. It is important for one

person to get up and say “I” am responsible for this decision and the

success or failure of this is my own.

2. Ownership of failure

How often have you seen teams hang their head in shame for a minute

or two and then go back to their lives as if nothing really happened

after a major failure? That could only be because they do not really

own up to the failure. Yes, I played a part, but someone else did

something that led to the failure. This circle goes around and I doubt if

anyone could ever find and attribute to the failure to anything.

3. Deserving credit

Now this is interesting. The world can be roughly be divided into two

sets of folks. One set is looking for ways to get credit at every

opportunity and stake their claim to it without consideration if they

really deserve it. Then there is the other set of folks that believe their

responsibility ends with doing a good job and it is for the rest of the

world to stand up and applause. I can see a large part of the Sunstone

student community belonging to the second category. They look at me

as if I just uttered some blasphemy if I advise them to seek credit for

good work done. Think of it this way, if you had failed someone would

hold you accountable, right? Why not seek the credit you deserve if

what you did goes well?

4. Clarity

No other word in the English language says it better than ‘I’ or ‘Me’

clearly as to who owns something. Why should people not take

ownership of tasks, deliverables, decisions and results when they are

the only ones who truly are responsible for them? I am especially

intrigued by the table of action items at the end of a meeting allocated

to some members of the team without one overall owner of the

decisions just made. Whose responsibility is it to ensure that each of

the action items are taken care of? More importantly who takes

accountability of the overall result that was expected when the action

items are all laid to rest? This could be a perfect case of ‘operation

successful but patient dead’.

If you think this through and watch this at your workplace real close, you

will perhaps realize that the use of ‘I’ more often by team members will

lead the team of ‘we’ to be more successful…