Ambition & Ego Death in Change Work
Do you ever have a book that comes to you at precisely the time you need it most? (seriously, tell me in the comments, since I always love a book rec)
For me, that was probably Bruce Feiler’s Life Is in the Transitions.
Feiler writes about the frequent and nonlinear ways in which most of us encounter transitions throughout our adult lives, and he offers up some helpful frameworks to work through those transitions.
The one that’s stuck with me ever since is his ABCs of prioritization. In Feiler’s nomenclature, A is agency (your drive, ambition, motivation towards action), B is belonging (your love and care for the relationships with other people), and C is cause (your desire to work toward a larger purpose, to make a difference in the world).
Feiler’s point is that everyone has all of these priorities, but that often the order of them shifts when we go through a major life transition. You might start out your career as a CAB type, move to a new location and become an ACBer, undergo a health crisis and shift into BCA mode, etc.
I resigned from my corrosively harmful job at the end of 2020 in a transition that saw me reorienting from the A-driven, career-ladder-climbing person I’d been to one much more B-motivated, who needed to be around people I love to do some physical and psychic healing.
ACB Rachel in May 2020
BCA Rachel in fall 2023
I’ve been writing publicly about that journey ever since, and, truly, thank you to those of you who’ve shared—even briefly in passing—that you appreciate and enjoy these updates.
For my Rippling Year, I’ve given myself the Q1 guidance to center reflection and spread ease, and to tune my vibes for the quarter around measured open attention. As I’ve been paying that attention and doing that reflection, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about the how of my work, the qualities I want it to have, the ways it aligns with the life I want to be living, here in what has become a Feilerian BCA period of my life.
I describe my work as “catalyzing change in arts and culture”. I’m a word nerd who loves playing around with thesauri. The “catalyst” part of that is very intentional. Here are a few definitions of catalyst that I love:
🌀 One that precipitates a process or event, especially without being involved in or changed by the consequences.
🌀 An agent that provokes or speeds significant change or action.
🌀 One that blazes a trail to guide others as a pioneer.
I often use the metaphor of strewing seeds when I talk about change work.
If I’m working toward change, whether that’s for individuals or organizations, that change can and should happen without me there to see it. I can’t control when or where the seeds I strew take root, and I don’t need to be there to see the resulting plants growing to trust that they’re out there.
Especially as a white woman with a great deal of privilege, I think of my change work—especially with and around dominant culture organizations like museums—as being about helping them shift away from the behavioral or cultural norms of dominant cultures to raise up alternatives from more marginalized folks.
Only secondarily is my change work about me, in that precipitating, provoking role as catalyst.
This holds also when I’m working with individuals outside an organizational context. The seed strewing metaphor is a central concept that lets me believe in my work. If I’m hosting a retreat or facilitating a session for CARE or meeting with an emerging professional seeking advice, I have no way of knowing which moments will resonate most with which person. And that’s just fine.
I can (and gratefully do) collect little tidbits like one person deciding to commit to pursuing full-time self-employment while part of a CARE cohort or a former direct report reaching out to ask for advice years later or a grad student thank you note like this one from my days working at the Guggenheim.
Those are the clues that show me I’m on the right path and that my strewn seeds are indeed out there, taking root.
Even with all the preceding 700ish words of self-affirmation, though, I still struggle with what the roles of ambition and public recognition are in this mix.
I watch beloved and much-respected friends and colleagues receive speaking offers and honorary degrees and publication features and media guest spots for doing change work. Recognitions that are all well-deserved, and that make me proud to call these people my peers and community.
I feel that pride, honestly and deeply. And at the same time, I also feel envy and insecurity.
It’s a bit like the professional version of perfectly-curated lives on Instagram. I know these public honors aren’t the whole story for any of these peers (sometimes because that’s just never the case for anyone, and sometimes because I actually talk to these folks and hear about the other things happening in their lives).
But when my LinkedIn page and increasingly-Substack-filled inbox are full of people sharing these highlights without the accompanying struggles, I can easily end up feeling that everyone else is getting all kinds of public recognition, and I’m here in my quiet little lane, without that sort of public profile.
The fact that this brings up envy for me is a real and true sign that the ambitious Feilerian A-driven Rachel is still here with me, even if she’s not in the driver’s seat of my life the way she used to be.
I do still want to be known and sought out for the work I do. I contain the multitudes of satisfaction in seed-strewing that leads who-knows-where and desire for a more public profile. The drive that keeps moving me forward wants me to be the person others turn to when they want a thought leader about making change in the cultural sector. The theater kid who’s always loved a spotlight wants me to be the person invited to be a featured speaker. The weird teenager who never quite fit anywhere wants me to get the reassurance that I’m good at what I do and that people like me.
And even there, even as all of that is true and real and how I honestly feel, I also see the influence of the Great Lone Genius Innovator* culture that is the absolute antithesis of what I’m working towards.
*(usually male, usually white, in case it needs saying)
So many of the change workers I respect most sustain their work by, well, just doing the work. They’re not motivated by the lure of accolades or being marquee names in the field. They don’t rest on the laurels of their successes; they don’t even necessarily think of them as their successes. This is the “ego death” part, where, according to some psychological and/or mystical traditions, we lose our individual sense of self in service to some larger essence.
Years ago, I hosted a session at the Museum Computer Network conference that was about Slow Change. To this day, it’s one of the projects I’ve done that I’m most proud of. I gathered a team of fellow facilitators to variously share their reflections on the value of slow change, encourage small group conversation, and read reflections on change from others. We had fairy lights and candles and fresh herbs and chiming bells. It was a space that encouraged a slow thoughtfulness to match the subject of the session.
One of the things that motivated me to put that session together in the first place was the idea that so many of the underappreciated values that make change happen are values that are typically coded feminine in much of Western society. Things like listening and consensus building and prioritizing relationships and process over outcomes and productivity.
These are skills I’m really good at.
🌀 I read the tones of a group and know how to shift a conversation in response.
🌀 I listen attentively and synthesize ideas in the room to take people in a new direction.
🌀 I make spaces where people feel OK to be tender and open and vulnerable with each other.
🌀 I celebrate nuance and encourage groups to add more points of view.
🌀 I give people opportunities for some of the fun and connection and focus that seem increasingly missing from many aspects of our lives.
Those aren’t often skills that get trumpeted from the rafters. They don’t get the marquee treatment. They’re the kind of skills that are subtle and subtextual, the kind of skills that, if well deployed, are hardly noticed as skills at all.
They’re the kind of skills that help make soil more fertile for the seeds of change to grow.
All this ambivalence and mixing around is why I’ve identified myself in Feiler’s scheme as being in a BCA moment (if you forgot from the beginning of this, that’s prioritizing Belonging, then Cause, then Agency). As I head into year 3 of working for myself, maybe that shift will move A back up the list.
Or maybe the cyclical model of thinking of my business as a forest (constantly moving through the cycle of ↪new growth→maturity→creative destruction→germination⤵) that Jessica Lax recently introduced me to is where I’ll sit for now.
Some wonderful collaborations and opportunities are on deck for me, in that lower left germination quadrant, and I hope to be able to share them soon.
In the meantime, I’ll keep on working for change in ways that don’t put me at the center. And I’ll try to keep being honest about how I struggle with that.
I’ll also take the chance to “officially” put it out there that I’m absolutely open to speaking/podcasting/guest blogging/consulting adventures you may be pursuing.
I’m a good public speaker, a good writer, and a good conversation partner if you want someone to talk about
🌀 exploring change work at various paces
🌀 holding onto nuance & multiplicity in hard times
🌀 being an eclectic human whose many kinds of nerdery influence her work
🌀 starting a consulting business that intentionally tries to avoid some established consulting patterns
Last up, in the spirit of my Q1 goals to center reflection and spread ease, and after some curiosity about my end-of-year reflection session last year, I’m planning to host one of these at the end of each quarter of 2024.
Think of them as a hold on your calendar for time to reflect on the quarter just past in whatever way you like.
It’s my own version of GRWM (which, if you’re not up on your TikTok trends, usually stands for Get Ready With Me), only I’m cheekily calling it Get Reflective With Me.
Q1 2024 GRWM Reflection Session
Mar 28 11am-12pm ET
Come to write/draw/doodle/meditate/dance/whatever in quiet community.
Drop in/drop out. Bring whatever reflection methods you like.
If you don’t have any in mind, anyone who registers will get a PDF gift from me of some suggested prompts.
I’m offering this as a pay-what-you-wish gathering, so contribute however much you feel is fair via Ko-Fi.
Creative Prompt Coda: By hand, without consulting any reference source, draw a map from where you are to a place you love.
