I became a we in 1993 and back to an I in 1997 when I moved out of the area and my team kept everything going under their flag. In 2000, after I had enough of the mindless reactionary corporate culture around Y2K, I became a we again, though it was to be short lived due to the economic downturn following September 11th (a strange time). I became a we again when I merged my company with another around the spring of 2002.
By '04 I had enough of the partners with a terminal case of executivitis, sold my interests and moved outside of the non-compete radius of my contract. In '05 I became a we again when I partnered with another one person shop to bring high speed internet to rural areas (WISP). I resigned when I realized that I was doing all the work, not getting paid, and being accused of the embezzlement she was guilty of.
I continued on as an I and in '08 became a we again with employees. By '10 I realized my office manager was a better CEO than I could ever hope to be (imagine a 50 year old tech savvy Pepper Potts). After her divorce I happily demoted myself to CTO and she became CEO.
Today WE can accomplish more because the CEO can do the office, paperwork, and legal crap, while the CTO can actually (finally!) do what he's good at. Best decision I... err... we... ever made.
To be honest, realizing that the woman I hired to man the phones and file paperwork was CEO material whereas I was not was a humbling experience. I am very glad my idiot competition was around as a poor example, otherwise I might have studiously avoided this fact and tried to do it all myself. I may take him to lunch for that one of these days, just to balance the books for myself. The fact that it'll confuse the hell out of him is just icing on the cake
As I said in a previous post, untapped potential is a pet peeve of mine. It literally makes me twitch. The hardest part was getting the woman who had all this potential to realize it herself. She had constantly been belittled by her abusive husband, another IT person, for years and she had little self confidence. The day when she realized she could do something her husband couldn't was the day she hit the gas and left us all behind.
Back to the point. I think many of us try to be everything because we alternately feel that we are the only competent person in our hemisphere or that others may be better than we are and could steal our income. The truth is that we can't know it all. There is too much. We have to specialize and in so doing build relationships with others who specialize in those areas which we, out of necessity, neglect.
By combining into a collective, both in the organization and outside it we become greater than the sum of individuals which comprise it. As Aesop said in his fable about the bundle of sticks, "In union there is strength".
