I’m not a fan of TED Talks. What’s the point of recruiting interesting people who are experts in their field – who have highly detailed and specialized knowledge gleaned from years of intensive study – if you are going to impose an 18-minute time limit that forces them to generalize to the point of meaninglessness? No introvert thought that up, that’s for sure!
I’m similarly unenthused about “Big 5” personality trait theory, the extrovert bias of which I have ranted about elsewhere. I mention it only because one of the Big 5 traits is “agreeableness,” which is probably the inspiration for the same-named trait mentioned in this TED Talk.
Give and Take
Yes, this post is about a TED Talk, by organizational psychologist Adam Grant. Despite my skepticism about the format, his discussion of workplace sharing styles and how they relate to productivity and career success is highly relevant to my own experience.
Grant defines the sharing styles as taker, giver, and matcher. About a quarter of people are givers, a sixth are takers, and the rest are matchers. It’s interesting that a substantial majority are matchers. I’m betting most people think only in terms of givers and takers.
Go on, watch it. I can wait. You’ll love the part about the Canadian national slogan – so HSP! Continue reading
I’ve never liked the concept of leadership, since leaders necessitate followers, and followers are what’s wrong with this planet. Not that we can’t all learn from one another. We not only can, we’d better. But the “one another” part of that is crucial. True role modeling is an all-way process, lubricated by the understanding that everyone has something to teach and something to learn.
I had a conversation with a stranger about this once. I don’t recall how it came up, but the example under discussion was deciding what to do in a dangerous situation. She said in a situation like that, she’d be glad of someone to tell her where to go. “Even if it’s the wrong way?” I asked. She didn’t know how to answer this. As an opinionated person, I know perfectly well that force of belief is no measure of correctitude (it is too a word), but in her mind, authoritativeness and knowledgeableness were so inextricably linked that she couldn’t conceive of one without the other. Now that’s really dangerous.
sensitive type 