I think people need to consider whether it's their superior who is sincerely asking them a favor, or it's just one of their coworkers who thinks they have the right to pawn off work on others. Sometimes coworkers see someone who they think is not doing anything and think that means it's their right to give that person something to do. This is wrong. In this case, I would prefer to see the person asked to do such work say that it's not in their job description (or something a little more harsh), because this would show an ability to stand up for oneself, which is more important to me than a yes man.
Also, obviously if there's a serious time or resource constraint, it might be appropriate to ask others for help. However, a worker should take serious consideration of the tone in which they do this. If I see someone who's condescending/ talking down to their coworkers, I would assume this is the way they would talk to clients. Considering my clients are intelligent people with high expectations, and that they like to stand up for themselves also, I would be very concerned with someone who acts superior to someone when they're actually not.
The bottom line is that if you want to become a go to guy, go above and beyond your job description, but you only have to do this for your boss and sincere coworkers, and not necessarily by saying yes to every little task someone asks you to do.
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Sucker or Saint?
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Stanford University psychologists Alexander Jordan and Benoit Monin have a theory about this social dynamic, which they label the "sucker to saint" phenomenon. People can't stand the idea of being a fool; it's cognitively intolerable. So they mentally "reframe" the situation to make their behavior not only acceptable but superior: They moralize their spinelessness, transforming it into altruism, community spirit—saintliness. They become "holier than thou."
That's the theory anyway. To test it, the psychologists simulated a workplace scenario similar to the one described above. They had volunteers participate in a sham experiment, and at one point they asked some of them to help out with a monotonous task. It wasn't collating, but just as mindless and dull. Then the psychologists continued the charade by publicly asking another volunteer to do the same dubious job. This volunteer was in reality part of the psychologists' team, and he played the role of the workplace "rebel" by begging off the menial job. Importantly, there were no consequences for not being a team player.
Afterward, the volunteers completed an elaborate set of tests and ratings—including a morality scale—for both themselves and their defiant colleague. The results were striking: those volunteers who had done the boring task and then witnessed the act of rebellion (and only those volunteers) reacted by dramatically boosting their own moral standing. What's more, they came to view the "rebel" not as honorable or assertive but as lacking in moral fiber, a sinner.
What's going on here? Jordan and Monin believe that self-concept has two distinct dimensions: One has to do with things like competence and self-reliance and social agility, while the other is all about warmth and altruism and communitarian values. Complying with an inappropriate request (in the experiment and in life) does indeed threaten one's sense of competency, but it opens another option: thinking of the same behavior as a selfless and moral act not only takes away the threat, it exalts the self as an exemplar of community.
The psychologists wanted to double-check their findings, to make sure the sainthood effect was truly linked to feelings of inadequacy. So they ran the same experiment again, but this time they gave some of the volunteers the chance to bolster their self-esteem beforehand. They did this by having them write a short essay about one of their most admirable traits: sense of humor, creativity, heroism, whatever made them most proud. Then they ran the experiment just as before, and found just what they expected: as reported in the August issue of the journal Psychological Science, the opportunity for self-affirmation completely wiped out the "sucker-to-saint" effect; they witnessed the colleague's rebellion without needing to resort to self-glorification. Put another way, claiming the moral high ground is driven by a basic insecurity.
Herbert writes the We're Only Human ... blog at www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman
© 2008
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