The Problem of Ego

When organizing, it is not always easy to tame the opposing sides of one’s ego. Every organizer has a strong ego: it is important not to deny this. To believe oneself capable of bringing people together, to see oneself capable of helping communities rearrange the status quo’s turgid power structures, to embrace and encourage change, these things require a certain amount of belief in oneself and one’s abilities. These are properties which come along with a solid ego. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

What is a bad thing is when the organizer allows his or her ego to blind them to their own duties. An organizer’s job begins with listening: it begins with accepting the full humility of a newcomer. An organizer must accept that they are a stranger in a strange land – that what they see as problems may not be problems at all, that the issues they are working to repair may not be priorities of the community in which they live.

It is all to easy to step into an organizing position and assume that one is aware of the solutions to the problems which are present. This is a product of their ego: to believe that one can act as an agent of change means that one believes in change, believes in the catalyzing power of groups of people, these beliefs come with a certain idea of self-efficacy. It is easy to assume that that which appears to be an obvious problem is a problem: but a good organizer must take a step back from that view, as seemingly ego-free as it seems.

To organize well, one must keep a mind so open, so Zen, that the only things one sees as problems are things which one’s community members see as problems. You, the organizer, are problem free. Your only problems are those problems which you have detected by listening, by listening in a way which circumvents your ego, which does not take your worries into account.

Why would a community band together to solve a problem they do not accept as a problem?

They won’t. They will organize to solve the problems they all see. You must ask, you must be curious and you must be open to really, honestly, listen, or you will never know what those problems are. It is not always the easiest thing to set aside your own ego: but your success depends on it.