Conflicts in the workplace are more common than most of us would like to admit. They are everywhere in our popular culture, from our music, to our literature, to our T.V. shows. I have so many memories of my mother who works for a state university coming home from work fuming about one co-worker or another that by the time i entered the work force i suppose i had simply accepted it as a part of life as an adult. What surprised me however was the frequency of conflict in the workplace of outdoor professionals. In all of the different fields and offices (ha) that I have worked in I have found outdoor professionals to be some of the most conflict- prone people that i know. I also know from experience that whenever I have tried to vent to friends outside the field about troubles with other raft guide or ropes-course instructors that the first response I always get is almost always more akin to surprise that I have trouble at my job than anything relevant to the conflict or problem that I have just outlined.
There are more guesses than I could ever care to take as to why outdoor professionals seem to get so feisty with one another but the main way in which I have always interacted with it has always seemed to center around perception. When I first started guiding as a full fledged guide at Environmental Traveling Companions (E.T.C.) a nonprofit in California I was about 17-years-old. I had also been a part of a year long internship where I had learned how to plan trips, how to debrief, and all the other essentials of how to be an effective leader. On top of my internship, I had chosen to focus my Senior Project at my high school on E.T.C. and had spent over 1,300 hours (yes, that does say thirteen hundred,) planning my very own fundraising and awareness overnight E.T.C. trip for friends and family of the other interns. Now you can never really be fully prepared to guide anything because people are fickle and the world is a crazy place and I am in no way trying to say that I learned everything in a year but i was definitely competent, something that a lot of my co-guides were refusing to recognize because of my age. Of course no one ever came out and said it, but I sometimes felt ignored or looked over.
The second place I encountered this conflict was here at Western when as a freshman I started to work for the Outdoor Center on campus at WWU. At the OC I encountered for the first time in my life real exclusion within the outdoor community. There is a certain hierarchy there amongst the staff of what is "cool" and who deserves respect and friendship all of which is grounded in absolutely nothing. I have always understood that not everyone has to like everyone or everything else but I think that the OC staff as a whole could use a healthy dose of tolerance. Such an important step in conflict resolution is the attitude from which we approach said conflict and if your attitude says "you aren't important so I'm not going to bother" then nothing ever stands a chance of getting resolved. At that point, conflict resolution essentially becomes one-sided where in which one party is actively trying to solve a problem or work out an issue and the other party wont even entertain the idea. Sadly at this point there isn't always much that can be done besides changing your approach or maybe involving a superior. It's too bad that bad attitudes like this are so prevalent in the outdoor professional community and that we haven't yet found a way to collaborate more.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Empathy
In preparation for writing this post I was discussing empathy with my boyfriend. A little bit of context here, I am dating a 24- year-old college graduate who for some odd reason I asked to define empathy.
Now according to Merriam-Webster Online empathy is : "the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions : the ability to share someone else's feelings. "
My boyfriend on the other hand thinks that empathy is (and I quote) "I don't know, feeling sorry for other people and shit?" I know for a fact that there are no words to express my facial expression when I heard those words. How could someone so intelligent, so well raised, be so ignorant? Unfortunately, that was not the first time I had heard such a line and I'm sure it will not be the last. For some odd reason, we have a rough time understanding and implementing empathy today.
Empathy is something I have struggled with all my life but usually for the opposite reason that most people do. In every Social Justice or Human Relations class I have ever taken I have listened to my classmates clash with the concept of empathy and not just as a scholastic theory but as something that should be socially applied.
This is hard for me to accept because it comes more readily to me than just about anything else. I feel empathy like an emotion; instead of having to imagine what someone else must be going through I feel it with the same part of my body that experiences my own pain and joy. Sometimes those feelings are so strong that I am convinced that there must be a few crossed wires up in my hypothalamus because it doesn't seem normal to feel something like empathy so readily and with such conviction.
One of the only ways in which it has always made sense to me is from an evolutionary standpoint. Like many apex predators we are pack (or tribe) animals and the survival of the pack depends on the survival of each individual. Individuals cannot survive by themselves hence we are incredibly social creatures. Humans have created so many complex systems by which to communicate with each other over time and distance largely for this very reason. We use our cell phones, social media, we can write letters or send emails all in order to maintain contact with our pack. If a member of ones family or social life is having some sort of problem be it medical or social our instincts pick up on those things regardless of if the communication takes place in person or over the phone. Empathy comes into play when it is our turn to support, nurture, and live with one another. Jane Goodall noticed this quality in the chimpanzee's that she studies at the Gombe stream Reserve in Tanzania. Some of Goodall's first observations about the chimps was in the way that they interacted with each other. Goodall noted that they had friends and they would note each others absence, even that they would rush to greet a chimp whom had been away. She noted that they fed each other and that within the hierarchy of their society even the littlest chimps were fed and groomed which they use as an emotional bonding mechanism. As Goodall notes, I think that we are much more like chimpanzees than we would ever like to admit and just as empathy is a vital part of their society, so must it be a vital part of ours.
Citations:
Empathy. (n.d.). Retrieved February 9, 2015, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy
Goodall, J., & Peterson, D. (2000). Africa in my blood: An autobiography in letters : The early years. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Now according to Merriam-Webster Online empathy is : "the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions : the ability to share someone else's feelings. "
My boyfriend on the other hand thinks that empathy is (and I quote) "I don't know, feeling sorry for other people and shit?" I know for a fact that there are no words to express my facial expression when I heard those words. How could someone so intelligent, so well raised, be so ignorant? Unfortunately, that was not the first time I had heard such a line and I'm sure it will not be the last. For some odd reason, we have a rough time understanding and implementing empathy today.
Empathy is something I have struggled with all my life but usually for the opposite reason that most people do. In every Social Justice or Human Relations class I have ever taken I have listened to my classmates clash with the concept of empathy and not just as a scholastic theory but as something that should be socially applied.
This is hard for me to accept because it comes more readily to me than just about anything else. I feel empathy like an emotion; instead of having to imagine what someone else must be going through I feel it with the same part of my body that experiences my own pain and joy. Sometimes those feelings are so strong that I am convinced that there must be a few crossed wires up in my hypothalamus because it doesn't seem normal to feel something like empathy so readily and with such conviction.
One of the only ways in which it has always made sense to me is from an evolutionary standpoint. Like many apex predators we are pack (or tribe) animals and the survival of the pack depends on the survival of each individual. Individuals cannot survive by themselves hence we are incredibly social creatures. Humans have created so many complex systems by which to communicate with each other over time and distance largely for this very reason. We use our cell phones, social media, we can write letters or send emails all in order to maintain contact with our pack. If a member of ones family or social life is having some sort of problem be it medical or social our instincts pick up on those things regardless of if the communication takes place in person or over the phone. Empathy comes into play when it is our turn to support, nurture, and live with one another. Jane Goodall noticed this quality in the chimpanzee's that she studies at the Gombe stream Reserve in Tanzania. Some of Goodall's first observations about the chimps was in the way that they interacted with each other. Goodall noted that they had friends and they would note each others absence, even that they would rush to greet a chimp whom had been away. She noted that they fed each other and that within the hierarchy of their society even the littlest chimps were fed and groomed which they use as an emotional bonding mechanism. As Goodall notes, I think that we are much more like chimpanzees than we would ever like to admit and just as empathy is a vital part of their society, so must it be a vital part of ours.
Citations:
Empathy. (n.d.). Retrieved February 9, 2015, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy
Goodall, J., & Peterson, D. (2000). Africa in my blood: An autobiography in letters : The early years. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Behavioral/Personality... what's the difference?
The first thing that came to mind in when i began researching the differences between personality and behavioral tests is that a behavioral test sounds like something that would be given during a job interview or a psychiatric evaluation and a personality test sounds reminiscent of online quizzes that teenage girls take.
When I typed 'personality test' into the google search bar the predictions that google gave me were:
personality test intj
personality test meyers briggs
personality test color
personality test free
personality test for kids
Now this doesn't really scream scholastic or demand to be taken seriously so for kicks i typed 'behavioral test' into the google search bar and the predictions were radically different:
behavioral testing in mice
behavioral test online
behavioral tests for autism
behavioral test sample questions
behavioral testing in rats
From these quick searches i feel valid in saying that google supports my theory that behavioral tests are more scholastic (thus have more serious connotations) than personality tests which seem to have a more accessible appeal. I spent some time searching for a credible personality test in my quest i was shocked at the wide variety of places that one can find such a test. Some of my favorites include: The Seattle Church of Scientology, this website which claims it can tell which NFL Football team best fits your personality, and lastly, this test from OkCupid. This is not to say that some of these tests are not legitimate, just to make a point about extra-checking ones sources and remembering the bias that test results might bear depending on the publishers particular agenda. For example, the test from the Church of Scientology as a lot less to do with your personality and a lot more to do with somethign called 'spiritual technology.' On the other hand, on the first page of looking at personality tests somewhere between Scientology and OKCupid I stumbled upon keirsey, a website whose personality test reminds me of Bolton. While clicking around the Keirsey page i discovered that the majority of their business is in assessing individuals in the work place. Their motto is "performance through understanding" and they aim to "achieve peak performance by providing solutions for conflict resolution, teamwork, leadership, development, customer engagement, and organizational alignment." I took their free online assessment called the 'sorter' and was labeled a 'Rational' and the initial (free) review had some striking resemblance's to my label as expressive, expressive from Bolton's test. For example, both referenced my inherent leadership skills and desire to be in control. Keirsey's rational also has characteristics of building castles in the skye which Bolton's expressives are famously known for. While these tests are not testing along the same parameters or are they really even testing the same thing i think it is important to note that valuable skills and resources can come from both.
When I typed 'personality test' into the google search bar the predictions that google gave me were:
personality test intj
personality test meyers briggs
personality test color
personality test free
personality test for kids
Now this doesn't really scream scholastic or demand to be taken seriously so for kicks i typed 'behavioral test' into the google search bar and the predictions were radically different:
behavioral testing in mice
behavioral test online
behavioral tests for autism
behavioral test sample questions
behavioral testing in rats
From these quick searches i feel valid in saying that google supports my theory that behavioral tests are more scholastic (thus have more serious connotations) than personality tests which seem to have a more accessible appeal. I spent some time searching for a credible personality test in my quest i was shocked at the wide variety of places that one can find such a test. Some of my favorites include: The Seattle Church of Scientology, this website which claims it can tell which NFL Football team best fits your personality, and lastly, this test from OkCupid. This is not to say that some of these tests are not legitimate, just to make a point about extra-checking ones sources and remembering the bias that test results might bear depending on the publishers particular agenda. For example, the test from the Church of Scientology as a lot less to do with your personality and a lot more to do with somethign called 'spiritual technology.' On the other hand, on the first page of looking at personality tests somewhere between Scientology and OKCupid I stumbled upon keirsey, a website whose personality test reminds me of Bolton. While clicking around the Keirsey page i discovered that the majority of their business is in assessing individuals in the work place. Their motto is "performance through understanding" and they aim to "achieve peak performance by providing solutions for conflict resolution, teamwork, leadership, development, customer engagement, and organizational alignment." I took their free online assessment called the 'sorter' and was labeled a 'Rational' and the initial (free) review had some striking resemblance's to my label as expressive, expressive from Bolton's test. For example, both referenced my inherent leadership skills and desire to be in control. Keirsey's rational also has characteristics of building castles in the skye which Bolton's expressives are famously known for. While these tests are not testing along the same parameters or are they really even testing the same thing i think it is important to note that valuable skills and resources can come from both.
Bibliography
Church of Scientology International. (2015). Take the most accurate and reliable personality test. Retrieved 26 January 2015, from http://www.scientology-seattle.org/personality-test.html?gclid=CjwKEAiAxZKmBRD_5cCvs8SbxXsSJADZBCmd3engIXYcskPv4CDwFIs1ERkuAVAcOmQJFzG3-N6zsxoC6Z3w_wcB
Keirsey. (1998). Keirsey.com. Retrieved 26 January 2015, from http://www.keirsey.com/
Citation
(1998)
(2015)
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