Lessons from Iwo Jima

It has often stuck me that self-identity is the most powerful force driving human behavior.

The two recent Iwo Jima films by Clint Eastwood reminded me of this point. Why did the Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines on both sides fight and die so bravely. 

Were they, as the economists would have you believe, "rational utility-maximizers" who could lay out in detail why their behavior was in their narrowly defined self-interest?  No ..  I don't think so.

Didn't natural instinct tell them to behave differently ... don't storm up that beach ... don't fight to the point of starvation, dehydration, and death?  Well of course it did. 

Yet people ignored those instincts and did what would seem impossible.  If you asked them why, you might get an answer like the one my father heard as he drove the landing craft into the beach: “we are Marines and this is what Marines do”.

When they were given a clear connection between a crisply defined goal (take that Island) and their self-identity, their definition of themselves drove them to what seemed like extreme behaviors.

Luckily, no one faces machine gun nests on a software project.  Yet this insight still applies. How people define themselves will have a huge impact on what they accomplish and how good they feel about the time that they invest on the job.

Engineers self-identity includes not just how they define themselves, but also how they define their team, and what distinguishes their product. Engineers have a surprisingly large part of their self-identity wrapped up in the cool things that they build.

There is a lot of room for you to change what it is that distinguishes and defines the product and the team. As the manager a central part of your job is to understand what self-definitions support success and consciously work with the team to shape and articulate those definitions.

For the specific individuals on the team the scope you have to change their self-identity will be limited. (Just count all the disappointed spouses who thought his/her spouse “will change once we are married”.) However at minimum you want to understand how each person thinks of themselves and take that into account in how you help them stay motivated, how you relate their role to the overall effort, and how you help them develop as a professional.

While it is true that you may not be able to dramatically change the basic characteristics of the people already on the team. You should certainly be conscious of what team identity you want to build as you make choices on how to add to the team or subtract from the team.

It does not have to be true that the personality of a team always comes to mirror the personality of its leader. What you really want is the personality and identity of the team to be shaped by the nature of the challenges you are facing. And it is certainly true that a good leader can help guide the creation of that team personality and identity.

Here are some signs that your team has a clear identity:

• Team members can finish this sentence without having to think about it “The cool thing about working here is …”
• Candidates say at the end of the interview cycle: “I really liked the fact that I heard consistent answers to my questions from everyone I talked to.”
• Team members can answer the question: “What does our software do better then any other?”
• New hires say: “I think I am going to like it here because everyone is so …”
• Users of the software say “It is obvious that you really care about …”
• Everyone involved can say how the world will be different after you succeed.

In “Good To Great” Jim Collins has a general discussion of the importance of articulating the differentiating characteristics that define your organization. He has examples that show why it is so important that your team can answer: “What is it that you can be the best in the world at? What is it that you are deeply passionate about?”  Those are questions that every top quality team should be able to answer.

Related Posts:  discussed tendency to under invest in team development, highlighted need to think about both additions and subtractions when shaping the character of the team.

P.S. I am rooting for "Letters from Iwo Jima" in the Oscar race.  Seems unlikely it will get the prize but here's hoping.

                                                                                 copyright 2007 Kerry Champion