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BONUS! Practical NLP, by Arman Darini,
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Enjoy reading this
sample online Tip:
Social Status Wars
by Arman Darini, Ph.D.
April 30, 2006
Imagine yourself walking down a crowded street, say
someplace in beautiful San Francisco, and maneuvering
through oncoming tides of passersby. Some people move aside
to let you pass, others you walk around. Occasionally there
are times when you almost bump into someone, then pause for
a moment in front of each other before simultaneously
turning and edging sideways while muttering apologies
(especially evident when it happens in a narrow doorway or a
hall). How do you know that one person will move out of your
way, while another one will keep walking right into you?
By rapidly and unconsciously evaluating the status of
passersby relative to your own. All human interactions are
governed by the continual adjustment of status. Status is
the currency of human communication. Status is a relative
measure - to gain higher status I can increase mine or
decrease everyone else’s. Most people are constantly and
unconsciously engaged in status wars and are highly skilled
at it. Such wars can be fought for either a higher status
(natural leaders) or for a lower status (victims).
Why is it useful to be aware of your status and to have
the flexibility to change it? Most people are purely
reactive when adjusting their status. They have a certain
preferred status and do their best to maintain it. If two
people disagree on who is higher and who is lower, cold war
of status ensures. Communication that on the surface seems
to be about ideas is often about the status (try proving to
your boss that she is wrong, even when that's true). Much of
communication is a war of status, especially between
strangers.
Status by itself is just a measure of your level of power
and rapport relative to other people. High or low status
isn't bad or good, right or wrong. It is a useful tool in
all sorts of social situations. A good teacher might
continually increase and decrease her status to lead and
pace a class of unruly teenagers. A strong leader might
similarly use his status to push and give in as
circumstances require. A healer might adjust her status to
match the client's if she knows that status equality helps
people to open up.
The need to dominate, to always prove higher status is
very straining on the organism since every interpersonal
communication turns into a fight. The inability to raise
status is equally stressful because it makes it difficult to
get your ideas across, to be heard.
Status has nothing to do with the quality of your ideas -
we have all met very dominant people with poor ideas, as
well as brilliant thinkers who seemed meek and timid. Status
is a learned social behavior that we mastered as children to
cope with the complexity of social interactions. Status is
very easy to change and very easy to learn how to change. It
will feel strange at first, perhaps a bit uncomfortable to
adopt a different status, but with brief practice anyone can
become fluent in status change.
In the next article I will look at a few powerful ways to
immediately and effectively change your status. In the
meantime, try this game: Next time you are people watching,
try to tell who is higher status by paying attention to the
space each person seems to command. Since status is
basically territorial, space is the key to solving this
puzzle.
