Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the truth about clarks, the facts on scotts and the prevailing opinion of rogers )
Lets open the Doctrine Mail baguette and see what tasty treats we have in here?
(From Jenny Radcliffe:) “ in room with Clarks yesterday who all thought they were Scotts! Odd? Is this common?”
(We tweeted to Jenny to see if she minds her question re-printed for this here Post here* …. while we wait lets get ready for our discussion tonight!)
Jenny tweeted back that we were good to use her Question! (at least I think she said yes, the ‘tweet’ was, “gd 2 ear luv Dctrine send hat!” We will take that as a yes)
So lets repeat her Question: …”in a room with clarks yesterday who all thought they were scotts! Odd? Is this common?
I will offer my initial response and then lets open the floor for Comments.
….while the clarks acting in a scottian manner is not totally unusual, all the clarks in a room doing so is (unusual). I suggested (to Jenny) that perhaps they were competing for someone or something that was not immediately apparent!
About clarkscottroger
Man Jenny – what an excellent question! First off – in a room full of clarks?! Yikes. And yet I would love to have been there to witness. LOL Perhaps there was some sort of domino effect phenomena going on. “It starts with one clark and before you know it”…naa-h. Competition? Perhaps they were honing their chops? In the safety of like peoples? :D Not likely.
There is a difference in dynamic(s) between a scott “proper” and a clark “acting all scottianlike”. clarks are not intimidated by scotts however the idea of a clark going all scottian on another clark? I’m going to have to think about this. Food for thought.
Question for you Jenny: have you “identified” your own self? If the Doctrine were to send you a hat, what name would be in red:):)
you mean?
http://wp.me/PRP3W-6c
Yes, yes that is it.
Now get to the rest of it. Be my “translator” for the day will ya?
Right, here we go then! I’m a Clark, definitely without question, so I sometimes may overthink things! I’m open to suggestions…
The group loosely worked together in a massive US corporate and they were based in I.T. They challenged every single bloody basic concept but caved immediately under any explanation. They didnt seem to have a leader even though “management” was in the room. No one showed deference to anyone else, let alone fear BUT they were undermining each other all the time.
They seemed to be trying to stand out but in group exercises clearly liked each other a lot and all of the jostling for position faded really quickly and they ALL said they would need more details rather than make a decision.
So, trying to be the most tough and ambitious person in the room (all of them) but then showing introspection and well, niceness, when in a group. I thought about Roger tendencies but then I am trained to read and understand emotions and I would say there was a TOTAL detachment from either their role or from any real feelings about the discussions.
It was really odd, tell me your conclusions…
Just to add, I was observing this from a distance and wasn’t a part of the group or connected to them.
I was just in a position to notice as it were as they were on a course near a meeting I was having that went on a bit in a conference suite of a big hotel.
They were loud and I was working nearby and overheard them ALL morning, plus all their breaks and group sessions were in the coffee area where I was working. This is why I would like opinions because I felt I would need more information to conclude properly but had enough to think Clarks trying to be Scotts…??
alright! good scenario, Jenny
As we wait for the others to weigh in, I will offer a couple of ‘Doctrine perspectives’
We all have the capacity to experience the world as one of the three personality types, choosing one (of the three) as the dominant worldview, the other two remaining below the surface.
This is a helpful perspective for 2 reasons: a)because there are times when one personality type will be acting in the manner of the other types, your example of a group of clarks is a good example…the key is (the individual’s) relationship to the world will not change. a clark can express aggressiveness /competitiveness and appear quite scottian…however they remain what they are…outsiders. This becomes immediately apparent when they win whatever they were being aggressive to get…lol they succeeded in making the kill…now what??? lol (and)
2) as there is a dominant aspect (when we call ourselves a clark or a scott or a roger, indicating that we live with the worldview that is characteristic of each of these) there is also secondary (and tertiary) aspect that often has an influence how a person manifests their dominant aspect. In our group (who we call DownSprings, for some reason) Molly is a clark with a strong secondary rogerian aspect DS#1 is also a clark however she manifests a strong secondary scottian aspect. Molly still very a clark, you would recognize her immediately but in some areas of her life she has a high level of drive towards orderliness, which is, of course, a primary rogerian quality, while DS#1 shows the mercurial temperament which is the influence of her secondary aspect.
Enough from me for now, the others, especially the scotts and the rogers will be able to show us a view from their (own) worldview that will be helpful.
The goal is always to infer the nature of the world that the other person is experiencing, the world of the outsider that we clarks live in, the world of the predator that scotts call home or the clearly defined place that rogers believe that they understand.
Were they collectively challenging every concept, or was it one person after another with a question?
I’ve noticed, when it comes to questions, there are two types of clarks:
1. Those who do their homework and rarely ask a question, not because they don’t have questions, but because, surely someone else in the room WILL ask it.
2. Those who always ask questions, no matter how clearly something is laid out to them. Somehow, they think this shows their involvement and want to understand.
Hi Jenny-
I’m the resident roger around these parts, please consider this as a possible explanation;
Just the fact that you were observing a group acting in concert indicates that they were all or mostly rogers. Rogers always like to have some mid- level power and authority in general, but if individually pressed for a weightier decision would certainly prefer someone else to go forward first ( and then support them wholeheartedly if it turned out to be a good call ) Any clarks in the vicinity would have gone invisible by then, and any self-respecting scott would have leapt at the chance to possibly prevail.
Both (Molly and roger) are illuminating one of the really (difficult) to express, but way useful aspects of the Wakefield Doctrine… and that is, the context of the foundation (of the Doctrine) is that there are three worldviews, 3 personal realities in which ‘normal’ responses of ‘normal’ people result in certain characteristic behavior that is (subsequently) referred to as being clarklike, scottian and/or rogerian.
To put that a little more simply, the beauty part of the Doctrine, as a tool to understand the behavior of others, is that it is based on the worldview, not the individual. It’s not that you would not see a bunch of rogers acting as Jenny describes (totally likely as the roger points out), nor is it impossible to see a gathering of clarks acting in concert with a semi-common direction, as Jenny brings to our attention in her Comment, although this is fairly un-common… it would even be possible to see a group of scotts working together to find consensus and closure on some abstruse problem in information technology… (lol as if) (although we all know if that were the case, the resulting computers would have a lot more lights, sirens and when it completed an operation, it would be built to make a noise like some bodily function…
Molly’s Comment hints at this… the scenario that Jenny presents is subject to the insight that is unique to the Doctrine because what we are always trying to do is understand what a thing or a function or an action means to the person… (as Molly says) in #2 ‘some (clarks) will ask question because that is their best effort at appearing to ‘belong’ to the group… to not appear as the ‘outsiders’ that they are and at the same time, as roger points out, if Jenny’s scenario is populated by rogers, the same outward action may be observed, but to the individual (roger) it has a totally different meaning…. a roger is affirming the presence of the herd, but a herd, (from a rogerian), perspective, has no head…and if they were all scotts …then all the actions observed would serve as challenges among the scotts, but for the simple reason to establish ranking….
The Wakefield Doctrine does not emphasize the meaning of (the) acts of individual, as much as it considers the inference of the way that individual relates to the world… ya know?