July 2008 Archives

If you've been following this blog you know that in addition to technology training, change management, and openness, an interest of mine is workplace civility.  (If you are new to this blog, see Nice Guys Finish Last?, Confessional of a Blabbermouth Blogger, and Remember Ryan Ballas.)

As mentioned before my heroes are Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends and Influence People) and Bob Sutton  (The No Asshole Rule).  I find these books to be very useful in navigate organizational politics, especially in the IT world, which has more than its fair share of what Sutton politely calls "jerks".

Long before Blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, we had a name for these jerks when they popped up on forums: Trolls.  The Troll, a particularly nasty beastie, is an intentional jerk; he deliberately tries to provoke his victims.

However, I'd like to talk about his more insidious cousins, those who join Social Networks or forums with the good intentions of forming connections with people, without realizing that they are inadvertently exhibiting antisocial behaviors that damage the very relationships they are attempting to build.

I'll admit, I too, am guilty of causing offense.  As Bob Sutton points out in The No Asshole Rule, no one can go through life without ever having at least a few "jerk" moments.  At some point or another, we all may find ourselves morphing into the impish Corrector, the lowly Whiner, and the aggressive AlphaDog:

The Corrector

Of all the Troll's brethren, the Corrector is the smallest and appears to be the most harmless.  The Corrector will join social networks with the very best intentions; and perhaps in an attempt at being helpful, begin correcting those in his/her immediate sphere. 

Even if constructive criticism is helpful, and even if people solicit feedback, not every person is able to accept it without being defensive.  Thus many of those who come in contact with the Corrector are irritated or uncomfortable.

How to tell if you are a Corrector:

• People get defensive when you correct them.
• People don't want to share their work with you in the first place.
• Others rally to defend the person you correct.

What can you do if you are a Corrector:

• Ask yourself, "Is it more important to correct the person or preserve the relationship?"
• Try leading the person in the direction you were going with your correction, so that the person corrects himself/herself. (Example: "Is this what you were trying to say in your document?")
• If you must make the correction, be subtle.  (Just correct the group document or wiki without calling the other person's attention to the fact that you made some corrections.)

The Whiner

The Whiner, is a lowly creature who hopes to use his or her network to commiserate or effect change on the assumption that the squeaky wheels get results.  I gave this critter his name based on a nickname I overheard for a certain Penn State listserv, now forever burned into my brain as "The Network of Whiners".

The Whiner forgets (or does he?) that while he is complaining about the services offered at his institution, the very people who offer that service take pride in working on those services are part of the same listserv.  The Whiner misses that the overall point was not to abuse the people who provide these services but to network with them.

How to tell if you are a Whiner:

• People get defensive when you whine about them.
• Others rally to defend the person you complain about.
• People eventually ignore or avoid you.

What can you do if you are a Whiner:

• Reframe your complaint into a request.
• Begin your request with a compliment about what you like about a service.
• Realize that the people behind a service are good people even if you think the service is bad.

The AlphaDog

A larger-sized version of the Corrector, the AlphaDog is a territorial beast who needs to dominate his or her subject area by getting "one up" on any potential challenger. 

How to tell if you are an AlphaDog:

• You speak in jargon to a nontechnical audience and they seem clueless.
• Someone postures by attempting to talk-the-talk and you let them have it with a full-on Jargon Monoxide attack.  (You enjoy shooting these posers down.)
• You are uncomfortable in current company, so you use jargon so you don't get eaten alive by even bigger AlphaDogs.

What to do if you are an AlphaDog:

• Adapt your language to the level of your audience.
• Realize that someone who is posturing may just need to feel comfortable.

For a more on testing for "jerk" behaviors, check out Bob Sutton's Arse Test.  To learn about how to correct your own "jerk" behaviors, read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Once again my personal world and professional worlds have overlapped in a very meaningful way.  This time in the form of a science fiction television series for children.

I'm happy my kids would rather watch The Sarah Jane Adventures than Hannah Montana for many reasons, but this is not the blog for me to list all of them.  Let me instead focus on one particular episode, "The Lost Boy, Part II", when the show's computer, Mr. Smith, bent on destroying the Earth is given a new directive, and is restarted.

We all cling to our projects, our directives, especially if they are the bulk of what defines our position, or a whole department's identity.  But what if that directive, like Mr. Smith's, was outdated, was in the way of progress, or harmful?  Would you continue on course or would you question it?

There's a lot of force behind a large project, time, people, money, training.  How can one person stop that kind of momentum? So one person doesn't speak up. Not one person. Even if everyone thinks the same thing.

I dedicate this post to the rare and wonderful event when the stars align we are brave enough to change course.  This post is in honor of terminated projects everywhere!  (If you've been on one and put your life into it, you may feel grief at its passing, but you know it's for the best.)

My Twitter pals and I got caught up in a semantic debate today on the differences between "pedagogy" and "andragogy". Some highlights:

bpanulla: So why does the learning design community around here use the term "pedagogy" instead of "andragogy"? Habit? Conscious choice? Philosophy?
agyorke (@bpanulla): Andragogy is used in the field of adult education, specifically in reference to Malcolm Knowles and his work.
DanaCK (@bpanulla): Pedagogy is a commonly accepted terminology for all age groups - in my field and in education as well. Androgogy=semantics.

This got me thinking about an article my colleague Alisha Swaggerty shared with me about a year ago (The Value of Diversity: Diversity involves more than celebrating differences) and several recent posts about invitations, including the Chris Stubbs post that started it all.

On Diversity

The diversity article talks about making assumptions about our students' diversity and missing things that are not on the surface.  Anong others, example included a 20-year-old student who, on the surface appeared to be a traditional student, but was an Iraq War veteran with life experiences that differed from traditional students.

Additonally we may have students who may have enrolled immediately after high school, but have the added responisibility of being a parent.  On the flip side, many people write off gaming as an activity for kids and young adults, when there are adult students who have grown up with games since the days of Pong.

On Invitations

Chris Stubbs' "No Invitation Required" was in response to many people wanting to be explicitly invited before they would participate in the Web 2.0 world.  I made the comment that sometimes defining your audience too well may be an anti-invitation; it could make others feel they are not welcome in to participate in such a niche group.

Up for Discussion: No Jargon Required

So here's where I stir the pot...

• Why are we still making such distinctions between adult learners and traditional learners? 
  
• Who is an adult learner and who is traditional learner? 
  
• Are we underserving our students by making assumptions and trying to fit them into neat little categories?  What other audiences do we underserve this way?
  
• Aren't these distinctions as arbitrary as racial/ethnic categories, and, frankly, just as off-putting to the people who fall outside standard definitions?
  
• How does implying a certain audience affect the level of engagement for your audience?  Does feeling the course, program, discussion, group, or whatever was defined for someone other than you make you feel less likely to participate?
• Are semantic alpha-geek argmuents like ours just Jargon Monoxide? Do they poison they environment and make you not even want to participate in my discussion here? Thus, proving my point that you can alienate people by defining one's audience too rigidly. ;)