Radical Collaboration, by James W Tamm and Ronald J. Luyet

recc from that new coworking discord I joined, relating to the FIRO model. quote:

Ran across a model yesterday called FIRO (Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation) that grades people on three metrics: Inclusion, Control, and Openness.

On a scale of 0 to 9, how much do you want other people to include you (keep you in the loop with emails, invite you to parties, chat with you just for fun, ask for your input before making a decision, etc)? How much do you like to include other people?

On a scale of 0 to 9, how much do you want other people to control your work (guide your activities, help you schedule, select your priorities, decide how you achieve your goals, etc)? How much do you want to control other people?

On a scale of 0 to 9, how much do you want to share with other people about yourself (talk about your feelings, hopes, fears, doubts, share details about your life, etc)? How much do you want others to be open with you? I only encountered this yesterday, and have done no more research than what's in the summary in this book, so I have no idea how well it holds up beyond the author's reassurance that it does, nor how it may have been misused by managers through the ages. But what I like about it is that it explains a mystery about myself I've been struggling with for a while: it explains my wildly varying sociability scores.

In most models I've seen, openness and inclusion are lumped together into some overarching "extraversion" or "people-person" sort of metric, and then both I and other people end up very confused about who I am and what I want. But by splitting them out, it becomes quite clear.

The typical bro-friendship in Hollywood right now, for instance, is high-inclusion and low-openness: you wanna hang out with your buddies all the time, but you never want the conversation to get into anything icky like emotions and stuff. You'll often see female friendships portrayed as high-inclusion and high-openness: gal-pals will get together, paint their fingernails, and talk about everything from their digestive tract to how good their partner is in bed.

In this model, I'm high-openness and low-inclusion: I'm happy to talk about whatever, and I don't mind going as deep and as vulnerable as anyone wants, but I just don't feel the need to be involved very much no matter what the topic of discussion. I'll hop in if I feel like the group is missing something important, but if everything's flowing nicely then I prefer to sit on the sidelines. If we're working on a project together, and there's a decision to be made that clearly falls within your purview, then I don't feel the need to tell you how to do it – just make the decision and tell me what you decided. I like hanging out in spaces like this, but I don't want to be one of the most active members, I don't want to run tea time, I don't want to be a moderator or to have special permissions. I like lurking. And that probably explains, more than any other factor, why my mental and spiritual health are doing fine after 9 months of lockdown with no end in sight: I just don't like going to parties that much. I don't need to be face-to-face to experience the level of inclusion I want. I can get all my needs met from Discord and Zoom. And as another consequence, the productivity gain from hermit mode is well worth it: I get to do the things I want to do AND I get to work by myself. My suspicion , Sri, is that you are high-inclusion, and therefore hermit-mode productivity is fraught with tension: You want to get things done, because that makes you happy, but blocking yourself off from other people makes you unhappy. You want to hang out with people because that makes you happy, but it stops you creating things at the level you want to. And so you end up stuck in this middle place where you can't be fully happy no matter what you decide.