The Organizational Self: Man in the Middle or Two Heads are Better than One?

I have been re-reading some theories of identity that I read about earlier in class to see how I can tie them in to my convincing paper. I drew on a lot of ideas from Mead and James for my inquiry paper, and wanted to broaden my perspective. While flipping through “The Self We Live By”, I stumbled upon the organizational self, and looked deeper into it. This led me to think more about how one’s individual identity and social identities differ, and which identity is more important. There is the concept of the Organizational Man, which puts “the group’s interests above individual goals and priorities”(45). It says that an individual by himself is nothing, and needs to be part of a group to make a meaningful contribution to society. While I think this theory has some valid points, there are parts I disagree with. Being an engineering student, I know the importance of teamwork. There is the preconceived notion of a scientist being a recluse always spending time running experiments in his lab, until he finally makes an important discovery. However, nowadays in research, it is rarely an individual that comes up with a new development to benefit society, but rather, a team of scientists that does so. For instance, in the 1800’s, an individual, Thomas Edison, was given credit for inventing the lightbulb. But today, developments in medicine and engineering technologies are given to groups of scientists from corporations or universities. It is this combination of resources and great minds that has advanced technology to the level it is at today.

However, I do not necessarily think that someone should sacrifice his individuality for the sake of the group, as the Organizational Man states. Every individual has different goals that he or she wants to get out of life, and it is up to that individual to achieve those goals. Sometimes, collaboration with others is necessary to accomplish what that individual wants, but I think it is easy for someone to lose their own sense of identity when with a group. It is rare to find a group of people who all want exactly the same things. Rather, groups are drawn together by similar interests, and each person contributes a bit of his ideas and individuality to the group to accomplish what one person alone could not.

From a non-scientific standpoint, I feel like I sometimes act differently in groups than I would if I were alone. I have a group of very close friends that I have known from high school, and I tend to take more risks and be more bold when I am around them because I know they will support me in my decisions. However, without that network, I would probably never have the courage to be as carefree as I am with that group of friends. In that sense, the sense of belongingness in a group influences my identity in a positive way. But it is also easy to become the “man in the middle”, when someone is part of a group and conforms to group behavior. Although sometimes I do become influenced by group behavior, I still try to stick to my own individual values and stay true to my individual identity. When people see me with my group of friends, I would hope that they don’t see the entire group as having the same identity, but rather as a collection of individual identities that all share some parts in common.