#maturity
By: Perry Timms
Tags: Agile, Emotional Intelligence, Organizational Culture, Self Management, Maturity

When do we ‘get’ to be mature?

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

I remember my teenage years of mild rebellion and yet respectful compliance and thought that was mature. Even in viewing my citizenship as a teenager, I was always on the side of being responsible and good about my part in a civil society.

Anyway, this isn’t about my emergence from adolescence into adulthood but it is about maturity in how we view work.

Now, work is a topic that is always capturing a lot of our attention because, well it’s a massive part of who we are and our time on this sphere. I’ve had people who attest that all work is bad for you and we should all be poets and dreamers. That’s still work in my view — stuff you do.

Of course, work can be bad for us: the highest-ever levels of workplace-related stress ever irrefutably prove that. Yet it’s a harsh reality of life that you will work. Earn money for your graft and toil and then ‘live’.

If like me, you love what you do for a living, then you ARE your work and life and work are indistinct. Now, whether that state I find myself in is maturity or a child-like dependence on something is up for the psychologists to debate.

What is clear to me is that maturity IN work helps an awful lot. And many of us are not as mature about work as we think we are.

I’ll now loop this into my fascination, commitment and belief that self-managed ways of working are the best to create alignment to purpose, meaning, based on principles, is a more rewarding, fulfilling system of work and helps you flourish more as an individual, And yes, I think it helps you mature as a human being.

Being managed by others is an archetype of the industrial era (of course in foraging bands, tribes and institutions before that we also had dominant figures — but you get what I mean here). And being managed is often a parent-child relationship however you look at it. Often why Eric Berne’s psychology of Transactional Analysis is still quoted to this day.

In some exceptional circumstances, we have managers who treat us like adults and we behave that way and voila! Harmony, unity and trust.

In others, well-meaning managers treat people like adults and those colleagues abuse and misuse that trust. Disharmony, division and distrust not to mention disappointment and dejection.

It’s my belief that our maturity is a part of that reason why some — given the most enlightening and positive environments to work in — fail to realise, capitalise and utilise that gift of being treated like an adult at work. And the only reason I can put it down to is some people lack the maturity to respond well to that stimulus and system. There’s no oppression at play, little or no control, and freedom, liberation and choice are the hallmarks of self-management.

And yet self-managed ways of working are still considered fringe, limited and even undesirable by many — else we’d all be working in them, wouldn’t we?

There are lots of reasons why this isn’t the norm.

Maturity of managers is lacking and they choose not to let go and do something different than micro-manage their team’s performance

Maturity of people to operate in this way

Maturity of leaders who believe they have to control everything in order to succeed, including people.

Now, leaders may well have a point to reject self-management. If they say ‘well, we experimented with self-management and we saw 33% out-perform who loved it, 33% who did OK and 33% ambivalent and even slacking because they weren’t supervised’.

BOOM.

The system never changes.

Because the out-performers probably perform pretty well even in micro-managed environments (in spite of it more like) and then the under-whelming others are forced to perform so do. That’s simple math or physics there.

It doesn’t take a genius to work that out as a reason why leaders won’t take a leap of faith and install flatter, non-hierarchical systems because they ‘can’t trust their people to perform when the supervision genome is switched off’. Not just their own mistrust of the system but people’s lack of maturity and application when in that system. Individual failure is as much a part of this as systemic, leadership-infused decisions not to do more full-scale self-management.

So, we can’t just blame incumbent leaders and managers for the lack of wide-spread advancement of self-managed systems, despite Deloitte, ADP and other research proving ‘teams of teams’ that are self-assembled, self-directed and self-developing are considered more efficient and effective.

And then if we take a little side-look at Agile, the recent State of Agile report commissioned by JCurv and Truthsayers, shows that when people are in self-managed Agile states of play at work, they work harder but love it more. They get better results and out-perform by staggering percentages on time, quality and more. Self-management is a key element of a lot of Agile, as well as a system of alternative ways of working on projects in sprints etc.

So you see, self-management works. What perhaps doesn’t work, is some people’s under-developed maturity in that environment.

We can be immature or we can be mature by circumstance, sure. Maturity though is perhaps more a choice than we perceive it to be. We learn to be mature. We adopt a maturity of approaches. Should we be self-aware enough, we should be agitated by any lack of maturity we perceive we have.

Unless we’re coping with some defined mental health condition of course. I’m not ignoring the physics and biology of how the brain works and that our behaviours and even perceived maturity, can be impaired or even enhanced by its ‘wiring’.

So I’m using the Wikipedia definition of maturity to back this up.

In psychology, maturity is the ability to respond to the environment, being aware of the correct time and location to behave and knowing when to act, according to the circumstances and the culture of the society one lives in.

The status of maturity is distinguished by the shift away from reliance on guardianship and the oversight of an adult in decision-making acts. Maturity has different definitions across legal, social, religious, political, sexual, emotional, and intellectual contexts. The age or qualities assigned for each of these contexts are tied to culturally-significant indicators of independence that often vary as a result of social sentiments. The concept of psychological maturity has implications across both legal and social contexts, while a combination of political activism and scientific evidence continue to reshape and qualify its definition. Because of these factors, the notion and definition of maturity and immaturity are somewhat subjective.

Maturity is vital in determining someone as being responsible for their actions. UK adulthood has this threshold age of 18 (to purchase and consume alcohol for example).

When in reality, some 18-year-olds are less mature than 14-year-olds. Maturity isn’t a switch to flick, nor does it come in a box.

But before we go down that societal rabbit hole, let’s go back to work and self-managed systems again.

If you’ve never worked before, and you land in a self-managed environment, surely, you know no different so will adapt to the circumstances around? Kind of. But it depends on your maturity.

Your maturity will determine:

Self-representation — how you project yourself and your views. You won’t be devoid of social pressure, nor respect for peers or elders, or you may not have worked out how to find your voice or articulate yourself.

Self-development — you don’t know what you don’t know. You can learn but only when confronted with a problem to solve and you have no precedent or formula for processing that.

Self-direction — deadlines, agendas, priorities, workflow, all manner of how your work is set by you and not by a supervisory figure. So if you’ve little or no experience in work, how do you know what to do? You might relish being told. But then again, someone else’s imposition of a system may not be conducive to your natural state of flow.

Self-engagement — yes, we can choose to be engaged or disengaged. In some of the most engaging situations according to the things that stimulate and motivate us the most (cue Dan Pink — Mastery; Autonomy and Purpose) we may still flounder, be distracted by ourselves and others; drift, disappear, be not bothered, ghost and ignore others. Forced or coerced into engagement we may do so and learn that its good, better, nicer and smarter and then adopt that ourselves.

Now, I’m not just guessing that those organisations who implement self-managed haven’t experienced people rejecting or struggling in this approach, because I know they have (from conversations a-plenty with self-managed organisation founders, Glassdoor reviews and more). And those were the people who left because self-management didn’t work for them. That may or may not have been down to maturity or simple preferences.

What I am suggesting is that we need to pay attention more to people’s level of maturity, especially in self-managed systems and organisations.

Not as a sleight on their ability but to help them cope with self-managed systems of working. Or, if it simply doesn’t work for them, in a non-judgemental way, agree that the nature of their maturity means they are best served to work in a more conventional or other forms of different environment.

I should add this though: We can be very judgemental about maturity. I’m probably in danger of doing so myself with this very piece. But there’s something stirring in my soul about maturity that’s not surfaced before now, in relation to my interest in self-managed teams.

Back to judging.

We can over-label someone who is fun-loving and positive as immature. We can label people who are negative and critical of things as demonstrating maturity and that they are not getting carried away with an idea.

When neither of those may be ‘right’.

The fun-loving person has developed a maturity on life that they know how essential it is to our chemical balance to laugh, let go of inhibitions and generate energy through playfulness. Hardly immature that.

And the critical person may be a fearful, power-hungry individual who kills others ideas because they’re not their own. Hardly mature that.

We, therefore, have to be discerning about maturity. It’s a strong, powerful and at times incredibly reliable trait. It’s also very easy to fool yourself, talk yourself into feeling mature when you’re papering over your own psychological developmental cracks.

OK, there may or may not be something in this. So what?

Firstly, we may describe a traditional hierarchical system of layers of managers as the sign of a mature business. I think that’s questionable and is perhaps the sign more of a traditional business. And that may be OK for you and the nature of your work, but as Amy Edmonson and Michael Y Lee’s research has shown, in stable conditions, hierarchies are OK. In unstable conditions (like most of the world now right?) it’s not so OK. So let’s not label a conventional pyramidal structure and cultural norms as a mature business. It’s not necessarily that. It might just be an old format which doesn’t mean mature — indeed my harshest self would describe this as a psychologically under-developed model of working relying purely on control and mechanised repetition. Many immaturities may lie within in it like the psychological and developmental restrictions that impose on people’s own degrees of maturity. If we’re always in a parent-child scenario, we’ll be either/or.

Secondly, we may not wish to describe alternative or even radical, non-hierarchical, self-managed, agile organisations as immature (well we often say start-ups which means pre-adolescent in business-speak). There may be more maturity in the people in that system and thereby, a mature adult-to-adult system is evolving and may well sustain the growth and performance of that enterprise. I’m showing my bias a bit here but I call it an aggregated belief after researching self-management for over a decade now.

Thirdly, and most importantly for me, we need to help people understand their true level of maturity whatever the environment (traditional hierarchical or self-managed). Not just our assessment or theirs. We need an open, dialogic approach to all-things maturity.

Some of us — with whatever we judge or assess it — have under-developed levels of maturity. Depending on the life choices we make, that’s probably OK for such a way of living. And I sense that we can cope or even thrive better in that state in traditional environments. That’s not to say such a vast array of our business world is stocked with immature people because that’s not my point. My point is that someone with that type of maturity is more likely to be OK in this parent-child model no matter what. Those with stronger senses of maturity will — paradoxically perhaps — also be OK in that environment. It may (or may not) eventually lead to discord and departure in seeking more agency, influence and self-direction though. I’ve often seen that and experienced it myself. Traditional hierarchical environments may be more tolerant of whatever level of maturity you have.

And so by the same virtue, some of us will thrive more — or not — in self-managed environments. Which is where I think there’s a stark difference between traditional and self-managed environments and people’s levels of maturity. You could say, self-managed environments are less tolerant of under-developed levels of individual maturity. That thought hadn’t really occurred to me until now.

So in summary, it seems (to me anyway) that we’re all mature enough for traditional environments but not all of us have a kind of maturity that fits self-managed enterprises.

‘Based on what sciences’ you might say?

Much of ‘maturity’ based science and psychology is on the adult-child paradigm. With some acceptance of the forming point of adolescence.

An article from the Times of India struck me as a good definition of maturity:

So, drawing from the power and resources within yourself, maturity is the art of being responsible for your actions, being sensitive and considerate towards others and having the ability to change and adapt to circumstances. An emotionally mature person is always adding value to themselves and those around.

And it goes on to say:

“Emotional maturity means being centred in yourself instead of being self-centred.” The author Katies Hoban, a data scientist, speaks of three Rs — Responsibility, Responsiveness and Resilience. So, drawing from the power and resources within yourself, maturity is the art of being responsible for your actions, being sensitive and considerate towards others and having the ability to change and adapt to circumstances.

Responsibility, responsiveness and resilience appear to be more needed in self-managed environments than traditional hierarchies.

And in respect of what we might be able to ‘measure’ about maturity, may also find itself in the theoretical field that is Emotional Intelligence.

In that field, a broad study of EQ (Emotional Quotient) tools assessments revealed these elements that demonstrate a high EQ:

A robust emotional vocabulary

Curiosity about people

Embracing change

Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses

A good judge of character

Difficult to be offended

Saying no (to self and others)

Letting go of mistakes

Give and expect nothing in return

No grudges held

Neutralising toxic people

Not seeking perfection

An appreciation of what you have

The ability to disconnect

Negative self-talk is suppressed

Others do not limit your joy

I’d say that’s a pretty mature set of principles, traits and attitudes whether there’s true ‘science’ in EQ or not.

It’s also worth saying that you may have a strongly developed sense of maturity, and you are not predicated to choose, or work, in a self-management environment. It’s not a causal trail of destiny. We all have a degree of agency over ourselves and that may not be a desire, preference or naturally occurring circumstance. For the avoidance of doubt, you can be of supreme levels of maturity and operate very successfully in traditional hierachical organisations. It’s not either/or.

Self-management though is a deliberate and willful act of departure from the traditional norm in organisational, business and working life.

It may be emergent.

It may be decreed by, or requested of, a founding source of an enterprise.

It may be an edict from a leader who recognises something different is needed in their enterprise and intentionally directs others towards self-management.

This whole piece is urging us to think more on people’s level of maturity to work in a self-managed way.

As I said, my premise is, traditional structures and processes can hide immaturity and leverage maturity in equal measure. Self-managed systems starkly bring to light maturity and immaturity. And the maturity in an individual sense is a winner here, and if individual’s maturity is not so developed, it’s a pretty clear loser if continually under-developed. People can still choose to mature and learn and as in the quotes above, choose to develop their maturity through responsibility, resilience and responsiveness.

And it is my assertion that under-developed maturity in individuals will see them struggle more in self-managed systems than in traditional command-and-control hierarchies.

I’ll close with this quote from the Times of India piece on maturity:

“Maturity comes when you stop making excuses and start making changes.”

I’m not making any excuses for seeing self-management as a sign of maturity. Of business and of people.

I still see it as the future state, more able to cope with change, as an aspired way of being and I’ll keep trying to make those changes as a key part of the maturity of my working life.