the Connectivator

The How to Manual for The Connectivator
Understanding the Connectivator Pack Mentality
by: Angie Johnsey
 
If you have heard of ph360.me you may be familiar with the word biotype. You may even know what your biotype may be. If not, take a few minutes now to take the 3 minute health type test.

Allow me to first briefly explain the word "Connectivator".

In the biotype family, according to the ph360 model, there is a group called the Activators and a group the called Connectors. You also have the Sensors, Crusaders, Guardians, and Diplomats. On the 360 degree biotype wheel, these two biotypes, the Activators and Connectors sit next to each other in the human gene pool. In this article, I will be lumping the two together because the psychology of these two biotypes are much the same...hence the name.. Connectivator. I did not come up with this term..I have heard this word spoken within the ph360 team, as I am part of that team. 
So now that you are up to speed on the word Connectivator, that brings me to the topic of this article.

The Connectivators are a sweet, loving group, if you know how to treat them correctly, but need to be thoroughly understood in order to maintain healthy communication and relationships.

For this conversation, I am going to be using the analogy of the canine family.. More specifically, the dog pack and the rules they live by.
 
If you work, play, or live with a Connectivator, this can help you understand their language, their boundaries, why they love, and why sometimes, they will attack.
 
Here are the main values held by the Connectivator pack:
 

• Love. We love connection and find safety in community and trusted friends. We love to be touched and petted.
• Praise. We thrive in an environment that recognizes and enjoys the beauty we create… an allows us to run free with our creations. We do not thrive in a critical, corrective or seemingly controlling environments. We become unhappy inside a fence or cage and will find a way to dig out… we can’t help it. Treat us with consistency, structure, and calmness and you will never need a fence or cage to keep us with you.
• Equality. Superior or “better than you” overconfident, cocky, condescending, know it all, controlling, attitudes, are not tolerated.
• Humility or the ability to be submissive at times... to give in..having to always have your way and never compromise, will create issues with the Connectivator...as in they will not like you or accept you in their pack.
• Truth. We are a highly intuitive group. We are very suspicious of being lied to and will constantly look for clues of this behavior as this indicates danger for our safety.
• Loyalty. We are extremely loyal to those we respect. If we ever feel you are no longer our equal and are weak, or disloyal to us, we lose respect and find others to give our loyalty too.. We are all about giving loyalty to those we feel safest around.
• Safety. Defend & Protect- Safety is extremely important. Calm, stable, consistent leadership will keep a calm, productive pack. We will also defend our leader and those in our pack if we feel they are threatened.

 
 
 
One leader.
Inside our pack, it’s understood there is one accepted leader. We like it simple. We don’t like to have to answer to and run things by 20 different people. Just one.
 
If we feel safe with that leader and feel that leader understands and obeys the rules of the "pack".. we are loyal till the end and our fighting nature is used to defend the leader..If we at anytime begin to feel unsafe, unloved, and unprotected by the leader, we will use that energy to attack the leader and then assign a new one.
 
If you are to be our leader, truth and loyalty are important. You must be loyal to us.. Meaning if you say something, you better mean it. If you start being inconsistent with your words or actions, or don’t take time to explain yourself, Connectivators become extremely suspicious, anxious, and we begin to whine and bark. This disloyal behavior feels very unsafe, unstable, and will cause a panic in the pack. We then begin to alert the other members of the pack to avoid any of us being in danger. If you confuse the pack with your behavior by not being clear, upfront, and honest, we will alert every pack member that will listen. We are not trying to cause trouble within the pack. We are trying to protect the pack from a seemingly unstable, disloyal pack leader.
 
We love praise.
As previously mentioned, Connectivators love to be free to create beauty in a spontaneous way. If we are asked to do something that feels exciting to us or stimulates our problem solving skills, we will focus on this project until it is complete. After we are happy with our work, we immediately look for praise and positive feedback for what we have created. Asking us to wait to receive our praise that we have worked so hard for, is torture to a Connectivator. It's like asking a dog who has brought his leader a present, to wait until tomorrow to receive praise and a pat on the head. We are a very "do it now" group. If it's not immediate praise, we become sad and then lose interest in producing anything for our leader. We think, you won't like what I bring you and I won't get the praise as a reward, so why bother. 

If you are not a Connectivator, you will not fully understand how to lead or communicate with the pack. The best you can hope for is to communicate with love, praise, and equality. You will need to leave the correction to a designated Connectivator who can act as the pack leader. If you go into the pack and try to correct them, they will bite you. It will be a dog fight that leaves you feeling frustrated and them feeling attacked. Remember to be a pack leader, you have to fully know and understand the Connectivator and how to reinforce the pride in their work and not crush their spirit or excitement. If you come in smelling of a superior, know it all attitude, and give corrective or negative feedback, you will meet resistance and could possibly be eaten. Connectivators value equality and need to be treated in a way that they feel you at least see them as an equal before you are accepted inside the circle of trust as a pack member.
 
 
Beware of Dog.
Outsiders or new people introduced to an already established pack of Connectivators are always perceived as a threat. Always. There is no gene in us that says...Yeah!!! A new friend!! Get in here!!
 
Introducing new people is a very delicate process in the Connectivator family.
 
If they are introduced to us inside of our group dynamic.. our intruder, outsider, “threat” bell alarms. We must be given time to individually sniff them out and approve of them and establish equality. We have to trust them and decide they are a friend. Once they are in, we will defend and protect them. We may still bark at them either to their face or behind their back, but we will defend them if someone outside the pack attacks them.
 
One exception is if we meet someone outside of the pack while we are solo... then we may wag our tail and consider accepting them as a friend but we do it with great caution. They must still be sniffed and sized up first. If they appear to think they are better than us (superior) they are put on the enemy list and we will bark and alert everyone else of this undesirable attitude… Equality, remember?
 
If a new person is thrown into our group as an authority of any kind without the pack being able to work out the balance and trust issues (equality) first..we will eat them and the horse (Crusader) they rode in on.. especially if that person seems bossy and over confident and uses condescending language..This unfortunate person will never survive the attack of the pack.
 
Why is this?
1. Equality among pack members is strong in our genes. Over confident people are a threat to our pack leader, and if that leader is trusted and respected, we will defend them against any threat because of our loyalty gene.
2. They are a threat to everyone of us and to our delicate balance.
3. Balance must be maintained for peace and safety in the group and new people always throw that off at first. There always needs to be time allowed for the adjustment and acceptance period before harmony is restored to the pack.
 
Why we leave our pack.
We will leave the group if we don't feel at least “equal”.. because to us.. being less than and not respected is the ultimate threat to our safety within the group. If this happens, we isolate and eventually leave the group feeling very rejected. Our pack is suppose to always love us.. not turn on us, ignore us, treat us as lesser members, or replace us. The group no longer offers safety, so we leave to find it.
 
Different Breeds
Just like in the canine family, there are different breeds of Connectivator. You have your labs who are energetic and love people 24/7. You have your small breeds that bark constantly about the smallest movement or disturbance. You have your laid back nothing bothers them golden retrievers. You have your doberman's that guard territory. You even have the wolf who likes to follow a pack but sometimes does the alone thing... but for the most part… the values encoded in our genes are the same.

If you are a Connectivator, what kind of dog breed are you? Here is a cute quiz you can take to find out.
 
My hopes are that this Connectivator How to Manual can help the Connectivator understand and accept their natural tendencies and can help the rest of you avoid being annoyed or bitten:)