Comments on: Ignoring Social Cues

By: Amber Whitener

Amber Whitener — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:21:43 +0000

I don’t know if you are off your rocker or not, but you do bring up a good point.

The thought provoking part, for me:
Why am I wasting time trying to “fit the mold”?

I have a great one of my own to fit into.

I guess it’s seemed easier to try to fit someone else’s mold rather than create my own and then try to fit into it. It’s all about potential vs. comfort. hmmmm. . . I guess that’s my next blog post. Thx Julien!

By: Michael Bigger

Michael Bigger — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:57:44 +0000

Coming from a small town in Quebec(LaTuque), wanting to go work on Wall Street and knowing only French, I never fitted in. I basically kicked and screamed my way to New York. All along I have told the naysayers they were full of sh*t.I made it pretty big considering my humble beginnings. Being a disrupter worked for me because I had no alternative. Maybe I am not a disrupter but instead a delinquent. I don’t know.

By: Joseph Engel

Joseph Engel — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:26:28 +0000

In high school my jazz improv teacher would always say, “Learn the basics, then throw them out the window.”

By: Darin Persinger

Darin Persinger — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:43:57 +0000

I look at the book INFLUENCER in regards to this. They share the idea of “positive deviance”, “Vicarious experience”, “Actual experience”.

By listening, joining the community, becoming one of them, you can discover where they want to go. No human being wants static, status quo. We desire growth and change.

Many people want to go some where and make changes but might not know how. If you can break their pattern or give them a vicarious experience its now up to them.

You can lead a horse to water…Or you can find a thirsty horse and lead it to water.

By: Tamsen

Tamsen — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:41:03 +0000

I think the mark of true Trust Agent is knowing when and how to use both.

By: Andrea Ross

Andrea Ross — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:47:32 +0000

According to Crash Davis, we earn our right to be pattern-breakers:

“Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You’ll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you’ll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press’ll think you’re colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you’re a slob.”

By: Lisa Yallamas

Lisa Yallamas — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:37:17 +0000

What you seem to be identifying is the difference between monochromatic monolithic cultures versus vibrant diversity – which takes a more skilled leadership model. Like Obama versus Bush.

By: Lisa Yallamas

Lisa Yallamas — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:27:13 +0000

I don’t know if “unimportant” is the word. “Chosen”. The chosen ones are rarely pattern recognisers. They use pattern recognisers. The leadership skills set of these two are completely different. The former need to control social patterns. The latter need to understand them.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:45:23 +0000

You have to completely understand something before you can know the best way to advance within in. You have to learn the intricacies of social cues in order to know which ones can be pushed or even broken. Instead of thinking of it as fitting in and simultaneously standing out, think of it as fitting in to know how to stand out later.

By: Whitney

Whitney — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:17:24 +0000

I think once you establish a rapport or common ground, then you are expected to stand out and deliver something to the table. If you are in the problem solving business, you really have to “get” a client’s position, and feelings and perspective in order to do a good job in finding a solution they can use, live with and implement. You stand out by showing you understand them and can reach out to them where they are, yet bring them along forward and provide the boost they need to raise their game.

It’s a dance, really, between same and different, between old and new, and the trick is to bring folks along at a pace that doesn’t cause too much pain, unless of course, you have a great group that loves the “band-aid” pull result, in which case, you can avoid what Dr. Martin Luther King called “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.”

By: Jana

Jana — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:40:01 +0000

What I’ve found is that you need to fit in enough that when you come up with something totally different, people listen to you.

If you are always an iconoclast, you run the risk that people will stop paying attention to you totally at which point you’ve lost your ability to influence people.

I think that there’s a time and a place, and that they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Or maybe that’s just my Rotman-branded Integrative Thinking curriculum coming out.