Archive for April, 2008

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Great Expectations and the problems they bring

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

Yesterday’s blog, and some of the comments on it, got me thinking about the problems expectations can cause us; so often it isn’t the thing itself that is the problem, rather the gap between what we experience and what we expected. We expect all sorts of things from other people, standards of behaviour, sets of priorities, use of language and we take ourselves as the benchmark for all of these standards. We ‘know’ that others are different from us; we ‘know’ that they have different pasts, different capabilities, different interests, different needs, but somehow we expect them to all do what we would do in any given situation.

If we are feeling more rational, we might recognise that this is simply not true, but at a base emotional level we still somehow expect it. If we diverge from our normal behaviour we understand the reasons because we have all the facts; of course, where others are concerned, we never have all the facts, even for those who are close to us. It is in our nature as human beings to try to predict the future, as this allows us to keep stay safe. Some part of our brains is constantly extrapolating and interpreting the world about us according to a set of rules we have in our heads. The problem is we each have a different rule book!

When people fall out, when communication is breaking down, this is often somewhere in the mix. If you want to unravel it, then at least you have to be clear about what you were expecting, challenge if it is reasonable in these circumstances, and ensure that you actually know and understand their circumstances too. The next step is to talk to them about this and explore it from both view points.

Expectations are inevitable; they are very powerful and can impact us and those around us in many ways both positively and negatively. So today, perhaps be a little clearer and more analytical about what you expect of yourself, of others and your world.

“Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.” Dennis Wholey

“If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right.” Henry Ford
“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.” Mark Twain

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Posted in Communication, General | 4 Comments »

Sometimes you can communicate… sometimes you can’t!

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

Isn’t the virtual world wonderful?!  It so mirrors the ‘real’ world it just isn’t funny.  Those who know me will know I am a little bit of a techie and love my gadgets.  One of the things that I rely on is my smartphone which is a mini-office in my pocket.  It stays in touch with my PC via a Bluetooth link.  At least that is the theory… periodically and for no apparent reason it will not only stop talking to the PC but forget how to do so.  I spent half an hour this morning going back and deleting all the old settings, and reinstalling all the connections (a fiddly job even if you know what you are doing and have good luck!)  For those of you who might be interested in my ‘cyber-soap story’, they are now back on speaking terms…

However, isn’t this just like us?  Suddenly for no good reason we seem to fall out with people or find them harder to ‘get through to’?  We make all sorts of excuses but often we can never really explain what was going on to cause these problems.  In a good relationship you might talk it through and perhaps there are ‘reasons’, but  I sometimes wonder if these are the real cause or just a rationalisation.

For proper communication to exist, you must understand, and preferably share some fundamental underlying assumptions, concepts and values.  We tend to interpret others actions through the filter of what they would mean if we had done them.  Of course we never have the full information of what the other person feels and knows, so we are in effect, just guessing.  Mostly we are more right than wrong, and mostly when we are slightly off it isn’t too important. 

Communication is always an art, and some of us are better at it than others, but most of us find it pretty challenging at one time or another.  If only we could just delete and reinstall and have it all working smoothly again… until doesn’t!  If you find yourself with a communication challenge today, it probably arises from something which is not being shared, either by you or the other person.  So if it is important to you to get things working smoothly, don’t make assumptions, or at least be clear to them what assumptions you are making.  Check for understanding at each key stage in the message, and don’t move one till they have understood you.  Make equally sure that you understand them. 

I will develop these themes more soon….

“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate”  Cool Hand Luke

“Two monologues do not make a dialogue.”  Jeff Daly

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Posted in Communication, General, Hints, Tips & Techniques | 6 Comments »

Being wrong.. pt2

Monday, April 7th, 2008

Following on from yesterday’s blog about being wrong, I’d like to explore this a little more in the world of work. If you are a boss, it is easy to feel that it is your job to solve every problem, rather than just getting them resolved. It is easy to become invested in ‘being right’ rather than discovering the right solution. If our status or ego is invested in ‘being right’, then ‘being right’ can feel the same as ‘being the boss’… and that is who we are, isn’t it? When who you are equates to your position or status, then anything that ‘attacks’ it, is a personal attack. In today’s crazy workplace where here in Britain we work longer than anywhere else in Europe, by the time we get home, we have little left to give, we tend to invest even more heavily in our work persona.

This means being wrong here fundamentally undermines our view of our value, at least at an emotional level. If our bosses are compelled to be right then the rest of us have to stomach being wrong, and that is utterly unpalatable to most people; it literally poisons their system. For those who work as ‘experts’ such as consultants and people in professional services fields, then ‘being wrong’ is even worse! This can become a Gordian knot when it is the client who is putting us in this position; you can’t serve two masters – who do you listen to, the customer or your ego?

The answer seems to lie in realising that we are loveable and valuable as human beings whether we are right or not, but I suspect internalising this lesson is one of the hardest we all face. Of course, it is very easy to tell ourselves we are not like this, and we don’t need to face up to this dilemma. If by any chance, you hear a little voice in your head telling you that this doesn’t apply to you …. Chances are that you are wrong!

“Don’t argue for other people’s weaknesses. Don’t argue for your own. When you make a mistake, admit it, correct it, and learn from it / immediately.” Stephen R. Covey

“I’m willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong.” Samuel Goldwyn

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Posted in Business Change, General, Leadership, Personal Change | 2 Comments »

Being wrong

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

I don’t really know why but it seems that most of us would sooner damage ourselves, or at least our relationships and wellbeing than admit we are wrong. It was something I noticed very clearly in my children as they grew up, just how much they hated it if you ‘made them wrong’: and despite all the experience we acquire of being wrong as journey through Life, it doesn’t get any easier!

I don’t think it is helped by the fact that we live within our own little bubbles of reality* that are little worlds, complete unto themselves. We sit there minding our own business and then, like a fish lurking in the depths of a deep pool, our awareness is tugged at by someone else’s intrusion. In the world of objective reality, they have done nothing wrong, and like that fish, we rise to the surface and SNAP at the disturbance on the surface. As far as we are concerned, it is case closed.

However, often they experience something very different. They have just been attacked by someone they trust or even love… how horrid is that?! When it happens to us we grow to distrust, or at least be guarded around the people who do this to us; they aren’t safe. Yet most of us do it. In our own world’s we have done nothing wrong or nasty. In reality, we have responded inappropriately and are responsible for the consequences of our actions.

Even knowing all this, it is hard to explain to the self-righteous child within us all, that we have to apologise, especially if we are now being apparently attacked! Sitting here writing this, it is easy to see how stupid all this is; when we are the person trapped in this spiral it is usually much harder. I hope that if you are not one of the wise ones, who never make this kind of mistake that this might act as a little warning light on your ‘dashboard’ and keep you from hurting someone you love…

“Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.” George Soros

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Posted in General, Personal Change, Values & Philosophy | 2 Comments »

Are you Pearl or a Boulder?

Friday, April 4th, 2008

Last night I was pondering if there were any ways of categorising Change and giving me some kind of framework to think about it within. After some musing it occurred to me that most change falls within one of two general categories. Firstly there are those things that remove something from you, like the gradual erosion of a boulder, slowly smoothing it down over time. Then there are those things add things to you, like the slow layers that build up round a pearl. Interestingly, both objects end up with their rough edges smoothed away.

Life seems to have this way of giving us either new layers through processes like education and growing up and growing older. It also removes rough edges by very similar means. Each relationship we enter has the potential to change us; each place we visit, each person we meet and open up to.

For me Life is a journey and I see its purpose as being the gradual polishing of the essential us. Sometimes the things that are the most painful shape us most, sometimes we can learn more joyously. When the going gets a little tough, it can sometimes, help to recognise this process at work. It can give us the faith to endure and perhaps open us to co-operating with the process.

“It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.” Alan Cohen

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Posted in General, Personal Change, Values & Philosophy | 4 Comments »

Are you a Lunatic too?

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

I have noticed over the last few years that more and more often I find that I am being affected by the moon’s phase, and it appears I’m not the only person like this, most of my family are have a similar experience, as do a number of my friends.  I will periodically find that I wake at around 2am  unable to get back to sleep till perhaps 6am.  If I then can be bothered to check, I find this almost invariably occurs during either periods of new moon or full moon. 

I know that the changes in the moon’s cycle are both one of the oldest and most profound to affect this planet.  They are considered important in all sorts of areas such as sailing, farming, and astrology.  However, until a few years ago, they never seemed to affect me.  I would be fascinated to know if, and how, you are affected by this change?

“Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody”  Mark Twain

“May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night and a smooth road all the way to your door.”  Irish Blessings

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Feeling Stuck? ACTION!

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

We are in the early stages of one of those periodic major renovation phases house owners are painfully familiar with. Our garden, which had always been a little ‘au naturel’, had become more of a jungle, the house is showing the signs of 3 healthy, active children growing up in it not to mention 3 cats! It is a daunting challenge knowing where to start and how to invest our hard-earned pennies. For quite a long time we were slightly frozen in this state of ‘not knowingness’.

Eventually my wife got a little more decisive and got in a garden contractor. I was thinking ‘tidying up’, she was thinking ‘war on weeds’! After we had had a small army of men and earth movers here for over a week it has been utterly transformed. I suspect the pharaohs used people like these to build the pyramids!

Why am I sharing this with you? Well the interesting thing is how, once you begin a project, things that you couldn’t know before you start suddenly come clear. I often help businesses with their strategy and I employ a similar approach. Get moving, and adapt as you learn more. If you spend too long planning you tend to get more and more stuck, and as Helmuth von Moltke famously observed “No plan survives contact with the enemy“, so what is the point having a perfect plan? Get moving, learn from what you do and adapt as you move forwards.

Those organisations that are able to learn and adapt fastest have a competitive advantage and the market to themselves for a while. This strategy will work just as well for you if you are feeling a bit stuck. Today, if you feel like this, DO SOMETHING, it really doesn’t matter what, just get moving and you will notice that you see things differently and feel differently. So Good Luck… and …ACTION!

“Just Do It.” Nike

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Micro People

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

Palau is a small collection of islands between China & Australia, with a population of only 20,000 and a land mass of 500 sq km, so in the great scheme of things, pretty unimportant really. A team of American scientists recently discovered some very interesting fossilised skulls in a cave there. Initially they thought these might be a completely new type of man, which might have rewritten our history. They were not only very small but had an unusual shaped skull. Once they got the skulls back to a laboratory they were initially disappointed to discover that these were relatively recent only 3000 years old.

These skeletons were tiny; adult males at around a metre tall and weighting around 95lbs, in other words about the same as a 5 year old. This made them the smallest humans yet found. They were at a loss to discover how they came to be there, too far from any land mass to have travelled there without relatively modern boats. In the end they were forced to conclude that these must have been the descendants of full sized Polynesians, who had arrived there, and over time, and due to a poor diet gradually got smaller and smaller. The key conclusion was that it appeared that mankind could be reshaped by evolution in a very short period, perhaps over 300 years!

This is pretty staggering stuff, because if mankind can be reshaped by his environment like this, doesn’t it put a pretty powerful spin on the message of those who are warning us that we are changing our planet day-by-day!

It appears that Change is an ever present and unavoidable force in our lives

The reason why the universe is eternal is that it does not live for itself; it gives life to others as it transforms” Lao Tzu

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