|
At one end, it's totally green. At the
other, it's totally red. As you transition
from totally green to totally red, you start
replacing certain amounts of green with red until
there's no green left. And vice versa.
In his book, Dan Korem proposes four continuums,
which he calls gauges. Two give you
information about the outer person, what Dan Korem
refers to as 'The Talk.' One of the
continuums is Asking vs. Telling. So at
one end you have a 'Mr. Rogers' type who asks a lot
of questions and at the other end you have Margaret
Thatcher type who's typically going to tell you
things. Then you have another continuum:
Emoting vs. Stoicism. Think Mork vs. Spock.
Together these two continuums create four
quadrants, which define four communication types.
He has labels for these. 
- Mr.Rogers & Mork == Artist
- Mr. Rogers & Spock == Accountant
- Margaret Thatcher & Mork == Salesman
- Margaret Thatcher & Spock == Sergeant
Since I like color, I found a color wheel and
labeled it.
In my diagram, I put Spock <-> Mork on the
blue-yellow scale and Mr. Rogers <-> M.
Thatcher on the red-green scale. A
person near 'A'
is going to have a very distinct leaning towards
asking questions (Mr. Rogers) and controlling their
emotions. (Spock.) (reminds me of the
guy who interviewed me in immigration...) A
person near 'B'
is going to be a little bit like that but not so
extreme. They are both Accountants. A
person near 'C'
is going to still be more reserved (Spock) than not
but be more telling (M. Thatcher) than not (Mr.
Rogers) - aka Sergeant.
The closer someone is to the middle, the less
entrenched they are in their behavior - like they
might be more red than green, but they are both red
and green.
And each of these traits can be expressed in a
positive way or a negative way. And this is
just 'The Talk' part of it.
The other two continuums tell you about the
inside of the person - what he refers to as 'The
Walk.' These continuums are confident
<-> fearful and predictable <->
unpredictable. So from this layer
you get folks who are:
- confident & predictable == Manager
- confident & unpredictable == Innovator
- fearful & predictable == Conformist
- fearful & unpredictable == Random Actor
So what happens when you have a fearful person
who's highly unpredictable? Not good things.
This is the person Dan Korem calls 'The Random
Actor' and he's done a lot of research into this and
developed programs for schools to help alleviate the
devastation that Random Actors can bring about.
If I won the lottery, I would invest in this.
I would pay for this program in as many schools as I
could get it there.
Going a little bit on memory here, one of the
things he's figured out about Random Actors is that
they had poor authority relationships. (in it's
simplest concept this means bad dad images, but men
and dads aren't the only authorities that shape
children so in the case of the Random Actor their
own Dad may or may not be the person to point to
here.)
In his book, most of his examples are of men.
Why? Random Actors are the ones who go postal.
They're the ones who start cults and kill off the
followers. They're the ones who mow down
students on a campus. In short - they're the
ones in the news. But what of the girls?
Is it only guys who have problems with Dads and
authority?
So getting back to my recent foray into
disappointment. It seems to me that there is
an archetype of 'The Damsel in Distress.'
This is someone who appears to be in a pickle all
the time. This pickle is the reason they can't
do things they're supposed to do. This week
it's one flavor of pickle, next week it's another.
Over the past half year, I've gotten a new flavor of
pickle every week. Each new pickle is another
reason for them to do less and less of what they
said they would.
To be fair, it started out with this person in a
pickle. But I thought, (emphasis
on *I* thought) there was also the
promise to turn things around and make good on that
promise - to apply oneself to alleviate the first
pickle. Because I had solutions for how to get
back on an even keel and I was happy to share them
and, to me, life is better on an even keel.
Toss the drama. Toss it.
But I was wrong on that account. My
thinking was only in my own head. (this is the
downside of 'tell' btw.)
The first pickle couldn't be fixed because of the
second pickle. That couldn't be fixed either
because of the third. Then there was a fourth.
Then the fourth did get fixed but the first three
were still left hanging. Then there was a
fifth. Then a sixth. Then maybe a
solution to one of them... but not really.
These were all really horrid things and very often
seemed entirely out of the scope of control.
But, bear in mind, all solutions I put on the
table somehow evaporated. They couldn't be
implemented because of the new pickles (I now see,
belatedly, I should have been making relish!)
Then it became *MY* problem that I didn't
understand the gravity of these pickles, this person
was blameless in these things, they were just
happening to her, out of her control, and it was
suggested that since I knew there were problems
initially, it was my fault to begin with, how could
I be so unfair as to think she should fix any of
these problems? Why was I so ungrateful about
going around mopping up after her? Didn't I
know better?
Well, eventually I got a bit fed up with all of
this.
I don't mind helping someone who will help
themselves, but I surely don't want to get blamed
for someone being a slacker and refusing to help the
situation themselves.
It didn't make sense. I thought this was a
solid citizen person, capable and good for her word.
What had gone wrong? There were any number of
solutions that could have worked, but none of them
were even attempted. Instead, somehow I got
blamed for not taking over her responsibilities.
So then I got to thinking about folks who talk a
good talk but don't deliver on anything - and that
got me to thinking of the Random Actor. Maybe
the female version is 'The Damsel in Distress.'
She who will always need rescuing.
|
