The Mixture of Our Dimensional Perceptions

Remember, we all have some capabilities in all four dimensions. We tend to specialize in one dimension, do poorly in another, and perform "okay" in the other two. The magic is in the mix of what dimensions each individual uses. It accounts for most of our differences, and the motivation behind what each of us likes and dislikes — particularly in our work. It sets the path by which each of us influences our environment to support our own survival and "thrival."

Understand that our mixture of Dimensional Perceptions — our personality profile — will not change over our lifetime. Scientists have long argued over what determines our personality traits — our environment or our genetic make-up. As we understand child development more, the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. We do know that children tend to develop neural pathways that support whatever is important to the people around them. If a child's family loves music, most of the children will have an affinity for it. If the family finds business acumen important, the children will tend to develop supporting talents. But our environment does not shape all of our talents, and our genetics don't account for all of them, either.

The scientific community generally holds that the factors that establish our personality traits, and also most of our values, "lock in" between five and 10 years of age. I would theorize that between 10 and 25 we spend a great deal of time discovering who we are, but our personality does not change. The tendencies and talents exist, and we're just figuring them out and developing them.

When an individual makes statements such as "I used to behave like …" or " I used to believe that …," it doesn't necessarily mean their personality changed, so much as they have made self-discoveries of what works for them and what doesn't.

Dimensional Perceptions and Their Influence on Our Careers

How does the mix of Dimensional Perceptions influence our careers? Allow me to use one of my favorite examples: sales people. The best sales people usually have an orientation toward the Future dimension. They become "natural" sales people because they live in the world of ideas. In order to get anything done, they have to "sell" someone else on implementing their ideas. They possess great adaptability, so they often have the capability to implement, but while they are implementing, they'll have 25 new ideas, and will become bored with the project they're working on. For this reason, they don't usually finish the work before they abandon it and move onto something they believe will pay off better.

So, the dominating influence of this individual's personality orients them to the Future, to hope, to possibilities. They work in this realm with the most ease, and therefore, have tremendous energy to expend there. Because of their natural visionary tendencies, they have the unique ability to visualize their "customer" using or embracing whatever they're "selling." Convincing the customer of the vision remains their final task, which they accomplish with ease and flair.

"Fine," you say, "so if I need a sales person I'll look for one who's Future-oriented." Not so fast. What kind of Future-oriented sales person do you need? What other dimensional influences does the sales person require to sell your product. The following chart might give you some ideas.

Future dimension influenced by …	Supports selling …
Past	With facts, figures, features and benefits. This person will supply their customers with a lot of written material about the product, some of which they may write themselves.
Present	With flow charts and trend analysis. This person will draw a flow chart of what they're selling. They will probably use a methodical approach to the selling process.
Physical Reality	By showing. This person will be most at ease selling something physical (cars, houses, furniture) or something they can physically demonstrate with visual sales aids.

I always suspected that most long term contractors and consultants used a great deal of this Future-orientation just as sales people do. Though I have never proven this clinically, I'll share an anecdote that finally convinced me that most of us have this trait.

In November of 1996, I spoke at STC's Region 6 conference. My "slot" was on Saturday morning, an extended session including a consulting and contracting workshop scheduled after most of the conference ended. Contractors, consultants, and "wannabe's" filled the audience, and I made the decision to go around the room and ask everyone about themselves as part of my opening. Though I only asked for the minimum information (your name, what you do, what you expect to learn). The resulting introductions took forever, because each person had a career full of changes and wanted to talk about them. Virtually every long time contractor/consultant had an entrepreneurial approach to life. They had all sampled different professions, most were well traveled, and their careers created a patchwork that illustrated how adaptable they were and how quickly they became bored. Most spoke easily about their exploits and communicated very effective mental pictures of what they had experienced.

Further conversations after the session confirmed what I already knew. Everyone was "selling" something, whether it was their services or their vision of where we were headed.

Keep in mind, a person wouldn't have to be totally dominated by a Future-orientation to function effectively as a Contractor or Consultant, but a healthy dose would help them market, consult, anticipate, and see connections between things. How would a decision table for a Contractor or Consultant look? To oversimplify, we'll stay with the dominating Future-orientation:

Future dimension influenced by …	Supports Contracting and Consulting …
Past	Where the assignment requires research and fact gathering through reading. Where the client highly values fact gathering and verification, along with impeccable, grammatically correct writing skills.
Present	Where the client values project organization and management, information organization, trend analysis and flow charting.
Physical Reality	Where the client values the physical look of documents, including layout and packaging.

How does Future–Orientation Influence the Contractor or Consultant?

Acumen in the Future dimension helps a Contractor or Consultant to stay networked. It supports marketing, strategy, problem solving and most importantly, adaptability — perhaps the most important trait of a Contractor or Consultant.

People will almost always see this person as a "quick study," able to gain an understanding of most situations rapidly. This person may not develop very deep knowledge in any given subject unless influenced by the Past dimension, but they will intuitively gravitate to the most important facts, thereby un-cluttering their mind to think strategically. They will learn and communicate what really counts, sometimes avoiding detail all together. They will see connections between different events and issues that no one else can see, and they will communicate these observations with passion. They can help differing viewpoints develop consensus, and they often facilitate meetings well.

This might also create some problems for a "nuts and bolts" technical writer. People with this orientation must guard against staying too shallow and sometimes must push themselves into detail that they don't enjoy very much, for the sake of the project. Because they become bored so quickly, often requiring rapid changes from one assignment to the next, this person must also guard against the perception of never finishing anything.

If you find yourself very strongly Future-oriented, you might choose relatively short assignments, or those with frequent duty changes, to keep yourself energized. As long as you don't have to "live" in a world of very deep detail, you will experience relatively little negative stress in consulting situations, and will thrive on the constant changes that make up a Contractor's or Consultant's life. Because Future-oriented people spend so much energy looking forward, they quickly gain a sense of impending change and can act accordingly. Events rarely surprise a self-aware, Future-oriented Contractor or Consultant.

How does Past–Orientation Influence the Contractor or Consultant?

For a Contractor or Consultant in the Technical Communication field, some Past-orientation will serve them well. It supports gathering and recording of facts, particularly through reading and writing. It also supports the settings of ordinal precedence, particularly helpful when building logical step-by-step instructions. People influenced by this dimension will drive themselves just a little harder to actually complete assignments, because they enjoy having a completed book to point to as their accomplishment. They want to understand truths, which they discover in knowing the "facts," and their completed document represents this collection of truths that they have gathered. This is how they value themselves, and the completed book represents a physical manifestation of that value.

Just as any other orientation, Past has its downside. If you use the Past dimension too much ("too much" is my value judgment), you may get lost in the detail of what you're working on. You may forget the strategic reason for what you do, and thereby collect and communicate facts that have no relevance to the business problem you must solve. Where this would not cause great problems for a team worker with a good manager, it could destroy the career of someone who promotes themselves as a senior Technical Communication Contractor or Consultant. The more time that you remain a Contractor or Consultant, the more your clients expect you to address the strategic issues and solve them with your Technical Communication skills.

How does Present–Orientation Influence the Contractor or Consultant?

Present-orientation supports organization. This includes project management, information organization, trend analysis, and process analysis. Many Technical Communication projects benefit vastly from a person that uses some of the Present dimension.

In the consulting arena, the more organized projects have deadlines and deliverables. If you use this dimension, you will possess a heightened sense of urgency that will support meeting these deadlines and completing the deliverable in a way that fulfills most of the its requirements.

You will just as likely encounter other assignments that don't have any organization at all. A Contractor or Consultant with some Present-orientation in their personality has a remarkable role to play in the midst of such bedlam. Assuming the Contractor or Consultant still uses the Future dimension most of all, they can discover connections between events and circumstances that no one else can see. By gathering these pieces together and then using their Present tendencies to distill order from chaos, the consultant demonstrates a huge "value-add," that is, an ability to be worth far more than their client pays them. Do this, and watch your client tackle you at the door when you try to leave.

Ability to create order may frustrate you, because you can't organize everything and everyone. However, you will show value time and time again, which means your client will compensate you well (as long as you demand it).

In most of my assignments, I find this dimension crucial, and I believe it represents one of the greatest components that a Technical Communicator can bring to their client. Most of society, and corporations in microcosm, fall prey to what I call the "Wad o' Information Syndrome." Tremendous amounts of information exist in the world — almost anything you'd ever want to know. Corporations generally have most of the information they need written down somewhere. However, no routes exist to reach specific pieces in that wad of information, no organization exists to support its retrieval. The personality that uses the Present dimension can very naturally place the information in retrievable order, with page numbers, guide words, indexes and tables of contents. They can bring different, but highly effective, structure to online documentation as well. This capability brings untold value to any company with information dissemination problems. Have you discovered any companies that don't face this challenge?

How does Physical Reality–Orientation Influence the Contractor or Consultant?

The Contractor or Consultant who uses the Physical Reality dimension will probably be able to develop deliverables that have eye-appeal. Layout and page design (not necessarily document and information design) may come easily to this individual. The more influence this dimension has on the person, the less likely they will be able to sit in front of a computer and write for a long period of time. When they perform more visual tasks, such as page layout, they will be able to work longer.

If you possess a great deal of this component, most office environments will cause you stress. The stress comes from working with the written word, filing, paper-shuffling, abstract concepts, and little contact with more natural environments in the outdoors. This has nothing to do with intelligence, but more your natural tendencies and desires. You simply won't find much joy in office work. You can, of course, overcome these natural tendencies, but you will unnecessarily use a great deal of energy doing so. You will become exhausted easily, and end the day feeling totally "wiped out."