Up
until he brought up the gender issue in his New York Times opinion-editorial, Professor Adam Grant was making a very
logical argument about the pitfalls of authenticity or, as the two learned
professors are putting it, “being yourself.”
According to my understanding of the premise of his argument, being
oneself may be fraught with danger. He
cites the examples of a man who decided to be authentic by: (1) verbally expressing
his heart’s desires to have a sexual relationship with a colleague at work; (2) followed by similarly telling the nanny of his kids the ache in his heart to
have the nanny as his mistress, (3) telling the child of a friend that that child’s
pet beetle was dead rather than simply sleeping as the poor kid had innocently
believed, and (4) of course the caper was the man letting his wife’s parents know that
their conversation was boring. Grant
leaves the reader to envision the inglorious results of
what is supposed to be the manifestations of authenticity.
Professor
Grant invokes these examples in an attempt to lay bare the flaws of one being
himself or herself. Perhaps these
examples capture what may be considered authenticity in some circles. Be that as it may, it does strike me more like
a case of a lack of verbal tact, if not downright insensitivity, than it is
about being authentic. Some may very
well argue that the man cited by Grant actually lacked sound judgement as
opposed to the cited man’s apparent peculiar manners embodying authenticity. One can be authentic without coming across as
uncouth or crass. If the co-worker who
was the object of carnal desires, likewise the nanny, the child ignorantly holding
the dead pet insect in the innocence of youth, or the parents-in-law reacted in
anger, responded in puzzlement or shock, it was not because of the man’s authenticity but
the crudity of his delivery of his messages. In my opinion, Grant cited what comes across
as a rather poor example to put his point across.
Nonetheless,
his point was fairly simple. There are
instances under which authenticity can cause more damage than it can bring
forth a boon. I disagree with Grant on
the simple ground that he seems to mistake poor tact or unrefined manners for
authenticity. That is my first point of
disagreement with his opinion as stated in the New York Times column that drew
the fury and justifiable retort of Professor Brené
Brown.
Secondly,
I was shocked when he contrived to make this issue a theatre of struggles
between genders based on what is seemingly very spurious supporting evidence. He says, and I quote: “How much you aim for
authenticity depends on a personality trait called self-monitoring.
If you’re a high self-monitor, you’re
constantly scanning your environment for social cues and adjusting accordingly.
You hate social awkwardness and
desperately want to avoid offending anyone.”
I see in this statement a euphemism for patronage, but one couched in professorially
smart words. When one is constantly
scanning one’s surroundings in search of upward mobility in one’s career or
social status as the primary objective, one of the many paths to that goal may
easily involve the act of groveling and fawning at the feet of the would-be
benefactors or patrons. Moreover, anyone
who is seen to be a stumbling block to that aim may fall victim to the ambitious
ladder climber. These two factors,
resorting to as low as the deceitful stratagem of currying favour and walking
over dead bodies, metaphorically speaking, are what make patronage very
damaging. Left to run amok, patronage can
easily morph into a figurative cancer.
If
Grant is arguing in favour of a patron-client arrangement because of its
salutary results, an arrangement that may very well eschew genuine and prudent acts
of authenticity, I have no choice but to state that I disagree with him. I clearly hope that I am wrong in my
understanding of his argument. History
teaches us that most, if not all, cases of recorded patronage are
invariably associated with a structurally weak social dispensation whose
collapse may be sudden and very precipitous and possibly just as calamitous.
What
leaves me in a condition of bafflement follows what he defines to be the
diametric opposite of the “personality trait called self-monitoring.”
What he calls “low self-monitor” personalities
typically tend to, let me quote him verbatim here, if I may; “criticize high
self-monitors as chameleons and phonies.”
Of course he points out that being conscientious, the low self-monitors
get rewards which may be unfavourably disproportionate with their professional
and, I presume moral investments, much unlike their polar opposites who will
resort to make it to the top by any means necessary. Is this not the very manifestation of a
patronage system, if I may openly wonder?
Rewarding deceit, or inauthenticity, is doubly damaging in that it
concomitantly punishes those who seek the path paved by the ethos that says that
working hard and exercising due diligence will be duly rewarded. Surely, Grant has to be conscious of this form
of social injustice. I am doubtful he
brooks it. That is number three.
Fourthly,
that he apparently acquiesces to it is evident when he attempts to conflate the
gender divide with the asymmetric reward arrangement of his euphemistically
described patronage system. He writes; “women
are more likely
to be low self-monitors than men.” To
his credit, and we ought to give credit where it is earnt, he cites the basis
of his argument. This is all well and
good. Unfortunately, the conclusions of
the findings in the paper that Grant cites lack the firmness of conviction that
is evident in his above-quoted statement.
In
a paper published in the J Applied Psychology Volume
87(2), page 390 to page 401 (April of 2002), author Day and co-workers
investigated self-monitoring personalities in a professional population sample
of 23,191. According to their construed findings,
“[s]ample-weighted mean differences favoring male respondents were also noted,
suggesting that the sex-related effects for self-monitoring may partially
explain noted disparities between men and women at higher organizational levels
(i.e., the glass ceiling).” This is
precisely how they surmise their findings.
The summary has clear caveats.
The researchers clearly see enough room to explain the noted disparities
between the genders. Simply put, there
is more than an element of doubt in their conclusions much unlike the seemingly
etched-in-stone statement by Grant, one interestingly based on the foregoing
paper. If Professor Brené
Brown
takes umbrage with this aspect of Professor Grant’s reading of the findings of
Day et al., she clearly has my empathy.
I
must confess that Grant and readers of my ilk may possibly be experiencing what
Robert F. Brands characterized as the Rashomon Effect in his book Robert’s
Rules of Innovation II. It is in Akira
Kurosawa movie, a great and very edifying movie, in which we are reminded that witnesses
to a single event do not necessarily give identical accounts of the same
event. Perspective and, I presume, the state of mind do exert some considerable influence on the witness's narration of the event.
All
in all, I find this exchange to be potentially help, if it can be shorn of what
are ostensibly personal confrontations.
It will be a pity if such an edifying exchange ends up degenerating into
a match in which two well-meaning members of a highly esteemed academic
community spit venomous saliva in each other’s faces.
