W. Clark Rex

Six Aspects of Human Behavior

ThatÕs the guts of a doctoral dissertation of a friend of mine years ago in leadership.  And he identified six different levels of intimacy. 

You see over here, degree of intimacy.  Starting with one self, the core self, the most intimate part of you, yourself.  Whatever that self is connected to, thatÕs the most intimate place.

The next level of intimacy is personal, and itÕs an individual thing, it contains fantasies; you see the word, dreams, is not here, but thatÕs where the word dream belongs; at this level.  The dream comes out of this core self.

The next level is a group level, social.  Next level is organization, professional level.  And you see itÕs less intimate as you go to these other levels.  Then thereÕs culture of society, thatÕs public, thatÕs a fifth level, and the language you speak out here are the language of games, rituals and conforming behavior.

If you donÕt accept that, you insist on using these words or these terms; youÕre not gonna be very successful out here.  YouÕre just not speaking their language.   This took me a long time to understand.  No wonder IÕm so _____. 

Yeah, I was a non-conformist.  I didnÕt want to play those rituals, I didnÕt want to play those games.  That was phony.  Well, not if you look at it this way.  ItÕs a way of interacting on this more public level.  ThatÕs the language.  Then, if you keep going, youÕll notice itÕs withdrawal.

When I present this to businesses, I always talk with these two words: play and work.  IÕm gonna define play, and I don't think itÕs defined in your packet, but if you want to write this down: play is defined as anything you do that brings an immediate reward.  If you enjoy something, thatÕs play. 

Work, on the other hand, is defined as anything you do that brings a delayed reward.  So in those terms, you can go to your job, if you love it, and play, and go home and work if you donÕt like it; the place where youÕre supposed to be playing.

And this employerÕs expressed gratitude to this little scheme because workers who go to work and they donÕt like it.  ItÕs work, youÕre getting delayed reward and they decide to make a change.  I donÕt like this job, IÕll find something I like better.  Well, oftentimes theyÕll go this direction toward withdrawal than towards play.  And the idea here is if you look at your dreams in this place, if you can learn to value your dreams or your fantasies, youÕre moving in the direction towards yourself, towards the truth.

Rather than making a decision that would put you, oftentimes, if youÕre going this direction, the ultimate withdrawal is you take yourself out.  And boy, do I know that place, and I suspect that everybody in this room knows that place.  So a dream will bring you back in this direction, towards the self.