A problem with Sociometry?

[Johanna and Hamish]

Greetings group talkers

I have been contemplating Sociometry and thought I would post some thoughts
about Sociometry and organisations because I thought your responses and
reflections would be interesting.

Warmly
Hamish Brown
Psychodramatist 


A problem with sociometry as an explanatory theory of human dynamics seems
to appear in attempting to apply it to organisational systems - when I take
it not just as an explanatory theory but also as a theory to guide my
actions I find that I am put into a dilemma.  On the one hand I have
responses to the world that come about as a function of my role repertoire
which cause me to move towards and away from others at different times - on
the other hand I am self conscious of the responses others are having to me
and their moving towards and away from me at different times often due to my
speaking or actions.  I find that I am able to adjust so that others are
more inclined to move towards me, also I am able to build relationship with
a wide range of people so that there is positive tele.  The difficulty
arises when I notice that while I might be able to cause someone to move
towards me and doing so is not congruent with my natural response to that
person in that situation.  I suppose I might call this a 'role conflict' and
I might do a psychodrama to reconcile this conflict within myself.
However... 

Contemplating this has me value the work of Machiavelli the Italian
philosopher.  The thing is that I want to see the world and relationships as
more than a series of political games and maneuverings and yet it is obvious
to me at some points that letting my true feelings show would cause
fragmentation in the system and result in my not getting what I want. 
 
If I am in the role of trainee or employee where there is little or no
positional power associated with the role and a set of expectations
regarding how I should best act, then there is quite some burden on me to
'fall into line', to do what others want so I can get what I want.  The
problem I am pointing to is not this in its self (sociometry provides a
useful way to present this dilemma to all of you) the problem is that this
is quite a simple (polar) way of seeing the issues contained in this
situation.  While the description is accurate it does not seem to create a
rich enough explanation to assist me to resolve my power issues sufficiently
to experience relationship differently.  

Due to my tendency to avoid my power issues it leads me away from the
therapeutic arena of experiencing myself and deepening my reflections on my
inner experience and developing the capacity to relate to others through
different criteria and towards my clever rational capacity to act in a
Machiavellian manner to create what I want - the cost never seems very big
at the time, but is in fact huge.  I find myself living in a Machiavellian
world which I cannot escape because my projections and the rational response
to these perfectly reasonable projections make me aware of how Machiavellian
every one else is.

I guess I'm saying that while sociometric explanations sure are helpful to
those observing the system I am not sure how helpful they are to those
within it and of cause this separation is a problem in its self (as I don't
believe it exists).