Well, as this is related , I'll put this here - sorry it is long - but quite intersting I think as a declared autistic replies to the blogger.. I think a very similar issue...
I'll bold a few things for those who want to page thru...
Office politics
"The field of psychology that focuses on this particular issue is
social psychology. And, fortunately, we have massive amounts of data from clinical research to tell us
how thoughts, feelings, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others: Use this research to train yourself to be someone everyone wants to work with
Social psychologists call
people who analyze social situations and try to match their public self to the situation “high self-monitors”. Self-monitors are very good at gauging what their audience expects in
Other people are low self-monitors. These people attempt to alter a situation to match their private self. These people have one way of conducting themselves and have no idea how to change for a given situation. These are the people who make inappropriate jokes at a client meeting or are too stiff and formal at a company picnic.
Chameleons generally disgust these low self-monitors, but I’ve got news for you: chameleons don’t lose opportunities for being difficult
to work with
10 Comments » Thanks for the excellent reminder. Two questions. You write: “Chameleons generally disgust these low self-monitors…”. Me: I don’t understand the dynamics here. Why does this happen? Is it jealousy? Or, self-sabotaging behavior that does not encourage learning… to improve? Second question. You write: “… but I’ve got news for you: chameleons don’t lose opportunities for being difficult to work with.” Me: I don’t understand this phrase. TIA.
Posted by Tamar | June 26, 2006
I think you’re right that low self-monitors are jealous of chameleons (high self-monitors). But by definitions, low self-monitors cannot identify how they are feeling toward other people well enough to pinpoint jealousy. So the low self-monitors come off as pissy and resentful probably without even knowing it.
When I wrote, “Chameleons don’t lose jobs for being difficult to work with,” I meant that low self-monitors *do* lose jobs for being difficult or unpeasant.
Everyone should strive to be a high self-monitor. The problem is, I think, that people need help — first, to know that they are not high self-monitors, and second to learn how to change.
Posted by Penelope Trunk | June 26, 2006
Are “low self-monitors” the ones who blame everyone else for their career failings? For example, if passed over for a promotion, they might blame affirmative action and say “I’m a white male and couldn’t compete with a ________ woman for the job” (they do this without looking at the________ woman’s performance to recognize that she was delivering what the company wanted and they were not).
Posted by Wendy Waters | June 26, 2006
Oh, that’s a really good question. People who blame other people for bad things that happen to them might be low self-monitors, but their biggest problem is their outlook — it’s pessimistic. here’s a link to stuff I wrote about the outlook issue:
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2004/08/yo..._happ.html
The issue of self-montioring oneself is can you read other people and adjust yourself so that you can relate well to each other. It’s in the same vein as having an optimistic outlook, but they are two different predictors of workplace success.
Posted by Penelope Trunk | June 27, 2006
I got to this post through a link from one of your other posts.
I’ve observed people for a long time, and a number of things about your article and comments ring false:* The division of people into high and low self-monitors
* The assumption that someone
being their best self will get along with everyone* The assumption that people designated here as ‘low self-monitors’, when
criticizing people designated as ‘high self-monitors’, are simply un-self-aware and jealous.
* The apparent
privileging of the ability to get along with people over all other abilities (goes along with the idea that if you are being your best self you’ll get along with everyone)
* The assumption that people
who criticize office politics obviously have something wrong with them.
People might do well to remember that sociopaths — people with little or no conscience — are frequently extremely talented at social skills, and can often flawlessly make people like and get along with them in any environment. They often thrive in the world of office politics. And yet because of their lack of conscience, they are also usually doing extremely harmful things to other people in pursuit of their own selfish gains.
They are not the only people who might have high levels of social skills, of course. But they
are the most extreme example of why getting along with everyone isn’t a satisfactory gauge of someone’s character. Some people get along with everyone because they’re both nice people and socially skilled (those are two different things). Some people get along with everyone because they are manipulative and socially skilled.
I’m autistic, which most people believe means lacking in social skills, although I think it’s a two-way street and research (genuine scientific research into autistic cognition, as opposed to pop-psychology platitudes about social skills being the most wondrous inventions since sliced bread) is starting to back me up on that idea.
Because I need certain assistance with things, I was once a client of an agency that provided that assistance. One of the people in management was a sociopath with good social skills.
I was the only person who could tell what sort of person she really was. Everyone else was charmed by her social skills, and thought that she was a really nice person.
She would, while being incredibly sweet and nice-seeming to most people the whole time
(I don’t know how all these supposedly socially-skilled people didn’t pick up on how frightening she was), do a bunch of things like: (deleted)
Personally, if given a choice, I put
ethical skills way before social skills on my list of things that are important for people to have. Ethics are really important.
They are more important than whether someone can get along with everyone in the world or not.Often, in fact, having ethics brings a person into conflict with a lot of people who are either highly unethical themselves (such as the woman I described above, who had wonderful social skills but no conscience), and also into conflict with people who do have ethics but are resistant to changing their practices. Often, having a
strong sense of ethics is enough to cause some people to dislike you even if you also have a strong set of social skills.I
have spent my life being targeted by people who have a good ability to make most people like them, but terrible ethics. (At least I think deliberate cruelty is a sign of bad ethics.) There is no way in the world, after what I’ve seen, that my distaste for such people is borne out of jealousy. (And the reason I blame these people for what they did is not a tendency to blame people in general for everything bad that happens to me, but because I tend to think that if one person is hitting or making fun of someone else without provocation it doesn’t take a social genius to figure out which person is responsible.)
In fact, I have no distaste for the ones whose sense of ethics kicks in eventually and causes them to change their ways. Nor do I have any distaste for ethical people with good social skills. I do have strong distaste for people who use excellent social skills to skate along with horrible ethics without getting caught,
and pick on people whose social skills (by most standards) aren’t so great, because they think it is fun.
I’ve met people who are genuinely nice, whose social skills are very good, and who are very ethical. But I would never measure someone’s ethics or
character by something as superficial as their social skills. Perhaps my lack of standard social awareness makes me blind to most of the
tricks many unethical people use to fool people into believing they’re really nice people. My distaste for “office politics” comes from seeing people like that continually getting ahead over people who have strong ethical convictions. (Which might explain the way corporations act in general.)
I do, by the way, adapt to people all the time. But there are genuine limitations on how much adaptation is possible given assorted ways my brain and body works. I don’t think these limitations make me inferior to people who can play the game really well, and I don’t think that social skills are the end-all and be-all of the world. I would rather strong ethics be emphasized whether a person has good social skills or not.
Social skills are sometimes more important in the smaller picture or the short run, ethics are more important in the larger picture and the long run.Posted by Amanda | November 21, 2007
Low self monitors aren’t particularly jealous of chameleons but they find them disingenuous.
Posted by Guy Incognito | December 26, 2007 As for why us so-called ‘low self-monitors’ hate the so-called ‘high self-monitors’, it’s simple.
We think these ‘chameleons’ are nothing more than lying sacks of dog poop who will do anything, say anything and be anything just to get ahead, and will fold, spindle and mutilate the truth till it conforms to their temporarily molded image.
Posted by jrandom42 | January 16, 2008
Can a low or medium self-monitor become a high self-monitor by training, reading or coaching etc? If so, what options are available out there?
Posted by himalaya | March 26, 2008
I think anyone that truly loves their job and feels happy while working has reached the highest level of achievement and should feel proud. One should bend over backwards on the job and go the extra mile in order to achieve and feel successful. That’s the statement to satisfy the person striving for perfection on his job!
Posted by Sue Vetrero | March 28, 2008
Developing stable relationships with coworkers or peers at school can be a simple task if you say what the person wants to hear and do what they want. You can’t do everything they want you to do but as long as its logical and does not harm other people or yourself it is OK. That is the main reason why I am disliked because I don’t follow that rule. You can not survive being yourself all of the time. People like to be told good things even if its not true.
The previous excerpts were taken from:
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2006/06/26...o-workers/
This could apply with Nt/s or non-NT's.
