Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Confining the 4 tools of social interaction

The 4 tools for better social interaction
In a couple of posts ago (might have been as long as a year back), I identified 4 tools for better social interaction: People profiling, expectation management, perception management and sincerity. They are tools which I do utilize on a daily basis, certainly not as mechanical as you could imagine, but they have somewhat, to a small extent, become part of who I am and how I function naturally. Initially, these so-called tools were intended for the corporate/professional environment where they might matter more, where sometimes a little mechanization is inevitable and necessary, in order to pave the way for desired outcomes. If I were to add a disclaimer to the tools, I'd advice not utilizing them in a social setting, especially amongst friends and family. I shall provide a short rationale for this, but I guess I might have to elaborate on this in another post in the future.

The short rationale for the confinement of such tools
If one should think about each of the 4 tools, there's a high likelihood that one would feel that they are actually quite natural for people to 'utilize' such so-called tools in their daily lives. However, these are usually kept in the background, passive rather than active. Most of us aren't really aware whenever we profile people, manage other people's perception of us, lower ours or other people's expectations of us, remind ourselves to be sincere. These are usually SUBCONSCIOUS thought processes. What I do propose with the utilization of the 4 tools is an ACTIVE utilization in the corporate/professional setting. This involves constantly assessing ourselves in situations where we are utilizing any 1 of the tools, planning ahead to ensure an effective usage of such tools etc.

As I have mentioned earlier, this becomes slightly mechanical, but in my opinion it seems okay for the corporate/professional setting where everything is slightly more mechanical in order to reap efficiencies and well, in order to constantly remain as polite as ever. However, bringing this back to a social setting, be it with friends or family might make them slightly uncomfortable or irked. They might not really know the root cause of why they are feeling that way, but they could possibly sense that it has got something to do with you. Upon some further analysis you might risk being called 'artificial', which is totally possible and well, true!

People like other people because they feel that can understand them. People like other people when they know that they are acting themselves, that they are actually themselves. People don't like people who put forward an artificial and pretentious front. People become uneasy around such people and keep away from them. In addition, not everyone wishes to be 'managed' all the time. People want to feel what they would feel if it was the real you NOT trying to manage them.

Therefore it is absolutely essential that the tools are confined to the working environment.