Category Archives: Character and Competence

Posts relating to The Second Resolution: “To overcome the restraining forces of pride and pretension, I resolve to work on character and competence.”

100-Day Challenge, Day 44. And about a ‘Cure’ for Stress.

13 Sunday Aug 2017

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This week I have been mostly exercising every two days, eating sensibly and producing like a dervish. I discovered that ‘being on holidays’ equates to ’90-120 minutes a day dealing with voluntary tasks’, in that two days of this week felt like I was one of those CEOs who claims to get a million emails a day. Every single one I dealt with generated two more, I swear. Hence this input on Stress.

Stress is self-imposed. (Cue anger.) Okay, let me temper that a bit.

On Monday I went to Cardiff Yes Group, a post-Tony Robbins event ‘alumni’ event where personal development lecturers keep the audience ‘on track’ with their commitments. All are welcome, and there are UK-wide events available.

The speaker suggested that (one of) the reasons for stress arise from overwhelm and an inability to cope with change and pressure because life/we/bosses etc haven’t allowed time for our neurology to get respite from the constant changes of direction (e.g. from interruptions like constant demands for attention from emails). That inability to cope can be genuine and physical, or it can be a perception. By that, I mean that the stress is all too real to the sufferer but if they weren’t so pressured they’d realise they could control it, if they only knew how.

In other words, the stressed individual says, “I have 101 things to do and I just can’t see a way to do it.” The individual with a control strategy says, “I have 101 things to do today and 8 hours in which to do them. Do-able.” That is 480 minutes – about 4.5 minutes a ‘thing’, and for every ‘thing’ that takes a minute, that rate expands.

Time management might seem like a management cliché but in my opinion, from years of applying it, time management properly taught, accepted, encouraged and applied is an absolute – yes, absolute – cure for stress.

Please understand, I am not talking about stress resulting from trauma, accident, disaster, relationship failures and so on. That’s different, even if some relevant TM training can help. I am talking about task overwhelm in work and in the home.

Charles R Hobbs, in his epic book ‘Timepower’, suggests that high self-esteem is served by the ability to be in control of events. I am fairly confident when I suggest that those with genuinely high levels of justifiable self-esteem (as opposed to ego) rarely suffer from work-related stress. And that is because they are, or they feel they are in complete control of what’s ‘appenin’, OR they know that they can take control – even of the unexpected. They have techniques and approaches that enable that control.

In the mid-1990s I had what I call ‘an episode’ where this 6’ tall, macho, fightin’, drivin’, chasin’, action-man copper left a boss’s office in tears and went home before his shift was due to start. (Short version, I think it was slow burn.) Fortunately, I had been reading The 7 Habits and books like Timepower for years. I went home, took the wife and kids out for a family meal, and took stock. I recognised that what was happening was a stress build-up.

Then I took control and decided what I was going to do about the situation. I was back at work within 48 hours asking for what I needed to regain control. And got it. Never happened again.

We all know of people who do the tears thing and aren’t seen for months. They lost control and didn’t or couldn’t get it back, and that was because they didn’t know that there was an alternative to pills.

Values-based time management – might not be penicillin but by all that’s holy it’s a damn good treatment for what ails a lot of people.

Try it out. My book or theirs, you decide. It’s you who controls your decisions if you want to.

 

You’ve got me all wrong. Probably.

04 Friday Aug 2017

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Gretchen Ruben is an American author and lawyer, and I have enjoyed reading a couple of her books, most notably her last one – which has become an accidental precursor to her next book. In said next book, she will expand upon what she has called The Four Tendencies. These tendencies are four ways in which we can identify our predilection and motivation for action, or otherwise. Three of those are Upholder, Questioner and Rebel. Those of you who know me have already decided which of those three I am.

Guess what? You’re wrong.

According to the definitions and the pseudo-test she has provided and which I have circulated through Facebook (as requested by the test – read on and giggle), I am the fourth type – an Obliger.

Stop laughing.

An Obliger is defined as responding ‘readily to outer expectations but struggle to meet inner expectations.’

To me, that means that when a person is called upon to do something for others, they do it. But when they have to do something for themselves, they don’t.

I see me in that definition. A sense of duty exists at the workplace, of course. Most of the time I go about my business routinely. I’ll plan my time to enable completion of the required work. But sometimes, when asked to do something, I might (do) whinge and bitch and suggest there is a better way. Nevertheless, in the end, I always do it. I oblige.

But when I call upon myself to do something and the only person to whom I am accountable and responsible is me – I waiver. A lot, in my experience. Even if I have seemingly volunteered to join some enterprise, I haven’t created an inner obligation – I have self-created an obligation to another.

A good friend recently suggested something to me, and while he isn’t aware of the Tendencies I think he did inadvertently confirm the solution for an Obliger. I had ‘complained’ that once when I get to the gym I can train – but thinking about going to the gym often stopped me actually doing it.

He suggested that when it comes to physical exercise (and my stated reluctance to go to a gym unless I could go there straight from work without having to think of something else in between) I would improve my chances if I exercised with someone else. Think about that – going alone is a problem, but if someone else was involved, my Obliger Tendency would ensure that I honoured my commitment to that other person.

Thinking through this using the paradigm of the Three Resolutions, any reluctance to comply with the First Resolution could and would be offset by compliance with the Third Resolution, confirming my hypothesis that adherence to one Resolution often serves compliance with another. Serving a friend would also and simultaneously serve me. So, where discipline is weak, service can provide support.

Me and Gretchen – we’re thinking along the same lines.

Today’s joke – Matt Damon’s chicken dinner has gone cold. Bourne’s Supreme’s icy.

Please buy me.

100-Day Challenge, Day 27. Talk -or read – yourself into success.

27 Thursday Jul 2017

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I have never really been all that enthusiastic about affirmations, those sentences one states (ideally out loud) to oneself that are intended to reinforce the cognitive integrity between what we say to ourselves and how we behave. Not that I don’t believe that what we say to us influences us, but the woowaah suggestion that doing so out loud makes any difference. Until this week.

Until last week, I had got into the habit of reading my PMS daily – it was on my to-do list and the brevity of time it took, allied to the simplicity of the particular to-do, meant it was an easy ‘tick-off’ in my planner. I didn’t shout out loud (partly because I was in an office full of personal development sceptics, aka ‘detectives’), but I did focus on the reading. And for the couple of weeks I did that I lost weight, produced, and lived according to said PMS.

This week, I did not. I allowed myself to believe that I had, by now, ‘got it’ and didn’t need to read it any more. This was the week I didn’t exercise, ate too much (and it doesn’t take ‘too much’ to stop weight loss, I assure you), and didn’t study for my forthcoming test as well as I could have.

In other words, my failure to read my PMS influenced – well, my failures.

So it is back in the planner and will be read daily this week. And I respect affirmations a little bit more than I used to. And to be frank, if they are good enough for Stephen Covey, then they are certainly good enough for me.

Now, dear sceptics – you may think this silly. Now ask Lewis Hamilton, Tiger Woods, many premiership footballers, and copious other successes who you’ve SEEN talking to themselves or meditating with closed eyes just before they perform, what they are doing. And if it is good enough for the successful – why isn’t it good enough for YOU?

A Sunday Morning Values Lesson on the BBC.

23 Sunday Jul 2017

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Are you willing to admit that your ideology influences you too much?

I was just watching Sunday Morning Live on the BBC, and the subject under discussion was the famous case of the monkey selfie, where PETA (the animal rights charity that does otherwise valuable work) was wasting money suing a photographer over the rights to a photograph that a monkey accidentally took of itself, using the gentleman’s camera. As is often the case the conversation widened, but at the end the four panellists were asked a simple question.

In a situation where an animal and a human were in danger, which would you save first?

This is where ideo-stupidity stepped in. it’s a simple question. Two alternatives. Which one?

The first two panellists avoided the question. Don’t get me wrong – even though I think there is only one sensible answer, I am not saying they gave a ‘wrong’ one. My point is that they avoided giving one at all.

The first (PETA) said they need more information (bolleaux) and the second went into whether we should treat animals with the same respect as we (should) treat each other, which wasn’t what he was asked.

That meant that PETA woman would not say she would put a person first because it might undermine their otherwise unquestioned love for animals, while not choosing the animal first because that might upset humans. And the second panellist avoided committing to a human life – which seemed odd for an equality rights campaigner for ‘people’, who wouldn’t put a ‘people’ before an animal in that simple dichotomy – possibly because he may upset animal lovers.

Here’s the thing – both were unwilling to stand by any personal values at all, either way. They flapped, they flummoxed, they prevaricated and, in the end they lied, either directly or by omission. There was an answer to give, whatever it was – but they wouldn’t give it because it would commit them to something that others might challenge. Which means they were gutless about their beliefs – which in one case was odd because the panellist is usually quite vociferous about what he believes in.

Which brings us to the point of my opening question – do you realise that your chosen ideology influences you so much that you can’t even stand by it when challenged? Does it influence you to the point that you KNOW or suspect that standing by it – isn’t absolutely right?

Question your values and beliefs until you get to the point where you wholly understand and are willing to stand by them, whatever the cost. Otherwise you will never be truly happy or congruent. When questioned, you will squirm. You will then be challenged, and you will squirm even more before getting all defensive and angry. Ultimately you will find yourself unable to put together the cogent argument that you did have about your values-derived choice – and all because your beliefs weren’t as sound and principled as you thought they were.

Do the values exercise, question your own beliefs, get absolutely clear and then stand by your values.

Or look a fool.

100-Day Challenge – Day 16. And why your argument might make you look stupid.

16 Sunday Jul 2017

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Lost another 2 pounds this week, which might have been more had I not succumbed to limited, controlled but admittedly self-undermining temptation with desserts of an evening. After telling my loving spouse NOT to buy ice-creams, she forgot she’d listened. Still, I could have said, ‘No’, couldn’t I?

I also ran a faster 2 miles, which is progress even if I am a long way of a 10 miler target. and I was nicely productive most of the time.

Don’t Argue for Generals.

The psychologist Dr Leonard Orr postulated that in all of us there are two people – a ‘thinker’ and a ‘prover’. The Thinker within you is the part that thinks up ideas and generates possibilities while the Prover looks for the evidence that supports those ideas. Orr’s Law states, “Whatever the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves’.

Consequently, if you believe something to be true based on any number of factors in including upbringing, peer pressures, experience and environment, then your Prover will seek out and identify any evidence that supports that belief – while dismissing anything which counters that belief.

This is a problem. Referencing Covey’s first Habit, we have the ability if we are aware of and wish to use it to overcome that closed thinking. We can choose to look at what we believe, and to question those beliefs. We also have the ability to elect to make those beliefs conditional – that, to accept that our beliefs are not facts, or that they may apply a lot of the time but aren’t necessarily universal.

This came to mind this week because a Facebook acquaintance had circulated a pic supporting of equality in gay marriage, but with an additional barb at the bottom about ‘the church’ being anti-gay. I questioned why a positive message about equality had to end with an attack. Off we went.

The point I wanted to convey (and maybe failed because of the medium or because the other party declined to accept Orr’s Law, I don’t know) was that generalising attacks on any organisation/culture/body/group, undermines the intellectual accuracy of the argument. In fact, it merely demonstrates the stereotyping of whole strata of society. And that stereotyping is often done by those who demand we do not stereotype!

I read about ‘the police did X at Hillsborough’ or ‘the army did that’ in Afghanistan, or ‘all politicians something else’ wherever, and I get miffed.

I get miffed because ‘the police’ is made up of thousands of people who had nothing to do with Hillsborough – I was 180 miles away; ‘the army’ is all over the world and not just in Afghanistan; ‘politicians’ represent society so some are dishonest, some are self-absorbed, and many are trying their best in a warped system (while also being subject to Orr’s Law!). But many ‘police’, ‘army’ and ‘politicians’ are none of those things. Many – no, most – are trying to uphold high personal and professional standards in a system designed (for some reason) to be adversarial. But most can leave the adversity in the workplace. Some, on the other hand, insist on taking it to Facebook.

You can usually tell the ideology of the arguer – their language about the other side will be dismissive, often insulting – but always general, as in ‘all X are Y’. Their language rarely takes into account the nature and size of exemptions that make the original generalisation ineffective.

Try arguing for an idea without attacking, insulting or stereotyping those who hold an opposing viewpoint. It’ll make you clever – er.

100-Day Challenge, Day 13. And a bit about kids and the world of work.

13 Thursday Jul 2017

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No run today – knee trembling (no, not like that) and as I am suddenly conscious that running as often as I am when I am as overweight as I am may not serve structural integrity unless I am careful. in other words, I must give my joints time to rest between runs, and if there’s a twinge – I should take note. I’ve also been to the doctor, who thinks my numb toes may be a recovering slipped disc somewhere around L5 in the spine and I certainly don’t want to make THAT any worse. Baby steps, Buster, baby steps.

Other than that, I’ve cleared out a bucket load of clutter and I can move in my ‘office’, which means I am closing on the final chapters of Police Time Management, which I am editing to make it more up to date. And I still eat wisely.

I was briefly amused by a report in the Welsh press about the Assembly’s desire to create 1,000,000 Welsh speakers by 2050. Nothing wrong with that, but such reports always give rise to swathes of comments about the pros and cons of that particular project.

Regardless of the debate on that particular subject, it made me think about children’s education in general. Universities are complaining that students are having to be taught ‘educational basics’ when they get into that top level of education, because they aren’t learning it/being taught properly at the primary and secondary stages of school. That may be so, but there is something even worse about those levels of education – they don’t teach our children how to live.

I am talking here about ‘Second Resolution’ competencies, competencies that enable people to live and serve others because they aren’t busy simply trying to live. Where are their money lessons? Where are their ‘how bureaucracies work’ lessons? Where are their driving lessons? (Okay, maybe that’s a logistical issue but simple drivers’ education may help them get jobs when they leave – and stay alive, perhaps.) And my personal favourite, how to manage their time to be most effective at getting what they want while providing service so that others can get what they want.

Years ago, it was suggested that education was warped because it had one malign intent – to prepare children for the workplace. Well, that horse has bolted. Kids are arriving at work unprepared for it. They have a Geography GCSE but its relevance in entry-level retail or repairing computers remains to be seen.

They arrive in work unaware that they are entitled to contracts (where applicable), that the money won’t last for ever and that maintaining a CV is a good idea. They occasionally work with an unfortunate, source-unknown sense of entitlement. We now have courses now where managers are taught how to manage ‘millennials’.

I am a dinosaur, I know, but here’s how to manage any new worker. Learn these lines:

“Do as I say until you can show me you can do it properly, then develop ways to make it better. Show me you are trustworthy, then I can let you have your head. Communicate that you won’t be a liability and cost me, and then I’ll leave you to it.”

Not: “I’m sorry I am asking you to do ‘work’, really I am, but that’s what we are here to do.”

Okay, over-reaction, but the message we need to tell ourselves as much as we need to tell our kids, is that all work is noble, we learn because we don’t know it all, we all get better by doing, and we are treated better if we show respect and earn trust.

Competencies can be learned. Character needs to be instilled – by parents, by peers, by education.

And isn’t it great when a school does that?

100-Day Challenge, Day 8.

08 Saturday Jul 2017

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“Good news, everyone!” (For those who don’t know, that is Professor Farnsworth’s catchphrase in Futurama.) Week one ended with a 3.6-pound weight loss and a faster 2-mile running time. That’s without a starvation, faddy, even calorie-focused diet – just eating wisely and exercising sensibly. And it is on-track for the 10 day target, although I suspect I shall have to raise my game next week.

While running after Abby today, it occurred to me that many people confuse values and standards in the sense that they equate the two directly, by assuming (for example) that when I say I want to perform at a high standard then I have to do so at your level of expectation, and that is manifestly not true. When I set out to exercise and lose weight, it wasn’t my intention to start performing 4-minute miles, 300lb weight-lifts and perfection in all other areas. It was to perform at the best level I can perform in the moment and with an intention of getting better as those moments arose.

Which is way of thinking I apply to all those overweight people that I see. I admit that I have been judgmental in the past, but now I have experienced their challenges I understand – they are doing their best and they are trying to make that best better.

Think about that when a colleague, friend or politician makes a mistake (other than ethical ones). The good ones are trying to be better.

Joke of the Day: What do you get when you cross The Atlantic with The Titanic?

About half way.

100 Day Challenge – Day 3.

03 Monday Jul 2017

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First day at work on the 100 Day Challenge, and it was ‘one of those days’ when urgency was demanded but life got in the way. A job needed to be done that had to be fitted around prior appointments; then the necessary ‘things’ weren’t where they were supposed to be, nor were they where they thought they’d gone, and then miraculously they were back where they’d gone and the job got done. On the he bright side, while travelling from job 2 to job 3 my satnav decided a ‘straight line’ route would be better than a motorway route, so I explored parts of Wales I have never seen before (possibly Stella’s Pontyberry), and drove a spectacular valley route at speeds hitherto unknown for a Hyundai i20. Specifically, 60mph. And the opportunity for some spectacular overtakes.

Arriving home knackered, I still managed a 2-mile run, exercising our youngest family member, who is 5 years old at the weekend. Or 35 plus in dog years. Then it was marking IPI student’s submission, tasks arising, a household task, and then this blog. Soon be 7pm…… and I still have my Roadcraft studies still to do.

I need staff.

The main thing I achieved today was maintaining integrity with my values and mission statement – being patient and productive, particularly when challenged. And complying with my diet objectives.

‘‘You ate…..wisely’.

Philosophy of the Day: “I treat everyone I deal with in the same way that they treat me. Some of them get quite offended when I do that.”

Reboot – I am back.

01 Saturday Jul 2017

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It’s been longer than I thought since I last posted on this blog, and to be frank I am not altogether sure that I had anything meaningfully different to write. That is the trouble with the principle-centred self-leadership field – finding something really new and inciteful tow communicate, or at least finding newer examples to illustrate the philosophies is hard because once you accept the basic premises of a principle-focused life, you realise that they are so simple. It’s executing on those ‘simple’ principles that is so hard.

Or, perhaps put another way, it is conscious execution on those principles that is difficult. Why is this so?

In our day to day work, we do things by habit. Routines, processes, practices and their consequences just ‘happen’ without thought. For example, in my job I take statements of evidence from witnesses, and after 30 years I can do this very, very quickly. My experience tells me what needs to be evidenced. This means I have to give less conscious effort to doing a good job. It just ‘happens’. On the other hand, those things which challenge me have to be consciously attacked if they are to happen. I have to overcome my reluctance to train, or overcome my enthusiasm to eat, for example.

This makes self-leadership a bit harder because in order to ‘feel the buzz’ of having done something principle-centred, one has to know that one has done it, and habit does not feed a sense of accomplishment. What habit can do, however, is raise the bar so that when the buzz IS finally felt, it is because something better has happened.

That drives achievers – that bar being raised so that another achievement makes them better.

When all is said and done (at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, when the rubber meets the road*), even those of us who don’t have the advantage of income, inheritance, geography and talent can still achieve, if only by being the best ‘us’ that we can possibly be. By being good at what we do, being great at ‘how’ we are, and by serving in some capacity. By executing on the Three Resolutions.

I’ll ask you this – are you good in all three dimensions, or two, or even just one? Are you the fittest and slimmest incompetent in the workplace? Are you the best worker who sits at a desk all day because your weight stops you moving about? Do you serve others well, but only when you have the energy and motivation to get out of bed?

That’s where I feel I occasionally fall short. On paper I am good at the Second and Third Resolutions but quite poor at the First. That’s why I am starting a 100-day Challenge during which I intend to improve on my productivity, health, fitness and attitude!

Why 100 days? On the 7th of October 2017 I have committed to providing a public YB12 Keynote talk on Procrastination at the Chepstow Mind and Body Fayre, and that is (was) coincidentally 100 days away from when I committed to do it. I have 100 days to do some serious weight-losing and preparation. Let’s see how I get on, shall we?

Let’s see if I can live in accordance with the contents of my book.

 

(*A colleague used to preface most of his comments with ‘at the end of the day and after 5 days of that I admit I shouted all the others as possible alternatives!