The Principle of Individuality
Continued
People
change according to the circumstances they find themselves in. The often used trait
theory and existentialist thinking does a bad job of explaining human behavior
because it ignores the second principle of individuality called the context principle. Trait-based tests
assume that you’re either one thing or another thing, like an extrovert or an
introvert. However, Yuichi Shoda, a top researcher in child development showed
that people are really both, an extrovert and an introvert depending on the
context that they find themselves in. And similar to Molenaar, people also
accused Shoda of promoting anarchy.
The
bottom line is that we rarely see the diversity of contexts in the lives of our
acquaintances, so we make judgements about who they are based on limited
information. Knowing contextual if-then signatures (if this happens, then she
does that) helps us make better decisions about people. Asking “Why” people are
behaving that way in that context helps parents, teachers, counselors and
managers help their people succeed and builds positive relationships. This
strategy can also be applied to oneself and can produce some great results.
People
change according to the circumstances that they find themselves in. Thus, we
all end up walking the road less traveled. However, Averagarianism thinking
dubes us into believing that not only are there ‘normal’ brains, bodies and
personalities, but there are also ‘normal’ pathways that lead us to the one
right way to learn and obtain our goals. We can thank Fredrick Taylor and
Edward Thorndike who promoted a standard career track within hierarchical
organizations, which then trickled down to education, for this faulty kind of
thinking about pathways to success.
This
faulty kind of thinking is very limiting. These temporal norms originally
designed to maximize factory efficiency has unfortunately turned into invisible
pace-setters for all aspects of our personal and professional lives. We all
have come to believe that we’re either on the right track for success or not.
The
cold hard fact that there really isn’t a single normal pathway for any type of
human development, biological, mental, moral, or professional forms the basis
for the third principle of individuality called the pathway principle. This principle makes two important affirmations.
First, for all aspects of life, there are many equally valid ways to reach the
same outcome. And two, the particular pathway that is optimal for you depends
on your own individuality.
According
to psychologist Kurt Fischer there are no fixed ladders of development, but
only webs of development where each new step opens up a whole new set of
possibilities according to our own individuality. You see, we assume that way
to success is to follow a well-blazed trail. But the fact is that we are making
our own trail. Thus, we need to spend some time understanding our own
jaggedness and if-then signatures because that’s the only way to judge if the
path we are on is the path that fits our individuality. There will always be
more than one pathway available to us, and the odds are that the best one for
us is the one that is less traveled.
So
I must ask now, are we judging others too quickly, and have we been climbing a
ladder to success or a web to success?
Dan Blanchard is an
award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please
visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net.
Thanks.
