This is going to be my first proper post in this blog. Just came back from a class on Case Research (2:00pm – 4:00pm). The professor, Dr Pan Shan Ling is on a trip to IIT Kanpur. His Ph.D. student, Ravi Shankar M.N., took the class to describe his experiences in India (Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad) and Singapore while collecting data from InfoSys, Wipro and Satyam for case studies on their Knowledge Management initiatives (and perhaps also IT outsourcing). Incidently, right after the class, I saw a missed call on my cellphone. When I called back, the person said he was calling from Satyam (some coincidence there) and wanted to explore if I would be interested in a job opportunity (something to do with Taxonomy) with them. It was pretty simple – told him I’m doing my Ph.D. and so not available for employment. Well, this is not why I decided to write this post. I wrote this to discuss 5 types of people. Ravi, during his talk, said something to the effect of, "At the end of every interview (case research generally involves a large number of interviews), it’s a good idea to slot the informant in one of 5 categories – suspicious informant, patronizing informant, friendly informant, diplomatic informant and scheming informant". That will help you analyse the quality of data you’ve collected better. 1) Suspicious informant: Always worried! Why do you want to know? What do you want? How are you going to use it? 2) Patronizing informant: Ah, you don’t know. Let me tell you…speaks for 3 minutes non-stop. Has ready answer for every question (even before he’s listened to the question). You just give a trigger in the form of a question and he’s ready to start speaking, with the look in the eyes that (I know all..you don’t know anything) 3) Friendly informant: The ideal case, the name says it all 4) Diplomatic informant: Usually very smart; tells you everything in exactly official lines. Even after a 1 hour interview, he hasn’t told you anything that is not already known or public 5) Scheming informant: Has a hidden agenda e.g. carry a box of sweets to Singapore. So how well your interview goes depends on whether you answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to that request. So while Ravi was talking about purely an interview/conversation context, I thought perhaps all people could be classified under these broad categories (based on how they talk to most people or their general style of talking deduced over a number of conversations). Here’s my take on this (assumed that the ‘friendly talker’ is ideal): 1) The Suspicious or insecure talker: always wary about what he is saying. Sometimes tries to be more authoritative.
Reason: insecurity. Such a person is deeply insecure inside Questions: a) How to deal with an insecure person? b) How to help him change from suspicious to friendly? 2) The ‘Know-all’ talker: hardly ever gives the other person an opportunity to talk. Has a theory or explanation for everything. Brushes off your arguments habitually.
Reason: inferiority complex. Such a person needs to keep telling himself that he knows. Questions: a) How to deal with a ‘know-all’ person? b) How to help him change from ‘know-all’ to friendly? 3) The friendly talker: Generally straight-forward and honest. In peace with himself and the world. Knows his own strengths and weaknesses well. Gives the other person his due. Generally a happy person.
Reason: introspection, intelligence, secure inside 4) The diplomatic talker: Your typical marketing guy image (though stereotyping can be dangerous). Knows how to say the ‘right’ things. Knows what is the stand to be taken, what is considered ‘cool’ or ‘should be the case’. You never know what is actually in this person’s mind.
Reason: intelligence+greed/ambition Questions: a) How to deal with a diplomatic person? b) How to help him change from diplomatic to friendly? 5) The scheming talker: Such a person might say just the opposite things than what he actually means. Might be overly nice and polite to you and typically has a hidden agenda.
Reason: evil temperament, or conflict of good and evil (don’t know if this is totally black and white) Questions: a) How to deal with a scheming person? b) How to help him change from scheming to friendly? Of course, people you encounter and talk to might lie in between these categories or have traits of more than one. Also, the degree/level of fit within a particular category may vary. Or there could be more categories outside this list. Of course, on a deeper, spiritual level, and as what Vedanta says, everything is one. So differences or classifications are only apparent then! What do you think?
