In the "
office animals
" series, here is the chameleon. Among the approximately 200 species of Chameleonidae that exist on earth, there is one very well acclimated to office life. Chameleons are very numerous, according to an independent study that I conducted personally in the open space: 10% of my colleagues belong to this family. It's a lot. Of these 10%, half are chameleons without their knowledge, without being aware of it. The remaining 5% are true professionals: they have this very particular gift of being able to slip, mold themselves, adapt to any situation and interact with anyone. The chameleon can behave as easily and detachedly with someone he met just five minutes ago as if he was conversing with his own parents.
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Gift or talent, it is cultivated and perfected.
The chameleon needs to constantly feed on social codes, behaviors, tics of language, manias and vices that he gleans from those around him.
He is a hypermnesic social animal who forgets nothing.
In semiological language, we can say that the chameleon is a vacuum cleaner with signs!
Like the animal - the real one this time - which can change color depending on its environment, humans must develop a detailed knowledge of the characters that inhabit their professional ecosystem.
In the elevator camera, the chameleon is able to change his tone of voice, his smile and his lexical field depending on whether he crosses the CEO, the cleaning staff or an employee of the company!
For this reason, chameleons make excellent salespeople, able to constantly adapt to their customers.
But what is the true color of the open space chameleon?
The designer and writer François Cavanna had sketched an answer:
"The chameleon only has the color of the chameleon when it is placed on another chameleon."
To meditate...
For the sake of this column, please feel free to share your own experience of important people by writing to qperinel@lefigaro.fr.
