Home Extras Interviews Tomas Vieira on management without ego
Those who remain stuck with their noses in the crisis, see no solutions
Together with is ex-wife Nouk Sanchez, the Australian Tomas Vieira wrote bestseller ‘Take Me To Truth – Undoing The Ego’. Today, its main themes are finding their way into the world of management, where everyone seems to be asking whether perhaps large ego’s are at the root of today’s problems. Goingforhr.be talked to Vieira, an author with enough management experience to give an answer.
In 2007 ‘Take Me To Truth’ stayed number 1 on the Amazon booklist for weeks in the category ‘Mystic literature’. A strange point of departure perhaps for distilling a new management theory but I hear ‘Managing Without Ego,’ your new book will do exactly that? How did you make this leap?
Vieira: “Perhaps I should first say that ‘Take Me To Truth’ isn’t a mystical or religious book. I could live with the term ‘spiritual’ perhaps. The message we give in the book is that one needs to go in search of one’s inner mentor, of the persona within oneself who isn’t influenced by fear or the past. I noticed that a lot of what we said in the book could be applied to the professional world; especially to company managers. People like Ben De Cock en Paul Meert, who invite me to Belgium for management workshops, confirm that idea.”
Everyone has their own story
Why do managers need to get away from their egos?
Vieira: “What the problem is? Look around you. Profit is the only indicator for company success, managers lie about their mistakes or cover them up, management is left to advisors while the top doesn’t participate but simply looks on, leaders hide from their employees and never ask feedback or ignore criticism that comes from within the organization, greed makes leaders blind, managers feed on past performances, organizations paralyze because they solely focus on the competition which makes them followers rather than leaders, … to me it seems there is enough of a problem that needs new theories and new paradigms. Besides that, this isn’t simply some ethereal or woolly plea: read up on it the Harvard Business Review and you will notice that renown professors make the same conclusions: leaders go for profit, never listen to their employees and fear any form of innovation or creativity.”
There has to be reason why all these thing you mention happen? Perhaps is simply human nature to be greedy and afraid?
Vieira: “In each and everyone of us there hides a white knight but that personality seems to get lost through experience. For seven years I was CEO of the national department for regional company development. We approved requests for financing start-ups and organizations in trouble. Once I met a men who grow more than 50 varieties of peppers on his own land. I looked him up because he was going to turn his hobby into his profession. After a long talk, I asked him what his motivation was and much to my surprise he wasn’t at all motivated to start on his own. His wife en entourage kept on telling him to do something with his hobby and eventually he started believing them. Ultimately he didn’t go through with it and found the courage to tell everyone he simply did not feel like it. That shows courage, that shows leadership: being able to step away from the ‘story’ and coming up for whom you truly are. Another story from around that time is about a company which had produced the same product for twenty years continually making a loss. When they asked for more money I asked them why. The CEO answered they wanted to keep doing what they were doing. He never fathomed to think of changing production methods or perhaps even his product. We did not give him additional funds but rather tips for re-training his employees and rethinking his production processes. In the past, there is always a reason not to do thing right.”
A false identity
How would you define ego? Something from the past that slows down our current functioning?
Vieira: “In our first book we call it a ‘false identity.’ It is a mask we want to keep in front of us because we don’t want to admit to our mistakes; because we don’t want to hear criticism and because we have a wrong sense of motivation. Profit can only be driving force for shareholders and leaders, but it is not enough for employees. Employees want a dynamic working environment, opportunities to be creative, an open atmosphere that can handle criticism whether it be positive or negative. Leaders need to create that kind of atmosphere and openness or profits won’t be an issue at all. Courage, trust, modesty en authenticity brings inspiration and motivation; ego takes them away. Why do succession plans hardly ever succeed? Because leaders don’t want to be succeeded; their ego’s don’t allow it."
You wrote your first book together with your ex-wife. Is that an example of how one should put egos aside?
Viera: (smiles) “You could see it like that. What my ex and I did is drop the ‘format’ but keep the content. Marriage was nothing for us but we work great together. In companies you often see the same thing: you can have plenty of qualified people onboard but the format they are stuck in seems to hold them back. In many companies staff effort and competences are second to company image, brand and company pride.”
How, than, can you manage without ego?
Vieira: “Leaders need to ask themselves what their intentions are. We have reached a point where efficiency is no longer something to work on. What is there left to achieve with cost-cutting? Mini percentages? Einstein once said that if you want to solve a problem you have to let go of the problem. What you see is that in times of crisis, managers start working harder and longer taking ever firm grasp of the steering wheel, while they should actually be out golfing and letting their mind run free. Those who remain stuck with their noses in the crisis, won’t find a solution."
