No More Dharmas. Or. How Our Identities Shape Projects.

Almost two years ago I wrote “El Grande Post”. Outlining “El Grande Vision about Projects, The Universe And Everything”. It was one of many attempts to explain projects, your mind, identity, culture and all other things human.

It was titled: “The Four Dharmas Of Project Management“.

Can you imagine? Four dharmas! Wow. How about I try to explain it in one go?

The essence is how our identities shape our environment.

This is how I think it works.

You have a perception of yourself. Your identity. A way to describe an identity is by group association. I am a Dutch, male blogger. That are 3 associations: male, Dutch and blogger. Some associations are by choice, some by birth.

You always have more than one group association. Basically, you can identify yourself with as many groups as you can imagine. Not all group memberships are equal: you can give one more priority over another. Emphasize one more than another. When I am attending an Internet related conference, my “blogger” identity is more important than being Dutch.

Amartya Sen formulated this perfectly in “Identity and Violence” (affiliate link): “Given our inescapably plural identities, we have to decide on the relative importance of our different associations and affiliations in any particular context.”

Your own perception is one part of this story.

We are more attracted to some people than others. We are more at ease with some than others. We like some people more than others. This is a personal thing. This is about perception: your perception of the other.

We pick up all kinds of cues from people. How they talk, what they wear, what they do, how their online profile is written. Based upon those cues we build up our perception. We associate people with groups. We are creating our version of their “identity”.

We all have an idea about how a 6 year old talks. If we hear a kid of that age talking about cars and ice cream, we are at ease. If he talks about the importance of emotional intelligence, we freak out. We create expectations based upon the cues we experience. If these expectations are met, we feel more comfortable.

The way you perceive yourself in a certain context, determines which social cues you put forward. This manifestation of identity works as a filter: people who like this particular “identity” get “attracted”, those who are not in tune with it, are not.

In this way, the perception you hold of yourself creates boundaries: some stay at one end, others cross.

Our plural identities help us change these boundaries. By emphasizing one part and downplaying another, by emphasizing deviancy, we can create higher or lower walls, change the positions of the boundaries. I am not talking about faking social cues hoping that people like you. I am talking about consciously deciding which part of your face to show.

So. Reflection. Identity. Cues. Boundaries.

This scales up.

If you put people into a group, if you have interactions between all the individual identities, a group “identity” emerges. A sense of “how we do things around here.” A culture. This group identity creates an attractor for “the right people”. It sets boundaries.

Now I get to the part I find hardest to grasp. Most difficult to explain.

It’s the personal identity, the mental perception of an individual that can determine the boundaries of an entire group. A team. An organization.

It’s the culture of a group that can enhance and nurture a persons identity.

How about that?

Speaking of culture. Last week I read an awesome piece about nurturing culture in an online setting: “Jumbled (but important) thoughts about culture.”

Image by Sister72.