Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
故曰：知彼知己，百戰不殆；不知彼而知己，一勝一負；不知彼，不知己，每戰必殆。
So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.
So DownSpring Cyndi writes us a Comment yesterday. Prompted by the request in Monday’s Post, Cyndi’s contribution, Picasso’s Guernica, serves as an aperitif, ( Five Dollar Milkshake, if you will), brought to the conversational potluck dinner that is our blog. Cyndi’s Comment provides the focal point of today’s Post, a Post we trust that will offer an insight into the use and value of the Wakefield Doctrine as a tool for understanding the people in our lives.
( Cyndi? you have the floor):
Ooh! GUERNICA – I actually cried when I saw that painting when I was at the Museo Thiessen in Madrid – I could not believe how big, gorgeous and how MOVING it was. A-freaking-MAZING. Shall I send a version to you? There’s so much to that painting. In other news: you know what I want, Clark? A post on how clarks can better-deal with the emotional roller-coasters that are rogers. I know, I know…there was that whole thing with my sister. But today, I was in a professional development meeting and I was affronted by a stupid roger. He was a strong roger who liked to hear himself speak. He liked to take charge. I know he wasn’t a scott. Every scott I’ve ever met, I’ve been able to tell within seconds. No, he delegated himself to take charge of this little group we were in and then proceeded to “nominate” me to “facilitate” since we were practicing on how to actually ‘facilitate” groups in work settings. He told me, “you have a gentle personality.” Then, when I tried to “lead” (which I tend to be diplomatic and invite discussion) he proceeded to strong-arm me and essentially take over. Even others in the group commented. Once again, he didn’t piss me off enough for my scott to turn on, but I knew this time exactly what was happening. Instead of reacting, I actually started to meditate so I could tune the dickhead out. Then he told me, “you did a good job, but you didn’t show confidence. You should be more confident.” It wasn’t that I wasn’t confident, it was about halfway into this stupid activity that I decided I didn’t want to facilitate any more and I was unfamiliar with the process, so I asked for help from the woman running the conference. Apparently he didn’t like that. I was a little traumatized from the whole experience and there’s a reason I WILL NEVER facilitate a big group of people – it’s simply not in my DNA and I don’t care to – not when there are personalities like this that just utterly….piss me off. I’m comfortable on the outside in this case. I don’t WANT to be a leader, nor a follower. I have embraced my outsideness. I love it. If it means I have less run-ins with the emotions of rogers, then I’m better off. I can’t deal with that crap. Crap. I’m such a freaking clark. LOL
To the general question, ‘how (can) I as a clark, better manage the emotional roller-coasters that are rogers‘ and to the specific question, ‘how do we go about effectively managing the rogers in our (work/professional) lives?’, does anyone reading this Post have the slightest doubt as to the value of this ambition?
No? I didn’t think so.
Then what would we have Cyndi do the next time she finds herself in a situation with an aggressive roger and an established (albeit transitory) peer group? Two words: love the roger.
(You know that the Doctrine is meant to be fun, as well as useful, right? Then lets enjoy this very serious effort to understand the principles of the Wakefield Doctrine as we try to apply it to this all too common situation).
I said ‘love’ the roger. I did not say: like the roger, be a friend to the roger, hate the roger, ridicule the roger, try-to-get-the-roger-to-be-nice, tell everyone what a jerk the roger is being, hide from the roger, run away from the roger. But, in keeping with our having fun, (and this fun is kinda restricted to clarks who are reading this, who know how difficult and wearying this horribly common situation actually is in our lives…but this is the Doctrine and we understand. don’t we?), lets look at why this is the most effective approach to solving the problem that Cyndi has brought to us.
Cyndi is to be commended on her acceptance of (her) Outsider status. At the same time, her challenge is to accept her (inherent) rogerian and her (clearly evident, lol) scottian aspects. Never forget rogers and scotts are not alien lifeforms…they are us, with the insecurity volume knob turned up to 11. The Doctrine maintains that we all have the potential of all three worldviews within us.
OK! This ‘loving the roger’ strategy?
Its only right that I use my own damn self as an example. My own experience derives from a very similar situation: professional work environment, less structured, however, there are weekly meetings for all the associates in my workplace. These meetings are intended as an opportunity for the (actual) Manager to keep everyone up to date and provide an opportunity for everyone to exchange ideas and information about the work. The roger (in this example) is very successful in the work they do, but does not carry any official ranking in the group, which does not prevent this roger from ‘holding forth’* In the past, I would sit in these 45 minute long weekly meetings and listen to the incredibly self-aggrandizing bullshit come out of the mouth of this roger. I often found myself caught up in how incredibly clueless the person was, and at the same time, I could not deny that not only was the group listening to what was being said, but appeared to be appreciating it. Invariably I would leave the meeting thinking, ‘what the fuck! are those people children? are they deaf to the arrogant and condescending nonsense that was being said?!?’
Eventually I realized that I had to stop reacting this way, as it would be a distraction throughout my work day.
And so I decided to ‘love the roger‘. I began to participate in the discussion but rather than compete with or contest the roger, I made an effort to support them, to reinforce what they might be saying, even going so far as to referencing them as I made a point or ventured my own opinion. (ex. I might say something along the lines of, “...it’s been my experience that when dealing with clients in this situation, what is useful is….” and then add, “..as I have often discussed with (name of roger here) this can be helpful” )
Yes, I know! I will say to any and all clarks out there, this is not an easy thing to do, but it is worth the effort. You, as a clark, must find a place within where you can deliberately feel positively about the roger. If you do not, then this advice not only not work, it will backfire and things will be worse than you would imagine.
Eventually I realized that I had to stop reacting this way, as it would be a distraction throughout my work day.
And so I decided to ‘love the roger‘. I began to participate in the discussion but rather than compete with or contest the roger, I made an effort to support them, to reinforce what they might be saying, even going so far as to referencing them as I made a point or ventured my own opinion. (ex. I might say something along the lines of, “...it’s been my experience that when dealing with clients in this situation, what is useful is….” and then add, “..as I have often discussed with (name of roger here) this can be helpful” )
Yes, I know! I will say to any and all clarks out there, this is not an easy thing to do, but it is worth the effort. You, as a clark, must find a place within where you can deliberately feel positively about the roger. If you do not, then this advice not only not work, it will backfire and things will be worse than you would imagine.
lol… I will not say that it is easy. I will say that it is nearly impossible to do this thing right/correctly/properly but once you do, the roller coaster becomes a merry-go-round… predictable, somewhat repetitive, but you can always jump off and go find another roller coaster, god knows they’re there…all over the damn place.
Oh! before you leave! possible After School Special this Friday! tentative 3:30 EDT might be vid or just phone… let us know availability or suggested alternate times…whatever
* I think I borrowed this expression from Stephen King, in the novel ‘The Tommyknockers’
About clarkscottroger
As a roger with secondary clark-like aspect, I can appreciate the scenario that Cyndi described as I have taken over meetings when bored or if I felt that the meeting leader was incompetent. Hopefully, my secondary clark prevented me from being quite this obnoxious. Intelligent rogers do not “suffer fools lightly”. I also understand the strategy to “love the roger” in terms of that methodology decreasing the emotional “storm” for the clark. However, reinforcing obnoxious rogerian behavior (aka Axis II Narcissistic Personality Disorder) will probably cause backlash from co-workers as the roger becomes even more inflated. I would suggest using your clark- like stronger intellectual skills to talk/negotiate circles around the overbearing roger. It is particularly satisfying to be able to reinforce your position and “manipulate” them even when they don’t pick up on it.
Lise – I definitely appreciate that feedback. I will try to love rogers more. In fact, I was reading a book last night called, “The Magic of Believing” (Clark – you’d like it, lol) and the guy goes on for an entire chapter about sending out “good vibes” to those that piss us off.
Granted, since most of the world consists of rogerian types, incidentally I DO like most of them. It’s the loving the strong Roger that is most difficult, especially when they take it upon themselves to bomb you with so-called pearls of wisdom from which they think you’ll benefit.
I have a rogerian aspect? I think the scottian one is more prevalent. Rogerian…like when I didn’t give the dude who was criticizing me and clearly enjoying it a piece of my mind? LOL. Otherwise, I think my rogerian aspect makes up about 2% of my personality. Maybe less.
Let me dress up in my pinks, purples and scarves, wear my boots and dress the part of a mysterious old (but young) hag who sits atop the hill gathering bits of wisdom to pass on to other fellow human beings that enjoy lapping up unconventional bits of knowledge so they can embrace their own awkward outsideness….
I am more amused by the whole process than anything: tuning him out yesterday gave me pleasure. HAHAHA.
Oh, I SHOULD add that I did do my own bit of manipulation yesterday: when I clearly realized he wanted to strong-arm me, I LET him. I TOLD him to state what he wanted to say and to direct that part of the meeting – because at that point, I didn’t care. Then after he criticized me, I proceeded to tell him that I LET him do that, that I WANTED him to, and that I solicited help and discussion from the group to help me learn the proper process of “facilitating.”
It just made me realize that I never want to do that: be a facilitator. There are way too many rogers out there who want the floor and why not let them have it? I can live in my dream world, usurping rogerian ideas so that eventually, the world will be at my beck and call.
MUAHAHAHAHA.
(only kidding on that last line…but in this moment, I could argue that I really do feel like that…)
Teehee.
*evil grin*
Cyndi
By George, I think she’s got it! lol actually, my love the roger strategy is one of those things (like so very much of the Doctrine) that is focused on ‘you’ and not ‘them’. For me, it is about, de-cluttering my own emotional environment, often stirred up and littered in the course of interactions with the rogerian set. Then, with a more balanced perspective, the real task is to access my (own) rogerian aspect to allow me to make un-biased and non-coerced decisions about what I would do (in the given situation).
ya know what I mean?
So you tame them with positive strokes.
A strategy I’ve inadvertently (and vertently (and is ‘vertently’ even a word? (who even cares – a thing should have an opposite and I’m using it (so there)))) been employing. And seeing dividends from.
Lizzi
…too
lol, yes it is our damn conversation so you know that words are what you make them. That is an interesting and insightistic thing about clarks, that intellectual confidence thing. It is not that (as a clark) I think I know everything and I am certainly way away from the skill level that I would really like to be, but when it comes to the matters of the brain/mind/ideas/and thoughts and such there is a totally obvious lack of self-consciousness, quite in contrast to my behavior when I am in a social milieu or trying to get lucky.
..but as Cyndi provides the ‘real’ life situation to illustrate, the first step is for us (the individual utilizing this here Doctrine here) to achieve balance… physical, emotional and intellectual.
Insecure rogers.There sure are lots of them. Trying to overcome their insecurity by carrying things too far,confusing their controlling behaviors and aggressiveness ( learned responses ) with actual confidence in themselves. It takes a long time to sort all that out, the better part of a
lifetime in most cases.I speak from bitter experience, of course.
A meeting being chaired by a bad roger would be suicidally tedious, where a good roger’s would be quite concise.If you keep indulging the bad ones it will go on forever, because they will read the placation as positive reinforcement. Don’t do that; try to keep them slightly off balance without their feeling directly attacked. You will gain their full attention, and then they will surprise you by being quite open to the actual truth of the matter at hand.
Wouldn’t we all be much better off if we could just skip all the personal dynamics crap that we always manage to pile in front of ourselves? It’s always there,right? So just…step around it. Just this once. See what happens. How bad could it be?
RCoyne
I agree, which is, why I refer to this (strategy) as being only part of a whole. The first step suggested is to allow the personal dynamics crap to become not. It is incumbent on the clark (in this case) to ‘love the roger’ because that is the only way to eliminate the clutter, the crap, the fear. (and this is a strategy with one person only because, this is for her, not him).
Your question raises the inevitable question, which is, does this strategy work for rogers and scotts? I am suspecting not. and not for any ‘this does not apply to…’ reason, rather it (may) not apply because of the nature of the relationship between the other two. A lot of words needed!! damn
if anyone out there is still reading this thread* who happens to be a predominant scott or a roger, give us a real life situation! As Cyndi has done, tell us a situation that you have experienced in which you left thinking, ‘damn! that really should have gone better than that!’
* hey you! yeah…you can overcome your rogerian drive for control this one time, can’t you?
I, like most, have also experienced this and have found doing exactly what you suggest to be the best solution… and Im not just “clarking” your ass as you suggested. Living with a devout Buddhist as long as I have, I have utilized the concepts of accepting that which you don’t like and loving that which you find annoying.. the core being that you must embrace those aspects of yourself that live in the other… ie To discover where the impossibly annoying insecurity of the Roger is coming from one must recognize what brings that quality to life… how? By recognizing even the minute qualities of it in oneself. A Metta meditation is also called the loving kindness meditation in which at those moments when your head is screaming “You effing a******!” you instead override and send love and support in the form of thoughts that understand… what makes this person this way and please give them and myself the strength to better manage it in the future.
as an aside, I like the “love” concept without the actual humoring of the roger…
zoe
that certainly makes me feel good, not (necessarily) the implied validation, which is not, in and of itself a bad thing, but rather the sense of a commonality of response. (yes, my clarklike aspect is trying to get me to retreat into vagueness and indirectness.
As I mentioned in the Comment to Lizzi, the first aspect of the ‘love the roger’ strategy is about you (in the case of our scenario, Cyndi) and not about the other person (the roger). If I were to get all mechanicalistic on the process, I would say the first part is to achieve balance (and in the case of a clark, to eliminate the fear) and the second step would be to act. The Doctrine does maintain that we all have the inherent potential of the three worldviews, one is predominant (that is our reality) and the other two (can) be secondary and tertiary. That is not imply that one need mirror the worldview of the other person, but rather one would make a judgment with the outcome in mind which of the three worldviews offers the best ground for action.
more to follow
Hey! did you see the note about an After School Special this Friday? we’re looking at 3:30 and thinking to keep it simple and use the call in line for a conversation. (the number being: 218-339-0422 access code: 512103 #) if your schedule allows, would love to have you join us!
Im still shrinking heads at that hour …. maybe next time… sigh… it will happen.
Hey Clark, I meant to leave this link… it is the woodcut I so love… for yours and Lizzis art project… It is the second picture … its under Dr. Freud…how ironic?!
http://www.rewritten-redo.com/search?q=home+away+from+home
Great conversation going.
In keeping with a certain pitcha used in this post, I did, in fact, make a roger say “what?” yesterday, Clark. No. I did not “love” him although, however inadequately, I tried. But I didn’t care.
What I did care about was my lack of preparation for my “talk”. rogers can relate to this concept. If not sufficiently prepared, well, things don’t always go so well. In my case it was only awful to my own self (as a clark, feeling self conscious about failing to “act” rogerian enough?) in that I didn’t go all scottian on the guy. It is a practice thing, this relating to rogers. A roger’s way of relating to the world still amazes, baffles and at times catches me off guard.
After school special you say? Better get my butt as a student to school there….on the phone.lol
Denise
…thank you for that, you have eliminated any incipient rogerian ‘helpfulness’ on this thread. to attempt to understand a roger, a clark needs to set the word ‘understand’ in a category labeled ‘yeah, right’ and at the same time you are pointing us to the really key aspect of the ‘love the roger’ strategy, to eliminate fear.
But, clarks are not the only ones who are off guard or baffled…as a roger who works with a lot of clarks, I am often confused by a clark-like response to a situation. I then have to turn to a trusted clark advisor for translation. Clarks do not have a monopoly on insecurity although the outward manifestation of it is different between rogers and clarks.
Lise
“…the outward manifestation of it is different between rogers and clarks”
and that, ….that! is such a concise description of the work (read: value in application) of the Wakefield Doctrine. (Your) insight serves a double purpose, effectively pointing us to one of our favorite statements: ‘the Doctrine is concerned with correctly inferring how the other person is relating themselves to the world around them.’
cool
}I got lost about halfway through the first comment thread. I am still not very good at understanding the different worldviews. What I do know is I cannot stand a poorly run meeting. Or people in a meeting trying to overtake one. If it ever happens, I immediately begin to figure out how to end it. Whether it is being nice, pointing something out, calling for a vote, or simply leaving, I do my best to get myself out of the situation.
As an example…
Back to school night entails parents going to each classroom to hear from the teacher what the year will be like. Our kindergartener happens to have a teacher who got the job two weeks before school started. She was still learning the ropes when back to school night came along. She was struggling, to say the least. I felt bad for her, but let it go.
And then a dad raised his hand and asked for clarification on the report card and grading in general. The teacher was trying her best to explain something she clearly did not understand, but this guy would not let up. I looked around the room, and everyone looked uncomfortable. I raised my hand and asked the teacher if I could try and explain. I gave my interpretation with an example, the dad shut up, and we were able to move on.
How’s that for a scott reaction?
Does that help? Or even have anything to do with this topic? :)
Christine
help? why yes it does! You have given us the scottian perspective. Thank you. Anyone out there want to take the contrary bet? Who doesn’t believe that the teacher was a clark (“why, I’ve always loved children…they are so much easy to get along with than adults”) and the Dad was a roger (“please explain how my son, who was a superior preschooler, the records clearly indicate that, deserves to get theses kinds of grades!! I have it on good authority that…”)
I will go farther in thanking you for your participation, simply relaying your experience in this situation is all the input needed when we are discussing scotts, the Doctrine does tell us: clarks think, scotts act and rogers feel, so that was a very example.
(you know, you have only enhanced your value to this here blog here, we’ll totally not let up on seeking your perspective…lol)