The Relativity of Roles Principle

This is one of the theories I developed in my life, that is to date proven to be true.

If it happens to you being a consultant, you sure have a customer. If you have a customer, the customer is a moron and you are the smart one. No way you try to demonstrate the preciousness of your advices, he will always come up with his solution, that is not only unprofessional, but often obnoxious.

Now, try to reverse it the other way around. Have you ever had a supplier or consultant? A plumber in your house fixing a problem? Analyze how you still feel the smart one in the room, and, even if professionally skilled, the supplier seems to not understand at all your needs.

What happened? Is it possible that you are the smartest guy on Earth? Nope, you simply started acting like the customer of the first paragraph. Because since you’re a customer, you behave like one. No hope you remember how it felt being a supplier, when you turn to be a customer, you forget the past and start being a moron.

But there’s some more: your attittudes, your behaviour, even your skills change. If you hardly meet the deadlines as a consultant, you’re deadly precise as a customer. If you found difficult to understand what your customer wanted, you don’t understand why the hell your supplier keeps on getting wrong on your needs. If you were nice as a consultant, you are stiff as a customer.

This is the relativity of roles.

Another example? Take a number of important Professors, academics, etc. Send them to a learning course as learners. Although they spent at least the second half of their life predicating the importance of learning, the decline of students’ attention, etc., once they hit the classroom they will start behaving like the worst college student, chatting, paying little attention, and maybe throwing ink wet balls of paper etc.

For a similar but more serious approach, see “The Power of Context” chapter in “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell