Why do intelligent adults often behave like toddlers?
Brad, an American investment banker with a Harvard MBA and lots of spare cash to his name desperately wanted to experience a ‘real London pub.’ We went to a pub and he insisted on ordering our two ‘pints of bitter’ at the bar. The bar was busy and there were a couple of people in front of him waiting to be served. The barmaid served them, and then, rather than serving Brad, she served someone who was behind him in the queue.
Brad eventually got served and came back to the table furious. He seemed obsessed with the idea that the barmaid ignored him on purpose. The poor barmaid was rushed off her feet and probably just made a mistake, but Brad took it very personally and experienced her mistake as a personal slight. For the rest of the evening, he could talk of nothing else but the barmaid who didn’t serve him in turn. He seemed to find it impossible to see it as something trivial and let it go.
Brad was an intelligent man. He wasn’t arrogant or discourteous (it’s easy to make that assumption, reading the anecdote). He wasn’t expecting preferential treatment. He was a nice guy, and socially skilled. Yet he wasn’t able to see the situation from the perspective of the barmaid, who was rushed and trying to keep everybody happy. He was only able to see it from his perspective.
Brad’s difficulty in seeing the world from other people’s perspective was also an obstacle in his business life. Although he made money, his future at the bank was insecure. He was a good trader but an incompetent leader. He understood the markets but didn’t understand people. His interaction with the London barmaid was a microcosm of his interactions with other people in both his business and personal lives.
You might say that Brad and people like him are adults, intellectually but still immature emotionally. Their intellect has developed normally, but their ego has become stuck somewhere in childhood or adolescence..
Our ego – our sense of self and our place in the world – doesn’t just stop developing when we’re 18. Adults, like children, go through distinct developmental changes. This explains why one adult can be highly intelligent but behave like a teenager, whilst another adult might not be quite as smart intellectually but is sensible, mature and successful.
The stages of adult ego development
The developmental psychologist Robert Kegan has shown that to reach our full potential as adults we have to negotiate distinct developmental stages (Kegan, 1982, 1998).
Stages of adult ego development
Kegan identified a number of stages in our journey to ego development and to fulfilling our human potential, as outlined in the following sections. Generally, we can move up the stages in our adult life, but it is possible to regress to a lower stage, such as when you’re under stress, or with certain people, or in certain situations.
Stage 1: The self-sovereign mind
To understand the self-sovereign mind, think of a teenager stuck at Piaget’s formal operational stage. Adults who haven’t moved much beyond the self-sovereign mind are preoccupied with their own needs and view of the world. Their relationships tend to be transactional; in other words, they see other people as existing mainly to meet their needs. They struggle to see others as independent human beings with feelings, thoughts and desires that are separate from their own. They are low on empathy and high on entitlement. People at this stage of ego development follow rules or refrain from lying or stealing because they fear getting caught or some other retaliation, not because these behaviours transgress their moral or ethical values. According to Kegan’s research, about 6 pe rcent of people remain stuck at this level of ego development.
Stage 2: The socialised mind
Most people, about 60 per cent, never make it past the socialised mind level of development. They have insight into their own emotional life and understand that other people are different to them and can experience different feelings, beliefs and desires. Relationships are reciprocal rather than simply transactional.
People at this stage are preoccupied with the beliefs, feelings and behaviour of others in their social group. It’s very important that they fit in with others and conform to the norms of their social group. Because of this need, they will take on (often uncritically) the beliefs of the social group with whom they most strongly identify or want to be accepted by. Theirs is a world of black and white – my side (my group) is wholly right and any other group is wholly wrong. They talk in clichés and slogans, the words of others rather than their own original thoughts.
To understand the socialised mind, think of a football fan, or the leavers and remainers during Brexit. For people at this stage, all the value and ‘goodness’ is obtained from being a member of their group. Often, this group is built around an occupation, like doctor, lawyer or teacher. Or it might be based on political or religious beliefs; for example, ‘I am a liberal’, or ‘I am a Christian’, or ‘I am a Muslim’.
At this stage of development a person’s sense of self, particularly their self-worth is very dependent on how other people in their group react to them. If someone is dismissive of them in some way, they internalise that and feel bad about themselves. Similarly, they will go out of their way to avoid conflict because of the possibility of upsetting the other person. An example would be the manager who in order to feel effective has to be popular with everyone; including their direct reports as well as their own manager. It’s as if they look into the person’s eyes and see their self-worth reflected back.
People at the socialised mind stage of development find it hard to make decisions because a firm decision runs the risk of displeasing another person in their social group. They struggle to know what they want in life because they’re preoccupied with other people’s needs and by what others think of them.
The difference between the stages becomes most apparent in moral behaviour. The person with the self-sovereign mind follows the rules simply because they’re scared of getting caught should they break the rules. If they were in a situation where they were certain that they could, let’s say, steal something and not get caught, they would, and would feel good about it. In contrast, the person at the socialised mind stage follows the rules because these rules are consistent with their moral values. As a part of their development, they have internalised society’s moral rules and values, and those values have become a part of them. If they were to break the rules, they would be troubled by strong feelings of guilt and remorse, rather than fear of getting caught.
Stage 3: Self-authored mind
The main leap forward at this next developmental stage is that we begin to understand that we’re independent beings with our own beliefs, feelings and values. We’re part of society, social groups, but we’re not defined by them. You might work as a doctor, for example, but being a doctor doesn’t define your whole identity. Doctors who are in the socialised mind state of development will tend to socialise with other doctors. Doctors at this stage have a wide group of friends from different occupations and social groups.
At this stage we define ourselves and can form our own views rather than being defined by our social group and simply taking on the ready-made values and beliefs of that social group. We can confidently argue our own opinions and listen, with an open mind and curiosity, to the opinions of others.
People at the self-authoring mind stage have a stable sense of self. They have a clear set of values and the confidence to hold on to them when put under pressure to conform to the views of others. They also have a sense of direction in life, and are not easily distracted by other people or circumstances. People at this stage are able to take responsibility for their own feelings and behaviour without experiencing the need to blame bad outcomes on others or difficult circumstances. According to Kegan, about 35 percent of people you meet are at the self-authoring mind stage of ego development.
Stage 4: Self-transforming mind
The self-transforming mind is the highest level of ego development, and according to Kegan, only about 1 per cent of the population make it to this stage. People at the self-transforming mind stage are constantly evolving and reinventing themselves. They aren’t tied to a particular occupation, set of religious or political beliefs, or the approval of others. They are flexible and their sense of self is constantly adapting to the changing environment. People at this stage find it easy and natural to really listen to others and, without any sense of discomfort, either change their own mind or hang on to their own views.
People at the self-transforming mind stage have little difficulty in taking up their authority as well as feeling confident to challenge the authority of others if they think they’re wrong. Similarly, they’ll question and challenge their own attitudes and behaviours. They’re good at dealing with the complexity of modern life. They perceive other people as complex beings – neither black nor white – who contain the capacity for great good and evil. Their defining belief is that the only constant in life is change, and people at this stage of ego development have the flexibility to change and adapt to new events and challenges.
Steps to develop your ego
Is it then possible to accelerate your own ego development? Yes, it certainly is – but it is difficult. Like any change, you’ll find it stressful and exhausting, but well worth it.
Jennifer Garvey Berger and Keith Johnson have written about this process of change (2015). They describe three practical steps that you can take to develop your ego. These steps will help you to manage your internal psychological team and understand, learn from and happily coexist with your saboteur.
The three techniques that follow will force you to think and behave at a higher stage of development than you currently are. They create self-reinforcing feedback loops that over time will shift your level of ego development upwards. This particularly applies for those of you at the socialised mind stage who want to move up to the self-authored mind stage.
Asking different questions
When you think about the world or encounter another person, your perceptions and understanding will be pretty much determined by your level of ego development. If you’re at the self-sovereign mind stage, you might approach a situation with the question, ‘What’s in it for me?’ Someone with a socialised mind might be wondering, ‘What do people think of me?’ These questions arise from a need to confirm our own perception rather than a genuine curiosity about the world.
Responses that confirm our pre-existing beliefs feel right, and anything that seems at odds with our beliefs just feels wrong, and because it feels wrong, we reject it. But in reality, it might be right and it’s you that is wrong.
As part of the Subject to Object journey, think of your perceptions of the world as being hypotheses – as beliefs you hold rather than objective truths (this is hard but possible). Here are some awkward questions you can ask yourself that will help you achieve this:
What do I believe about this situation?
What evidence do I have for my belief?
In what way could I be wrong?
Taking multiple perspectives
Being able to see the world as other people see the world – taking the perspective of others – is an enormously helpful skill to develop. In negotiation theory this is described as being able to ‘go to the balcony’. This means viewing the negotiation (or, indeed, the situation) as being like a dance that you’re involved in. If you’re able to take yourself away from the dance and metaphorically climb the stairs to the balcony and look down on the dance, you have a much more useful and powerful perspective than if you were part of events.
Whenever you’re in a difficult situation, make a conscious effort to describe that situation from the multiple perspectives of others involved. Try to reflect on how they might feel. We tend to see ourselves as being the hero of our story. Try to drop this for a moment and realise that you’re just another character in a story that has somebody else as the hero.
Similarly, think of your own internal psychological world. Try to separate out the competing voices. Listen to the enthusiastic part of yourself, the sceptical part of yourself and the fearful part of yourself. Maybe even write down a few sentences that sum up how these different parts of you feel. Then reflect on those thoughts and remember that you are the CEO of your internal organisation.
Here are some questions that might help you to do this:
What am I feeling and thinking?
What are the different parts of me feeling and thinking?
What are the other people involved in this situation feeling and thinking?
When I look at this situation from the balcony, what do I observe?
If I disagree with someone, in what way is that person right?
If I feel supportive of someone, in what way is that person wrong?
Seeing systems
We’re all part of a system that we’re often blind to. We experience conflict with a colleague, feel overworked or feel pressure to do something we feel is wrong. That is what we see, but we don’t see all the factors that lie behind that.
Take burnout for example. The World Health Organization describes burnout as an occupational phenomena. In other words, we can only experience burnout in a workplace context. The big mistake that most organisations make is to see burnout as the result of individual weakness or a lack of resilience. That is usually how the person who is burnt out experiences it. They blame themselves. The solution to burnout, if you take that view, is therapy or resilience training or some other individual solution. However, burnout isn’t caused by individual weakness; it’s caused by poorly managed chronic workplace stress. People burn out because organisations pile too much work onto them and they can’t cope. Attributing burnout to individual weakness is a bit like attributing the shellshock experienced by a soldier in the trenches of the Somme to their individual weakness. Soldiers developed shellshock (or PTSD as we would call it now) because of the trauma of being in the trenches, not because of any individual psychological characteristics.
Therefore, when you find yourself in a particular situation where you’re experiencing strong feelings and an urge to behave in a way that you wouldn’t normally behave, think about all the other systemic factors that are involved. You are an individual person, but you’re also part of a much larger system. We find it easy to see individual people because they’re there and in front of us. We often find it much more difficult to see the system and the systemic factors involved in the way we behave at work. If you want to develop your ego functioning, then whenever you feel any strong emotion, think about the system that you’re a part of and what this emotion you’re experiencing says about that system.
Ask yourself:
What do I bring to this situation?
What aspects of my personal history, personality and current psychological state might contribute to this situation?
What are the current demands of my role, and how do these demands add value to the business?
What are the politics of the organisation, and have these changed?
What is happening in the larger economic and political world that might be influencing this situation?
If you are able to use this technique, and the previous ones, in situations you face in your organisation, and indeed your life, you’ll notice two things. First, your ability to respond wisely will improve; in other words, your ego will develop.. You’ll find the aspects of your life that were previously Subject become Object. This will give you more insight and control of your life.
References
Berger, J. G. & Johnston, K. (2015). Simple Habits for Complex Times. Redwood City, Ca: Stanford University Press.
Kegan, R. (1982). The Evolving Self. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kegan, R. (1998). In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.