What Words Do and Don’t Mean

Get Properly Oriented

The mentalities that determine the way we interact with others, to gain benefit, cannot be captured by observation in a single context or by use of a single phrase. The key terms in the Process & Benefit column of the matrix are important, but they cannot be totally and exclusively owned by any Approach.

Examples

Here is a Game for You

To get the most out of some easy applications, you must acquire a basic feel for the seven mentalities. The more complex, intellectual technologies are impossible to grasp without that basic feel. This Game is designed to help you know where you are.

Consider any of a range of social and interactional phenomena that everyone must deal with. These are listed in the left-hand column of the matrix below.

Your challenge is to determine how people with the different mentalities will respond to or engage with each item. Once you have your answer, click on the cell and compare with what is shown there. (A second click hides the cell again.)

You can’t see it until you see it, but once you see it, you can’t not see it!

Better viewing: narrow or close left navigation column; use browser zoom if needed.

Interactional Phenomena	MARKET -centred	POWER -centred	CAUSE -centred	COMMUNITY -centred	KINSHIP -centred	PERSPECTIVE -centred	REALITY -centred
Handling the social system	? Adapt to the system	? Work the system	? Fight the system	? Improve the system	? Ignore the system or put family first	? Define the system	? Predict the system
Competition focus	? For money: target customers	? For dominance: target rivals	? For adherents: target: wider society	? For appreciation: target members	? For attention: target kin	? For relevance: target viewpoints	? For accuracy: target predictions
Evaluating situations	? Check whether it makes money and will be a good deal	? Check the pecking order and show your strength	? Check if/how it fits with your ideology & furthers the cause	? Check it is non-discriminatory and gives benefit widely	? Check that the family is protected & its bonds strengthened	? Check that all views and all parties are given fair hearing and due value.	? Check the essence and its implications for change.
Feelings	? Keep in check	? Use to manipulate and gain respect	? Mixed up with the cause	? Use to enable acceptance	? Display to get attention and gratification	? Apply sensitively to understand	? Note and view as signals or by-products.
Risks	? Avoid	? Ignore	? Deliberately engage	? Share out	? Dump on outsiders	? Manage	? Perceive and reformulate
Change	? Resistant: Be driven by competition	? Focus on shifts in the power structure	? Focus on reform or revolution	? Focus on social improvement or general benefit	? Resist: Celebrate unavoidable rites of passage	? Draw on new perspectives: even if radical	? Flow with multiple dimensions and many levels
Authority source	? Expertise & experience	? Power & position	? Doctrines & ideologues	? Consensus or the majority	? Elders & tradition	? Oneself: due to value of autonomy	? The Cosmos
Resource handling	? Develop and exploit for profit	? Get control for leverage over others	? Apply in service of the cause	? Provide fair shares for all	? Keep within the family	? Manage rationally given diversity of uses and preferences	? Discover and create more via potentials
Money	? Make it and spend it	? Use it to control others	? Accumulate for the cause	? Contribute to social programs	? Keep within the family/clan.	? Use sensibly and flexibly	? Observe its nature and use accordingly
Attitudes to people	? Build networks and show integrity in all dealings	? Use respect-contempt hierarchy to exploit and manipulate	? Moralize and convert	? Listen, cooperate and assist where needed.	? Distinguish insiders (to be trusted/helped) from outsiders	? Validate and value diversity and distinctiveness	? Be an influence for the good
Learning	? From doing and from experienced colleagues: distrust book learning	? Mainly irrelevant: focus on manifest weaknesses of others	? Focus on orthodox doctrines and their dissemination	? Focus on issues and views of group members	? Focus on traditions, customs and family history	? Assign a high value, focus widely, accept any genuine source	? Value highly: attain certainty via observation, reading, debate, reflection, meditation.
Attitude to self	? Be instrumental & allow immersion in practicalities	? Dominate or be dominated: control or be controlled	? Identify with the ideal	? Exist as a group member & be obliged to and dependent on the group	?Be inseparable from the clan and subordinate yourself to its needs	? Self is a social construction	? Self is part of a larger whole, serving the self
Group formation & bonds	? Partnerships: for short or long-term monetary gain	? Hierarchy: maintained by fear & respect	? Sect: requiring identification & obedience	? Community: based on sharing common values	? Clan: linked by blood ties (e.g. racial, ethnic)	? Socially constructed: so dependent on willing co-existence	? Fluid: depends on freedom and responsibility

Having Problems? Then remember: to assimilate this framework, you must (temporarily) identify with the mentalities. Memorizing won’t help much. If you still can’t get it, discuss with friends, post a query or perhaps re-read.

Look at some FAQs.

Originally posted: July 2009