Over recent years, the topic of individuality has been on the rise. Kids are taught at a young age to pursue what you want, follow your passion, and to express yourself. This isn’t a new or revolutionary idea, but it has become more widespread and pervasive to our modern culture. While we are taught to be independent with our ideas or our motives, there is oddly a lack of independence when it comes to handling life decisions or tasks. America scores a radically higher individualism score than the rest of the world. This is something that has demonstrated itself in my personal life that is worth sharing.
Being from America, the individual idea that we have has directly influenced the way that I view the world. I wouldn’t argue that I’m a selfish person, but I do look out for myself in many ways before I’ll look after others. This has demonstrated itself at my work. I work for a corporation called Paylocity. We are a fast growing payroll company that is extremely diverse. We have programers, consultants, IT, and many other departments filled with people that have different cultural backgrounds.
In the few short months that I have been working at Paylocity, I have seen my drive and self pursuit directly contradict a few of my close coworkers. One competency that I score high on is career ambition (Saunders, 2012). My ambition for growth, development, and ultimately self-gain is incredible high. I pursuit leadership positions, higher pay, and more work experience. I’ve seen this individual pursuit effect the perception from my other team that doesn’t have this same drive for self gain. One of my coworkers in particular that I work directly with is completely opposite. He is from Mexico which has a score of 30, as apposed to 91 that the United States has. He is content in his role not looking for much growth or self gain.
Interestingly, this pushes us to a similar place from two different approaches. We both try to help the team, build into others, and establish relationships with peers. Much of my motivation is for recognition and to be seen by the leaders around me. His motivation is purely to help the team and help them succeed. I am cheering on others, and genuinely hoping for their success. But my motivation at work is to build into my career and establish myself as a successful resource at work.
Sources:
What about the USA? (n.d.). Retrieved April 24, 2015, from http://geert-hofstede.com/united-states.html
Lominger Competency List. (n.d.). Retrieved April 24, 2015, from http://youremployment.biz/competency/lominger-competency-list/
Saunders, L. (2012). Identifying Core Reference Competencies from an Employers’ Perspective: Implications for Instruction. Retrieved April 24, 2015, from http://crl.acrl.org/content/73/4/390.abstract
Tracy Alan Plessinger says
I found your comments about individualism, and the fact that America scores very high on the scale for individualism, to be very interesting. You make the observation that there seems to be a lack of independence when it comes to handling life decisions or tasks. This seems to be a paradox. While we score high as a culture in individualism, we see individuals failing to live out that ideal. In fact, far from taking initiative and responsibility as individuals, the cultural norm seems to be moving toward dividing ourselves into victimized, discriminated-against groups. To be sure, there is still discrimination in our culture, but the greatness of our culture is that individuals have the freedom to overcome these discriminations and succeed in spite of them, based on individual effort. Rather than blaming our failures on the fact that we are victims of some real or perceived discrimination, we should take individual responsibility for our actions and their consequences.
Michael Mccormick says
There is a sense of all american in your post… we as americans usually and I’m say usually not always are striving to be the best at what we do. The U.S. is thought as one of the best countries and that thought process feed to individuals within the country. It is not bad to have that thought process but it always seems like a good idea to help others. Besides when you take a flight and the stewardess tell you to secure your oxygen mask before helping others.