The Platinum Rule

http://robertgreiner.com/2014/04/the-platinum-rule/

by rg81 • 12 years ago

39 44 12 years ago

jerf4• 12 years ago

The "Platinum Rule" is already implied by the Golden Rule, unless you're saying that you would normally want people to ignore your preferences.

rg814• 12 years ago

maybe I had a flaw in my logic. I was trying to say that if you treat people according to your behavioral preferences (in my case, driving and task focused) then there is a good chance you will actually be introducing tension into the relationship - if they have a different style.

The golden rule is great for matters of ethics (i.e. I shouldn't steal from you), but it can cause tension when we discuss communication behaviors.

This concept shows up in a few books and was made popular by Tony Alessandra.

* http://www.alessandra.com/abouttony/aboutpr.asp

* http://www.amazon.com/People-Smart-Powerful-Techniques-Encou...

* http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Styles-Effective-Performance-...

cheald4• 12 years ago

I think the difference is that while the Golden Rule deals with actions (equatable to "hard skills"), the Platinum Rule deals with behaviors (equatable to "soft skills"). The latter does not say "render unto others the actions that they most desire", but rather "given that you are going to perform an action, perform that action in the way that best matches the way the other person is most comfortable with". It is not about the ethics of an action, but rather, how to behave in ways that are most receivable by other people.

gpvos• 12 years ago

It is. Nevertheless it's still worth pointing this out because there's lots of people who haven't figured that out.

mdisraeli• 12 years ago

"Well, I wouldn't mind if someone asked me!"

As a member of a minority group, this statement is sadly something we hear all the time if we object to people asking what should rationally otherwise be considered highly inappropriate questions. For example, just because someone is highly open about their sex life doesn't make asking a lesbian completely out of context how she has sex any more appropriate.

"Well, I would find it useful and be thankful"

Anyone who is a wheelchair user or has friends and family who are will probably know this one. People (strangers) have a habit of pushing wheelchairs around without asking the person within the chair first. Just because a currently abled body person might find the idea of someone helping them personally by pushing their chair if they used one, doesn't make it any more acceptable to completely ignore the wishes of a wheelchair user they don't know.

jerf4• 12 years ago

I understand what you're saying in general, but have no idea why you think it's a reply to what I said. I didn't say anything about asking questions. I talked about honoring preferences. Explaining why you have some preferences (about what questions you'd like asked) you'd like honored would seem to reinforce my point, rather than deny it.

ArbitraryLimits2• 12 years ago

I don't think so - the whole point is that other don't want the same behavior from you as you would want from you, in their shoes.

jerf4• 12 years ago

Read my post again. It covers that issue. Perhaps more concisely than you are used to, but it is in there.

3pt14159• 12 years ago

The "Platinum Rule" is wrong because it is impossible to follow. Even if my ethicals only included "do unto others as they want done to themselves" how would I resolve two fighting men each asking for assistance in subduing the other?

The reason the golden rule works is because it places you in the position of the other. If I accidentally killed someone due to carelessness, I would want myself to be imprisoned for some time.

afarrell3• 12 years ago

If you intentionally killed someone due to racial hatred, you also wouldn't want yourself to be imprisoned for some time either. Nor if you recklessly killed someone due to tiredness and a desire to get home earlier.

jerf4• 12 years ago

First, far be it from me to claim that the Golden Rule, followed literally, is a sufficient ethics on its own. Try to treat it logically and it's easy to construct Asimov-esque "Laws of Robotics" situations in which the simple formulations, taken literally, create paradoxes quite easily. It is, in my opinion, clearly a rule that one is more meant to follow the spirit of than the letter of the law.

That said, I'd also observe that your rule,"do unto others as they want done to themselves", is not the same as my point. My point is that "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you" itself already encompasses the idea of honoring preferences, on the grounds that you would already like your preferences honored. It isn't a free-floating rule that I would advocate you adding to your ethicals on its own, it's a second-order consequence of the already-existing Golden Rule.

The Golden Rule, while it does not proscribe an exact solution to your hypothetical, at least gives guidance, inasmuch as if you'd like to live in a just world, it implies that you should approach your hypothetical with justice in mind. Presumably you have not encountered a free-floating, context-free fight between two otherwise identical men who are for some mysterious reason asking you and you alone to resolve the fight in favor of one or the other, with no other options permitted.

(I dislike ethical hypotheticals, or at least, I dislike hypotheticals when people lose track of the fact that they are inevitably incredible, massive simplifications of any real situation you might experience. One should either highlight that the hypothetical is deliberately abstracted, in which case math-style logic-chopping is what is called for, or that it is intended to be a real question about a real situation in which case what is called for is almost certainly a logically-complicated set of "if-thens" to flesh out the hypothetical, with general understanding that there is no one "true" answer because there is no one "true" situation being given.)

It is, in my opinion, a very thin and perhaps downright sophmoric interpretation of the Golden Rule to read it hyper-literally and incredible "thinly" and apply it only to your own literal preferences about exactly what you'd like done to you this second. I say this to lay down a marker, not saying that you are necessarily doing that. For instance, it certainly does not mean that if you are hungry right now, your ethical imperative is to go around feeding everybody you see, regardless of their own state. It's deeper and richer than that... again, probably not deep and rich enough to be a full ethical system on its own (I don't think it is), but it's not that thin.

cheald4• 12 years ago

I actually used to work for a company that developed tools for administrating and interpreting DISC assessments. It's actually really interesting stuff - we all tend to have some assumption at some level that other people think like us, value the same things that we do, and have the same reactions to a given situation that we do. DISC asserts otherwise - just because I want to be treated one way doesn't mean that you want to be treated that way, and by understanding those differences, we can eliminate friction in communication.

Once you can learn to read how others want to be treated and know how to modify your own interactions with them accordingly, your ability to successfully interact with a wide variety of people vastly improves. It seems obvious and handwavey, but in my experience, the vast majority of tense relationships or awkward interpersonal interactions are because of a failure of two people to understand each other. Even if they're both behaving in the way they'd want to be treated, that doesn't mean that they're treating the other person as they'd want to be treated.

rg814• 12 years ago

I think you might enjoy Personal Styles and Effective Performance. It's a dry read, but reinforces the things you discussed above.

http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Styles-Effective-Performance-...

cheald4• 12 years ago

Heh, I suspect it's much of the same stuff I learned on the job. My former employer's products centered around understanding behavioral styles (natural vs adapted) and their impact on job performance and interpersonal relationships. Super interesting stuff.

afarrell3• 12 years ago

The Platinum rule does however require that you know someone else's preferences, which is harder when you are not married to them.

I default to treating people how my mental model of a "normal person" wants to be treated. For example, most people in most circumstances want minimal interaction with strangers. I then modify that by what I can vaguely infer about their preferences based on their background. For example, women going to be not just annoyed, but creeped out by random strangers. I then modify that based on setting: at a conference, people are far more interested in meeting new people. I then try to pay attention to their body language, tone of voice, and words to see if I can read anything about them as an individual. If a person looks alert and open-stanced, they are probably more interested in meeting people. And of course, if it is non-awkward, I'll just ask them about their preferences.

cheald4• 12 years ago

The idea behind DISC (as referenced in the article) is that there are four behavioral axes, and that by learning to understand which a person ranks highest and lowest on (via reading body language, speech patterns, expressed preferences, etc), you can modify your behaviors in context to them in such a way that the way you treat them is the way they want to be treated.

The core thesis of DISC is that there is not a "normal person" (even though we intuitively think there is). Rather, there are normal archetypes of people, and understanding those archetypes makes it easier to interact with them. You assert that "most people in most circumstances want minimal interaction with strangers", but this is wholly untrue (and indicates that you are a relatively low "I", which is fairly typical of tech types). Some people actively seek out interactions with strangers (strangers are just friends they haven't met yet!), and understanding that makes it much easier to interact with and communicate with them. High-I types actively seek and crave social interaction. They may modify their behavior to the situation, but they are most comfortable when they're socializing; in fact, the further someone's adapted (environmentally-imposed) behaviors are from their natural (preferred, given a lack of other constraints) behaviors, the unhappier they tend to be. While it may be culturally verboten to strike up a conversation with the person next to you on the subway, the high-I would like nothing better than to chat about their day with the person next to them (and the low-I wants nothing more than to be left alone).

Since there are only these four major attributes to learn, you can read people that you don't know intimately - sometimes from across the room!

For example, if you can recognize a high "D" personality (which is frequently easy to recognize, but also relatively rare), you will make them feel most at ease by not having to be in charge of an interaction - behaving cooperatively and deferentially will make it much easier for them to feel comfortable with you than if you are attempting to be in charge. This doesn't mean to be a doormat, but simply that if you can give up some non-critical control, they will feel that the interaction is much more "natural".

By the same token, interacting with a low "D" requires you to step up and take the reins. Being assertive and confident with a low D will result in a smoother experience, because their natural tendency will be to be deferential and unassuming, and it's actually more comfortable for them to be given some direction and to have someone else make the decisions.

Think about the age-old "where do you want to go for lunch?" question. When interacting with a high D, make suggestions, give input, offer opinions, but try to let them make the decision. When interacting with a low D, you might need to be the one to define the boundaries and make a decision about where you're going to go. The high D doesn't like other people making decisions for her, and the low D doesn't like having to be the one on which the decision rests. Understanding that lets you interact smoothly with both of them, even though they require diametrically-opposed approaches.

davidw• 12 years ago

Another way to look at the two types of behavior is "maximizing" vs "satisficing":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing

This is covered here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice

auggierose• 12 years ago

I really hate putting people into these quadrants. As if that would be possible. It is certainly not possible for me, so why should it be possible for most other humans?

rg814• 12 years ago

Interesting perspective. There is quite a bit of research on the subject and most people typically have a dominant trait. Although, everyone can express behaviors in any of the types at any time, we typically "default" to a single one (sometimes two).

Have you taken a DiSC assessment? I find they are accurate for me and the people I work with who have taken them - anecdotal I know.

chongli• 12 years ago

The problem with these traits is that they're so broad and vague as to be almost meaningless. Might as well use a horoscope!

inerte• 12 years ago

There's a personality test for every type of person. If you don't like quadrants there's sextants, cross multi dimensional dialers and many others: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tests#Personality_tests

I am only half kidding, of course :)

logfromblammo2• 12 years ago

The problem with the platinum rule is that we have no clear and unambiguous language for advertising how we would like to be treated.

In _This Alien Shore_, by C.S. Friedman, one planetary culture, the Guerans, is essentially a human colony, but one where gestational biochemistry has been mutated to the extent that every adult exhibits at least one type of human mental disorder. They adapted by adopting a system of face markings so that people don't make simple but potentially dangerous mistakes--like hugging someone with an autism spectrum disorder, or holding eye contact too long against someone with a dominance disorder.

The point is that you would really have to either put extensive research into the preferences and personalities of everyone you know, or everyone would have to write key information across their foreheads every day.

Our society, lacking a dire need, does not care to invest in that level of effort and openness. It is far easier to follow the silver rule (don't do things you don't like to others) and the golden rule (do for others what you would like them to do for you), because those do not require extraordinary knowledge of other people's preferences.

In the age of social network oversharing and augmented reality, perhaps we can run an application that will superimpose another person's preferences over their faces automatically. But for now, the platinum rule is going to be pretty hard to use outside the bounds of your own family.

zentiggr• 12 years ago

One of my favorite stories... the Guerans always fascinated me as being just a little more forward about displaying personality traits.

I have never been quite as strict as Dr. Masada about my external world, but I do definitely share some of those core feelings. Always wish I could get my wife to read it so she could see Masada and maybe draw some helpful parallels. Alas, she reads very little hard SF.

jrs235• 12 years ago

"we have no clear and unambiguous language for advertising how we would like to be treated"

Which is why being actively assertive is a good choice to make. Not sure how someone wants to be treated then ask them. What if the don't want you to ask them? Then they should have been actively assertive and wore a sign/shirt that says "Don't ask". (I realize that doesn't help the blind). Also, perhaps we should rephrase "how someone wants to be treated" to "how someone prefers you to act toward them"?

logfromblammo2• 12 years ago

But that wastes time in comparison to the interactions of two people who both subscribe to the same prenegotiated etiquette.

corry• 12 years ago

To me the WHOLE POINT of the Golden Rule is that there ISN'T a whole bunch of introspection / analysis / etc of the other person.

You just use yourself as the litmus test - i.e. "would I like this?" is waaaaaay easier to answer than "would they like this?". The former is an immediate gut-reaction; the latter requires a certain amount of empathy and insight.

izzydata• 12 years ago

Which is why the golden rule makes more sense for strangers and the platinum rule makes more sense for people you know. (to some degree)

protonfish4• 12 years ago

This is a poor rule and I'll explain why.

In Reciprocal altruism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism there must be a way to detect "cheaters" otherwise you will spend your life breaking your back for others and have nothing to show for it except the feeling of being abused. Sure, if everyone did it, that would be great. But the more people who use the "Platinum Rule" the more advantageous it is for some to abuse the system - criticizing others for not doing enough for them while never doing a darn thing for anyone else.

If you follow this rule, you are a total sucker, but hey you live like you want to live. It affects everyone else, however, because it creates an environment where unethical bullies and liars can thrive and gain power.

mightybyte4• 12 years ago

I strongly disagree. The platinum rule as stated in the OP is not the same as reciprocal altruism. In the example, he would not be reducing his fitness by treating his wife like she wanted to be treated. Not all interpersonal relations are a zero-sum game. Your position assumes that your preferences are unambiguously best in all situations. I'm sure we all would like to think that is the case, but that's a pretty arrogant attitude.

You can respect people and treat them the way they want to be treated without being a sucker.

protonfish4• 12 years ago

I didn't want you to disagree with me!

peteretep• 12 years ago

Massive apologies in advance for my immature nature, but who on earth let a quadrant for describing human behaviour that spells out "dicks" get past copy editing? I can it describe all people? If so, I guess that means all people are...

herge• 12 years ago

It's supposed to be read in a clockwise fashion. Also, in the theory, the archetypes have the hardest time working with the archetype that is directly across from it, so there is a reason for the graphical representation.

vkjv• 12 years ago

"Do unto others as they would like done unto them." Is a pretty common restatement of the Golden Rule. While I agree with your premise, there's no reason to rename it.

rg814• 12 years ago

I think you have a point here. I was just using what Tony Alessandra already made popular: http://www.alessandra.com/abouttony/aboutpr.asp.

sneak• 12 years ago

I don't like this because, as a massive weirdo with an above-average level of control over my own emotions, the golden rule basically gives me a free pass.

ASneakyFox• 12 years ago

Myers briggs, this dcis thing, astrology, meh. All gobly gook. People dont fit in to easy clearly definable categories. People dont make decisions based off of clearly definable categories (even if they did exist, they're not relevant). So its all silly to even talk about.

The Platinum Rule

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