Figuring People Out

I've always been curious about how people think. Not usually what ---but how. Entering another person's world was uncharted territory and bringing my own maps tended to generate confusion. It's better, I found, to bring map making tools. Judgment is usually inimical on these excursions, as I had (have?) the tendency to advise people to think more like me in moments of unsanity ---and what a boring place it would be--- if we all thought the same. Worse yet, one can miss a lot of fun and interesting insight into how the mind works if they wade in with all the answers.

The key, I believe, to observation is to know about distinctions. These are subtle things, but I notice that most people that have true mastery of any given subject seem to pay attention to small, critical factors that less skilled observers don't differentiate or even notice. An expert in something may look at the same things we do but his attention sorts on different patterns. I'm by no means an expert on human behavior, but I'll share a few patterns that can prove fascinating when exploring maps of people's experiences, especially our own.

Some people will use one or the other of this first pattern on almost anything. Some will use one in some context and the other in another. Neither one is "right" but each provide a different set of perceptions and, subsequently, behavior. Once you recognize them, you can make certain predictions, which is how you validate these tools for value. You can also use them to communicate in ways that make a lot more sense to people by using their own strategies. But first you have to recognize them.

Option People and Procedure People

Options people are motivated by opportunities and possibilities for doing things a different way. Give them an idea on how to make a million dollars and they'll think of ways to improve it before they even try it. They like to bend or break rules and love to start new projects. They have some difficulty finishing said projects, however, and have difficulty commiting themselves to one task for very long because they hate the idea of other options slipping through their fingers. They like to setup, create and research procedures, but rarely follow their own systems through completion.

Procedure people, on the other hand, have a deep gut feeling that there is one "right" way to do things. Once they find the procedure for something they tend to follow it from then on without deviation. These are the people that finish things they start, cause when they start it, the most important thing is to get it done. They get annoyed by people that want to break and bend the rules because these people just don't understand the system.

Once you start using this little model, you can see why lots of people chose the jobs they did, and often, why some people find themselves unhappy with their work without knowing exactly why. If you happen to manage people, you'll understand how to use both perspectives advantageously. Option people aren't going to follow rules very well, they are better creating stuff from scratch and finding better ways of doing things; procedure people are good at producing a finished result and especially like to follow a tried and true method for doing so. Option people like to question why things work like they do and drive procedure people nuts who just want to know how to work this frigg'in software, not all they ways they could do it or some arcane detail behind why it broke that particular way. Just fix it, damn it.

So there you go. One toy and I have 23 more, each that polarize thinking in different ways. Sometimes these polarities define major chunks of a person's world, sometimes they just apply to certain contexts. You can probably imagine all the exciting insights these will give you and the specific ways they can be used for practical communication ;-)

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