You Are Not Who You Work For
Recently, a relative of mine informed me that he had joined the ranks of the departed. As in, he was one of those turned over from their job due to the Covid situation. He had been leading a team at one of the larger tech firms in the world for the past five years, and by all indications, was doing very well. Yet he arrived to work one day and spotted an email in his inbox from his supervisor asking ominously for time for a brief conversation later that morning. He was informed that he would be let go as part of a larger staff layover due to market pressures that were forcing the company to make tough decisions. That would be his last day.
He told me he had felt he was stagnating at the company the past year and was planning on leaving anyways, so rather than quitting he would leave with a relatively generous severance package. Still, I could tell that the brusque entire manner of his letting go had left a bitter taste in his mouth. His record at the company was strong and contributions substantial. Yet it was all over in the matter of an email exchange and quick chat. Such can be the corporate life, perhaps. It wasn’t personal, after all, just business that needed to be done and bottom line covered. But situations like that are hard not to personalize.
Over-Identifying with your Organization
We pour our figurative heart and soul and literal time and energy into our work. It can consume us. We have the right, nay duty, to feel a sense of pride in a job well done. The fruits of our labor after all come from our labor. Yet, there is a risk that we may conflate the intimacy we feel with our own work with the larger organization we work for.
Overidentification, as per the Oxford Living Dictionary, is the “action of identifying oneself to an excessive degree with someone or something else, especially to the detriment of one’s individuality or objectivity.” In psychological terms, there is a tendency to overidentify in relationships and particularly when it comes to parents or children. Our inner sense of being is extended outwards to encompass others. As others relate to us and go through their own ups and downs, so to fluctuates our own sense of how we view ourselves. We shouldn’t mistake this feeling with empathy, which is being able to connect to others by putting oneself in their frame of reference.
Organization psychologists have devoted a lot of research towards understanding how the same phenomenon happens with employees who build a part of their identity based on the organization they work under. It is a natural instinct to gravitate towards belonging with the larger group. Beyond such company loyalty, overidentification is when you feel a sense of oneness with the organization. So what’s the problem?
Giving Away Your Identity
Your career is a solo journey. It may not seem that way when you are immersed in a team environment and spending more and more time with your coworkers, but at the end of the day, you are choosing to spend your valuable time at a particular company because it works for you.
When you begin to mistake the overall company, with its products and services, its purported values, its organization culture and especially its public image, as somehow intrinsically part of who you are, you are ceding your individuality to a party you do not have control over. But many of us do this slowly and surely the longer we stay, often due to our own insecurities. It is also not necessarily the case that the identification with the company is always a happy one, it may be a reflection of their own sense of self worth which does tend to vary.
The obvious exception to the above is if the organization is one you have painfully built yourself. Then it is a product of your creative engine and rightfully something you consider part of your own identity. Though even here you should be cautious about allowing its successes and struggles to greatly influence your own self esteem.
The Burden of Expectations
Companies of course spend tons of resources on trying to gel a team together and to get staff to actively feel like they are part of a bigger purpose, a grand corporate destiny as told in many CEO storytelling sessions. That is why when a company fails our expectations, by promoting someone unqualified or underperforming in the market or God-forbid laying off workers, it can be a devastating shock to our inner equilibrium if we identify closely with the organization. It is not simply a case of unmet expectations, but a vital part of us has been compromised. The way the company acts then becomes a metaphor for what the state of our life is.
Not all employees feel this way of course. Many are able to effectively segment what happens with the company from the other aspects of their being and move on with their merry lives. But a precious few have blurred lines when it comes to the way they feel about the company and themselves. The best way to measure this is to see the instant reaction when someone hears of bad news at the water cooler gossip area. Is the reaction a visceral one, laced with bitterness or anger, or just a ho-hum expression of resignation?
The act of a company laying off an overidentified employee can especially come across as the ultimate act of betrayal. The company in which you vested so much of your being can seem to have repudiated you, for whatever reason they give. You feel rejected. And this act often spurs on further existential crises that can lead in different directions.
I recall one of my ex-colleagues in a media organization who had worked there for over 30 years. He has deeply attached to the company, and through every high and low, his loyalty remain absolute. I couldn’t begrudge him for feeling inseparable from the company having stayed so long, even though that form of organizational attachment was alien to myself. Eventually, as new management took over and things began to sharply nosedive, he grew increasingly frustrated and was forced to leave. He continued to grieve over the state of the company he felt a part of for so long as if its was a departed lover.
Positive Associations
This is not to say that we cannot derive some satisfaction from an association. We may feel a sense of pride attending an institute known for its track record in knowledge, or a sense of inspiration helping a NGO known for its humanitarian heroics. This is normal and as humans, we build emotional value through such associations with people and objects around us. You can work for a company with passion and without surrendering your inner sovereignty.
At the end of the day though, the organization you work is only liable to be the outlet for your livelihood and productivity. Putting the weight of heavy emotional expectations on your workplace can backfire. Even as the trend nowadays is for corporations to be more ‘soulful’ and mindful of employee well-being, you are still responsible to be your own person. Cultivate your habits, side hustles and relationships outside work consistently to remind yourself where your existence is grounded.
Nowadays, in a fast-paced job environment with high turnover and mobility, we are better off to remind ourselves that the only constant in our career is ourselves and who we are.
