Authority, Experience and Ego
The players do not look like the characters
The other day, a conversation in the Blood Furnace made me think about the difference between authority, experience and ego. Allow me to explain. Bear with me here, as I have to include a bit of background for the MMO-uninitiated.
“BF” is a dungeon in World of Warcraft, the massive online game that remains my best method of relaxing at the end of the day. This means that five players (in standard mode) get together and fight tough monsters for experience and loot. Each character has their role – a “tank” who takes damage and holds the attention of the enemy, a healer who makes sure everyone stays alive and “dps” (damage per second) characters whose role is to inflict pain, suffering and death to the best of their ability.
The group I was in wiped. That is, we all died. It happens a lot, but this time it caused trouble: one of the players accused the healer of being stupid, which led to more arguments and the eventual departure of said healer. But during the argument, the accuser said one of the stupidest things I’ve heard in a long time:
“I have a level 80 healer, so I’m better than you.”
The thing to bear in mind is that World of Warcraft is not a difficult game. Reaching level 80 (the current maximum) is a question of time, not ability: even the worst player can have a level 80 character if they play enough.
The argumentative person in question clearly mistook experience for authority, equating the fact that he (or she) had a higher-level character with better ability¹ and the right to judge someone else’s skill. This was fuelled by a massively over-inflated ego to produce an explosive disagreement which destroyed the group.
The same thoughts occurred to me over the weekend, when I saw a tweet pointing to an article on Mashable, the social media site. The subject was nothing new – it had been covered a thousand times by a thousand bloggers on a thousand sites – but it still caught my attention. Why? Because of Mashable’s perceived authority in the subject area.
In life and business, the three things – authority, experience, ego – are often mistaken for each other and considered as three parts of the same thing. But they’re not.
It’s possible to have experience without authority: look at all the little blogs maintained by skilled individuals who get a hundred hits a week; consider all the quiet freelancers who have undeniable talent, yet few know.
It’s also possible to have authority without experience, usually through a combination of a massive ego and a lot of advertising. That kind of power only lasts as long as the individual can keep up the pretence and avoid making a stupid mistake.
True authority comes with reputation. Reputation comes from experience, talent or a combination of the two. A pinch of ego puts experience in the spotlight for more people to see.
The lesson to learn?
Ego may get you attention but unless you have enough experience (or talent) to have earned true authority, you’ll end up making yourself look stupid.
Or, alternatively, don’t shout your mouth off unless you really do know what you’re talking about!
¹ Incidentally, the player sucked. We had a tank who couldn’t hold aggro, two good dps (myself included), the healer (who was being pushed to the limit) and the argumentative idiot, who kept attacking off-mobs and pulling adds. Duh.
Fascinating post, Spike. I love how you throw rope bridges between wildy differing points so we go for really interesting journeys. More please! P.
To add to what you said: folks who make it to level 80 on that game are more likely to have wasted more time than the folks who don’t. Gadzooks… what a waste of time. It has to rank up there with television and studying. The only thing people should do is reproduce. That’s all we’re good for. Now Genghis Khan, that’s what I call successful. Apparently he’s got a percentage of the world’s population as his descendants. Not only that, but he really kicked butt until his horse kicked his butt. It’s kind of too bad in a way. It would have been interesting to see how he would have faired against Europe’s best. In any case, whenever your head seems to be getting too big, you can always think of Genghis Khan to bring you back down to earth.
But to go back to your WoW thing: if being at level 80 is that person’s only source of pride, let him have it. If he or she needs to be boastful of it, quickly they might find they are without friends – or that their friends are equally deprived of good sense and etiquette.
Hey Spikester,
You spelled ‘authoritaar’ rong ;-P
Had a mate o’ mine telling me about an office experience the other day.
There’s a new ‘chick’ in his office. He took an instant (no doubt Karmic), dislike to her.
A few days after her arrival, they’re in an NLP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming), workshop. They did a couple of laps around the Myer Briggs Test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator ), and ended up in groups by personality type. He and she in the ‘Extrovert’ group.
Anyway, they’re all talking at once, of course, and this ‘chick’ is saying stuff to my mate. He took offense and ended up telling her to shut the ____ up! Of course she in turn took offense, and started quoting Human Rights Statutes etc…
Anyway, they both ended up in the boss’s office. Of course my mate was getting told that he has to lift his game. To keep the peace he apologised.
Interesting thing is this – He felt victimised because the expectation was that he should change. He made the observation that he could not be responsible for how said ‘chick’ perceived what he was saying and that she chose to see what he said negatively…Hmmm! Where does that one end? Or better yet, where did it begin?
It would appear that Authority, Experience and Ego are not mutually exclusive? :-p
I reckon if people didn’t say anything unless they knew what they were talking about, we could hear a pin drop on Mars?
It’s like asking folks to be responsible for their thoughts, feelings and actions…it’s a big ask and it makes crap TV
Folks talk about the miracle of life…I reckon the miracle is that we haven’t blown ourselves up already
Great post as usual Cobba
Cheers
Stephen G
Paul: Glad you enjoy the ride. I just hope those rope bridges aren’t like the ones in Indiana Jones movies…
Steven: Love the comparison of television and studying as wastes of time! If nothing else, WoW is a wonderful place for studying human nature: on my in-game friends list I presently have two people who are both very interesting, polite and friendly. One’s 12 years old, the other’s in his 30s – but they both express themselves in similar fashion and are both intelligent individuals. Compare that to the above-mentioned idiot and it’s a bit of an eye-opener.
Stephen: Putting “extroverts” together is never a good idea, as they have a tendency to lean toward “big-headed big-mouths”. Your mate’s situation sounds very much like that: two people who assume they are an authority because they have a loud voice and express themselves openly. When disagreements occur, they are loud, violent and messy.
Another example for you: someone I know is opinionated and mostly considered an authority because he talks louder than everyone else and verbally batters them into submission. If I disagree with something he says, it is calmly, quietly and stubbornly – yet we have no arguments because we both know we’re expressing opinions and we accept that there is no “100% truth”. A much better way to be – and one that wouldn’t get either of us dragged into a boss’s office!!
Hey Spike,
You don’t have a boss’s office mate!…Do you?
I would venture that you and your loud friend don’t have any arguments because one of you is not trying to be an Authority…because one of you has an ego that is standing happily on it’s own 2 feet and is not desperately seeking the approval/submission of others or relying on others for it’s identity and/or strength; because one of you has actual experience, knows it and has nothing to prove?
It’s like mixing fire and water…you just get steam and that can drive turbines.
But when there is fire and fire, you get fire engines and insurance forms and black sooty stuff and boss’s offices
Onya mate…:-)
Cheers
Stephen G
Stephen: Brilliant analogy, love it. Made me chuckle out loud. (As for the boss’s office, it’s mobile – wherever my lady happens to be at the time, of course!!)
Forgive my WoW ignorance but is it mandatory for all players to have, or be, a healer? Seems ironic such an egotist would choose to be one – or assert greater skill in that particular role – poetic the argument revolved around the healer character lynchpin.
Doesn’t real authority come from having had the experience of getting back up from defeat/failure, resilient in the face of criticism? Who can claim victory without ever having tasted mud, bearing in mind ‘victory’ depends on what, more than ‘who’ we perceive as the enemy? Mastery of self is usually the desired outcome for any martial combat, which that guy still has to comprehend…
Michael: Spot on, as always. Mudchewers of the world unite!
And as for WoW, no – it’s not mandatory to have a healer, but they are very much appreciated since they’re tough to play (they level slowly and everyone blames them when things go wrong) and good ones are hard to find. Lots of responsibility involved, as opposed to just standing there and hitting things.