Role Play

Inspired by the frequently show-stopping Dr. Shefaly Yogendra, I found myself revisiting the matter of Role Models. 

Quick jump to the punchline: the value of a Model is generated not by the model but by the User of the model. This nugget of wisdom is one of those things hiding in plain sight among the relentless info streams about innovation and aha moments in all the detective shows I continuously watch.

 Dr. Yogendra had discussed the observation that trailblazers don't have Role Models. Loosely recalled here: they have a role (more like a goal, which they chose to accept), but after that the rest was invented on the fly. Net: they aren't models because what they did may or may not need to be done again.

It's a functional POV on models (How To Do) rather than a qualitative one (How To Be) but we get it and we agree.

Either way, the Act Like Model directive is there, which in other words is how you use the model, otherwise its value is speculative at best.

Getting that plain sight back took a bit of wandering -- and also proposed a philosophical comedy starring The World's Most Underused Role Model.

Being an unused model can be tough. If you have kids or students you can probably put a check in the box already or you're afraid you will have to in the future. The remedy? Be unused intentionally. That way, being unused is an achievement, with virtually no effort involved.

A more serious issue is the case in which the Role and the Model are really out of whack with each other. Occasionally, someone is in a visible position, behaving in a consistently inappropriate way. This might be a case of missing self-awareness, but on the other hand it could be simply a case of hefty disregard for conforming the two.

Currently, the solution to that seems to be Celebrity. Being a celebrity takes notable effort, but it doesn't include making a mismatched role and model less out of whack; becoming a celebrity effectively makes that alignment unnecessary, and you still don't have to take any responsibility for people who decide to be like you.

The gap between the role model and the observer comes in other flavors, too. I started to review the people who strike me as my personal role models. It's not a short list. Of the people in that list, particularly people I actually know, some of the results came with attributes I hadn't really thought about, and writing those down made it clear that they weren't deal-breakers.

Two of them are people who laid me off in the past.

Two are people I have deep, permanent, active disagreements with.

Three are people who have very little experience as adults under their belt.

One notices me only about every two years. For a minute. If I ask.

And one has failed me not once, but twice.

Why bring that up? Well, because the big message in it is that despite some personal reasons I might have for not appreciating them, they are still, in some role, valuable models for me.

Which means, by the way, that I use them just as I use the ones I have nothing but happy to report about, who also outnumber them by a lot -- which is at least lucky, not just easier. But also, it is noteworthy that my role models don't know they are my role models. I don't tell them. And generally, I reveal the names anywhere else only about the ones I don't actually know and who don't know me. 

One of the secrets of using role models is the construct IF... THEN. It points out the responsibility of the User to notice when the IF actually matters. 

"IF I was in that situation..." (what situation?)

"... and my role was..." (what role?)

"... THEN I would want to be like..." (what person?)

This makes it more obvious that the modeling part of Role Modeling is also done mainly by the User. The whole thing is the User's hypothesis.

I take some relief in that observation, because it explains that I don't much "fail" as a role model. That is, the whole thing about being a role model is more binary than it is an extended effort of variable measured effect. Instead, it's just that, for anyone with a reason for paying attention to me as a role model, I am, or I'm not. I don't "become", and I don't even audition, but I still get cast or don't get cast, yes or no, on or off.

Someone in the cross-hairs of role modeling may not know it is happening, and they may not care either. But what happens to them is that the perspective of the User functions like a filter to select the characteristics that are desired for imitation. That filtered view of the observed person is what models them; the real contest is between the User's understanding of what makes a "Role" real under the circumstances.

The tricky part about Roles is that by definition they refer to Responsibilities. What makes roles tricky is that the User may try to impose responsibilities on the observed person, when in reality no such responsibility exists. User-assigned Roles can be positive, rewarding, even flattering. But without a measurable connection to reality, their survival is highly dependent on whether the observed person agrees to play along. Two different Users can create multiple role models from the same observed person... and any given User might get surprised if the observed person "breaks the rules" that the User needs them to follow. This is a great source of controversy...

In the end, we might wonder, how do we wind up with Role Models that include cheating husbands, talentless exhibitionists, hard-boiled narcissists, people with deficient anger management, racist drunks, mobsters, or other extremists? Answer: we filter out what doesn't matter to us at the time if ever again.

Our two most important filters look for How To Do and How To Be. Consequently, their "negatives" are also in effect: how NOT to do, and how NOT to be. What is usually in effect, as well, is another influence of some kind that is telling us how SHOULD we do and how SHOULD we be. This extra influence mostly works on us to determine what our filter will be and when we'll decide to use it. But with or without that influence, we still don't always approach any role model with the same need. This stuff gets emotional, building and dismantling heroes and loyalties.

And there is another final piece of the dynamic, which is model management. This is a bunch of activity that is dedicated to promoting and controlling how an observed person gets noticed, to maximize the chance that a desired modeling gets done by the User. We know all about this as marketing and PR, or as Reputation. This is a great source of theatrical entertainment... and for many people a source of paychecks. After all, the whole idea of a shifty User trying to hit a moving target. 

If you decide to be a role model, there are probably two paths you need to go down simultaneously. 

One: get a manager. This could be something you do for yourself, but face up to the fact that branding, like hovering, is a lot of work exerted against the forces of nature. 

Two: make sure people know what you really care about; don't send invitations to people who don't care about the same things. Invitations are a lot more than just being seen, and you know why you're sending them. Even then, you discover that being a role model is mostly like being a host of someone else's ideas.