# Too Big to Know Yourself By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-03-19 Hugh Laurie is a British actor who played an American doctor on the popular TV show House. For the role, he had to learn to speak with an American accent. He became so good at it that most Americans thought he was American. However, Hugh has indicated it was an endless struggle as most British people have a keen ear for accents. As a result, he would agonize over getting his American accent correct but learned after many years that Americans don't pay that close of attention to such things. He said that America is simply too big to know itself, so minor errors like accent differences are largely missed. His statement about being too big to know itself struck me as a brilliant insight for not only countries but also organizations and ourselves. It is said that you can only manage about 150 relationships. How many of your social media "connections" do you really know and maintain a good relationship with? In all likelihood, it's probably less than 150. Yet, we've created constructs such as digital social networks and organizational hierarchies that number much greater than this. If we think of organizations and countries as entities numbering in the thousands or millions, how could they possibly know themselves? There are just too many connections and too many people. If you consider yourself as a product of the company you keep and that number exceeds 150, how could you possibly know yourself? As we augment our ability to digitally account for more relationships that poke us in a variety of directions, we lose touch with who we are. We become strangers to ourselves. How much does this explain about today's society? We can connect instantly with millions of people. Yet, we have nothing to say beyond mindless small talk and status updates. We are too big to know ourselves. Time to reverse course. #### Related Items [[Identity]] [[Work]] [[Development]] [[Mindfulness]] [[Organizational Analytics]] [[Technology]] [[Relationships]]