What could you do with an alter ego?

Not long into my first gig as a senior public servant it would be fair to say that I was finding it a very challenging operating environment. I’d been asked to do a pretty clear job – build an internal consulting team and lead initiatives that would create new capability and sustained business change.

I wasn’t finding it challenging from a technical perspective - the work was totally in my wheelhouse. But I had spent the vast chunk of my career in the private sector, and I was in the throes of working out how to be effective within this strange new public sector environment.

At the time I had a wonderful executive coach, who recommended I read a book called The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman and encouraged me to develop my own alter ego that would recentre my effectiveness in this new environment.

At first, I found this whole concept of alter egos extremely off-putting and confronting. I resisted engaging with the book for weeks.

The whole idea struck me as being self-centred, a bit dramatic or manipulative perhaps, and something that only a world-class athlete or a movie star would do. (Who am I to create an alter ego!). I think a lot of my resistance was because I struggled to find a hero or mentor to model my alter ego on,

After I stopped having my tantrum and just read the rest of the damn book (I will forever be a WIP), it was obvious that an alter ego would be useful. (No surprises, there!)

The value of the process came from identifying the sort of traits and ways of being that I wanted to bring forward, and describing them in a way that allowed me to get into that zone whenever I needed to.

The approach bears some similarility to a practice I had used for many years developing high-performance project teams. In that collaborative, team-based process, individuals are encouraged to notice their mood, or way of being, and get familiar with generating a new, more helpful mood, if it would be of greater service to the team’s goals.

The best version of me

My alter-ego specifically called out a desire to cultivate humility and move beyond my technical expertise (something I’ve talked about before). Here’s what it says:

My purpose is to be brave enough and have a big enough heart to positively impact those around me in a way that is unusual.

So that when I work with others their experience is that they have been heard, that they are in good hands, and that they matter.

From that key purpose, I wrote a number of statements about who my alter-ego is, how she shows up, behaves, and feels. You can read the detail in the image, but the headline statements are:

As a side note, for some reason, my alter-ago was called KP1. This came at the suggestion of my esteemed coach and may have had something to do with boxing. It was lost on me, but I had other things to worry about at the time!

• KP1 says “Being a public servant doesn’t mean I can’t be effective”

• KP1 is sharply focused

• KP1 is savvy

• KP1 is brave

• KP1 is clear about her domain knowledge

• KP1 is connected

This excercise gave me immense peace and clarity that helped me to build intention, to remember what I stood for, and trust in myself to work it out. I still find it a very powerful thing to read. The statements I wrote reflect the best of me: who I am, my values, and who I want to be.

When I was living in this new, chaotic place called the public service, I often found myself in situations where it seemed easier to NOT be this person - if I had a bad day or a particular interaction that didn’t go well - I could have easily shown up differently. Disconnected. Unfocused. Afraid.

My alter-ego mind-map was there to guide me through how I wanted to show up. Even when I didn’t meet this intention, tt helped me to consider what I could have done differently and learn from the experience.

And now that I have left the public service I do feel proud that for the most part, I think that people did experience me like that. It was only when I moved on that I heard from all the people that had noticed, of course.

Could an alter ego help you, too? Why not grab a piece of paper and try it out?

Here’s the link to the book if you’re interested: Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman

Hi, I’m Kristine Posthumus.

I’m an advisor, facilitator, coach, and doer with a background in strategic change in large organisations.

I’m also a recovering bureaucrat who writes about my experiences of unsquiggling complex business problems, with people in mind.

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