Opportunist

To the Opportunist, everything is about getting personal advantage and winning. The Opportunist makes things and people work by unilateral manipulation, or by getting the most personally advantageous trade -off possible.

The Opportunist views the world as “Me against Them”, and the and the main thing is to not get caught

The Opportunist can only view a short term horizon, and gives little or no thought to longer term consequences, or how his actions today affect other’s impressions of him or even his own success over the longer term.

The Opportunist values only short term, visible, costs and benefits: this week’s sales figures, or the best parking space, or the photo with the powerful leader. Luck plays a big part in success.

The Opportunist plays his hand close to his chest, because that’s the way he thinks others are playing.

The Opportunist might use flattery to get your help with something, or might feign sharing of his personal details to get you onside as a “friend”. But the Opportunist is no friend, and won’t hesitate to use you for his own gain.

Fortunately, Opportunists aren’t often found in positions of management. But you might have one in your workplace.

Distribution in managers: about 1%

Expert

Experts no longer identify with what makes them the same as the group. Now they value their special, unique skills and what makes them stand out from the group.

The shift from Diplomat to Expert can come about as the Diplomat begins to realize that they can belong to more than one group, each of which has different values. It becomes more and more difficult to know which group has the “right” values.

Experts depend less on others’ judgments of quality, and more on their own standards. But they can do this to the extreme: “My way is the only way!”

Experts sometimes defiantly and stubbornly refuse to acknowledge any authority but their own, or their craft’s ” best practices” or their craft hero’s values. In other words, unless you are a recognized authority on the subject matter, your opinion will not be worth anything to the Expert. Feedback is only welcomed from acknowledged subject matter experts.

The Expert is often a perfectionist, and therefore not such a good team player. They may try to take on a whole project by themselves because they know they can do it better than anyone else.

The Expert sees things as black or white. So an Expert manager may praise a job well done (that is, done to the Expert’s own standards) and criticize anything not done the right way (that is, not done the Expert’s way!).

The Expert’s aim for perfection can take its toll though: stress can be high, and there may be difficult relationships with colleagues.

Distribution in managers

  • 19%-68% of managers are Experts. This percentage is higher in more junior managers, and lower in senor managers.

You’re likely to know lots of Experts!

A devlopmental model of human meaning making

As human beings, we develop throughout our lives, and we do so along several lines. Some examples of developmental lines are: intelligence, cognitive complexity, creativity, interpersonal relations, morality. A developmental model helps explain how genius can be cruel, how artists can be narcissistic: we develop along these lines independently.

The line I’m interested in is referred to as “ego development” or “action logic” or “meaning making”. Some people refer to it as the developmental line of cognitive complexity. The main model is the Leadership Development Framework,  developed by William Torbert and his associates at Harthill Consulting, who expanded on original research by Jane Loevinger. I use the terms action logic, meaning making, developmental level, stage interchangeably.

This model explains a lot about how people develop and mature in the way that they observe the world and draw conclusions, what they notice, what they value, and how they make meaning of the world they live in.

Understanding this model can be instrumental in supporting staff to perform well in their jobs and in achieving personal satisfaction at work. Understanding this model can also help one to live a happier life: as someone said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

We develop through well-defined (and well-researched) stages throughout our lives. We pass through the stages in order, not skipping stages. We experience each stage in three possible ways:

  1. A peak experience gives us a brief and tantalizing glimpse of a later stage action logic. These peak experiences are exciting, can be life-altering and we recall and talk about them for a long time.
  2. When under stress, we regress to an earlier action logic, where we may feel more in control, or safer. Once the stress passes, or is managed adequately, we return to the action logic that is our ground of being.
  3. Our ground of being is the developmental level, or stage, or action logic, where we usually dwell. This can be determined by a professionally validated assessment, such as the Leadership Development Profile.

In future posts, I’m going to write about each of the 7 main action logics we encounter in the adult world.

There are earlier levels than Opportunist, but most of us pass through those as children.

There are later levels than Alchemist, but few adults reach these later stages.

So we won’t look at those here.

Oxford Integral Circle – election fever

Last night the Oxford Integral Circle met up, and the topic for the night was the UK national election.

  • What factors influence your decision on how to vote?
  • How does Integral play a part in it?

A fascinating, and lively (!) discussion ensued, and the evening’s facilitator, Alex Goodall is going to write up our results for publication. But I wanted to write about my own personal insight.

Mostly frustrated by campaign rhetoric, I have tried to look deeper and beyond, in order to see if I can find out what they really stand for. But it’s hard. Candidates govern themselves strictly, and I doubt we get the chance to hear what they really think, or to explore how they arrive at their stances and policies.

I notice that I try to look for some clue as to their development level. Are they Tier 1 thinkers, or Tier 2? Of course, all I have to judge by is what they say and how they say it.

During the second debate, an audience member asked the candidates how they were going to tackle crime in the communities. The question reminded me of one of the sentence stems in Harthill’s Leadership Development Framework (LDF –  a sentence completion test that is a pointer to your complexity of meaning making, or action logic). One of the LDF stems is: Crime and delinquency could be halted if… I thought that was pretty similar to what was being asked of the candidates.

I remember my surprise when David Cameron said something to the effect of, ‘We’ll make sure they know they’ll be punished, and fast, that they know they’ll go to prison.’ Something like that. That sort of answer is a rather low-rated response on the LDF. Then Nick Clegg said something to the effect that ‘we want families and communitites to work together, to improve the social systems to deal with the causes.’ Something like that. He spoke about how while young people are imprisoned, sometimes for quite minor offenses, they learn more ways to re-offend once they’re out. He thought the system was set up to teach delinquents how to be lifelong criminals. (I’m paraphrasing.) That’s a quite late stage action logic was of looking at what’s a pretty complex problem. I don’t remember what Gordon Brown said.

But here’s MY problem. How can I tell if what they say accurately reflects their level of development? Or, is the level of their message geared toward the level they think their constituents will want to hear or that they can understand? I don’t know how to tell. I’m going to watch the third debate tonight through this lens.

I wonder how it would work if I wrote a letter to my local MP (who answers letters) asking him a question in a way that’s intended to reveal his level of development? Or, convince government that senior members must take the LDF and have their results published. Hah!