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.”

Habit 5 – The Bit We All Missed

28 Thursday May 2020

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I have been studying Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits for a quarter of a century, as have many of those with whom I have connected on LinkedIn. The recent 30th Anniversary Edition hit my hallway floor last Saturday – actually, it hit the outside step as the delivery person stood safely distant –and I am deep within its pages again. I have already discovered a few missed nuggets. Including today.

Habit 5 – Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood – has been a familiar tenet in the corporate world, I am sure. I have read that chapter many times, and always sworn to try to apply it in testing or inquisitorial conversations. The book itself describes its use in many such instances, using examples from the perspective of the lives of individuals in their personal and working lives to illustrate how verbal conversations can be improved through application of the aforementioned Habit..

Today, I found a bit I missed and, according to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (if my experience is anything to go by), so have a lot of other people. And possibly the reason I missed it is because this nugget was detailed not in Habit 5’s chapter, but in Habit 7’s, on renewal.

He wrote about great literature that ‘(reading in various fields) can expand our paradigms and sharpen our mental saw, particularly if we practice Habit 5 as we read, and seek first to understand.’

That was a AHA! moment. Or indeed a DUH! moment. I’d never thought about that, even if I’d exercised it. ‘Seek First to Understand what we READ’. It isn’t just a conversational model.

Realising that, and recognising its importance, led me to ask the question, “If people read the news with an enquiring rather than an assumptive mindset, would most of the rubbish on social media go away?’

Yes. People would read the allegations, check the facts, research any science or laws applicable, review the political past of the reporter/witness/commentator and eventually, perhaps, come to a less) emotional, ideological or ill-informed conclusion. And then shut the hell up.

(Of course, it might wind them up even more…..)

At the moment, we are witnessing a change in the reportage of the media. They have gone from just reporting, worked through and past analysis, and on to out-and-out commentary. Unfortunately, this is proving to be commentary without real, deep, objective or unbiased analysis.

It’s as if the middle bit is a bar to profit for the printed and commercial media, and a bar to fame and notoriety for the public-broadcaster’s employees who are all vying for a better position, or their own programme. The objective is no longer balanced reportage – it is fame and/or profit through a ‘shock-jock’ style approach..

(The last time newsreaders did something outside simple news-reading for fame, they dressed as sailors and did flick-flacks for Morecombe and Wise.)

Where have the Paul Foots and the Martin Bells and the Michael Buerks gone? They all reported injustice and societal disasters without the need for constant personal attack or self-importance. Even the famed Watergate reporter Bob Woodward now seems to be left-biased, and only appears when the right is to be attacked. (I would’ve said criticised but they’ve all gone way past that.)

But more to my point – why have we, the public, stopped putting in the effort and started to just accept what is thrown at us by the media without asking ‘Is this true, exaggerated, misunderstood or made up?’ Why have we omitted that step and then just lost our sanity and sense of calm over what we have not checked is worth that effort?

Habit 5 – Seek First To Understand is a sensible, reasoned, objective and intellectually satisfying approach to news, documentaries and other sources of information. The counter to Habit 5, Seeking First to Assume, makes an – well, you know.

Don’t be one of those.

That’s it, for now.

10 Friday Apr 2020

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Stephen Covey wrote: “Frustration is a function of expectation.”

When I started on LinkedIn, I hoped that the connections I made would serve me, and that I in turn could serve my connections.

Okay. So please read this entry not as a whine or a whinge or with any sense of anger behind it. Read it as one of plain, good old frustration.

I came to LinkedIn years ago – maybe 5 – to do two things. Publicise a business, and to promote books I’d written. That was ‘sales’ and I fully acknowledge that the desire to purchase is not present in everyone! But I also produced frequent 500-word articles on subjects related to my works, which I’d hoped might interest my connections.

Recently, though, I decided to ask my network for specific help and advice. Help in the sense that I was hoping people would acknowledge my request and have a quick look at the Read Within service, which is provided by Google so that people can see the contents and read a bit of a book before buying it. Of course I would like sales, but in this particular case I sought only input on the content of my two books. Five or ten minutes reading at worst, then a note with a constructive observation.

In addition, I later asked for advice and input on the content of my weekday blogs. Again, asking for a couple of moments from people in my network to look at a blog or two and tell me if there was anything I could do to make them more attractive to potential readers. Or even to tell me to stop!

Three likes, from personal friends. That was it. My gratitude to my friends.

442 connections, three likes from friends.

No advice whatsoever.

I implied in an earlier post that as a time manager student, writer and blogger I was concerned that I was not getting any return on the effort I was putting into LinkedIn. In fact, that was one of the posts requesting assistance that nobody acknowledged.

I find it ironic that in a time when helping is ‘the thing’, a request from someone that people have deliberately connected with for some reason (reasons sought before but to no avail), isn’t worth a couple of minutes of their time and expertise. Or even the instant-taking click of a like or share.

Those of you who sought me out – Why did you connect?

On the other foot, so to speak, I have provided input to others for free where my experience was of use. This resulted from a constructive comment by me on someone’s post which resulted in their sending me a DM request, which was followed with a 30-odd minute telephone call where I was able to provide some experiential knowledge. You’re welcome, VP. I’ve also attended seminars and webinars publicised through this page.

But LinkedIn has not served me in return.

I’ve heard it said at network breakfasts that you have to go many times to get any interest in your services. That’s to sell, mind. My blog posts are free, even if they occasionally contain links to Amazon.

But I’m afraid 5 years of posting to no effect means I am now going to spend 3½  hours a week finding and doing something more productive.

If you want to contact me for advice or help, please DM me – I’m not closing the account but it is now dormant. Poke me if you need me.

Or call me on 07531 177201. I’m available a lot.

If you’ve read this far, let me know.

Incongruence cost me – don’t let it cost you.

09 Thursday Apr 2020

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Ever done something you wish you hadn’t? Ever spoken down to someone when you didn’t mean to? Ever knowingly broken a rule, then regretted it? Ever judged a situation at a time of emotional disquiet, acted accordingly and then realised you had it wrong and always did – but let your emotion rule your thinking?

I’ve done most, if not all of those. And in each case, the fault lay within my acquiescing to the deed because I wasn’t wholly acting congruently – that is, either with my own values or (and this is important) the stated values of the organisation for which I was working. I may not have agreed wholeheartedly with those values but I should have accepted and complied with them. Silly me.

In lesser circumstances, the lack of integrity had short term results – poorer relationships that meant reluctance to engage with someone when I really needed to do so. Phone calls being put off, visits being postponed, and so on.

In the worst case, I felt I had to leave my job. Not entirely because of the offending act but because of the untenable situation it left me in. Nevertheless, the time management/productivity consequence of my failure to act with congruence was no job to manage or to be congruent about.

In TimePower, Charles R. Hobbs discussed how a lack of personal integrity – which I never thought was different to professional integrity but my job loss suggests otherwise! – causes problems not just in the productivity sense but also in terms of our own sense of self-esteem.

(I’ve known people use the term ‘personal self-esteem‘. What other kind of self-esteem could there be?)

When we fail to meet our own standards we tend to dwell on that failure. I’m not talking about failure in the sporting sense. If we didn’t fail to win at sports, no-one else would, either. To paraphrase Ziglar, if someone didn’t come second the winner wouldn’t have been first, they’d have been ‘only’. I’m talking about the kind of failure that our conscience tells us is our own damn fault.

In other words, failing to act with integrity – congruence with our personal beliefs or those we have adopted – wastes time in self-examination, further self-doubt, lack of self-confidence and, potentially, a whole host of other things that stop us doing, effectively, what we are supposed to be doing.

Now ‘retired’, I find that my biggest regret isn’t the lost money I would have earned, but the inability to do the work I had the opportunity to do. And the realisation that even when I wasn’t happy at work, I could have been. Which is an odd thing to write about stressful work but it’s true. I now have less to manage my time about, and less of a need to have high professional standards.

Which isn’t to say I won’t have high amateur standards!

Of course, some lucky people have no personal or professional values, so their integrity can float around complying with anything it likes, so they never fracture their self-esteem.

And do you realise just how much you can’t trust those people?

In conclusion, therefore, I encourage you to spend time identifying your values fully, then decide whether you’ve complied with them so far and then how you’re going to be congruent with them from now on. That’s NOW ON, not ‘in the future’, which is a bit nebulous. If you need help in doing that, it is available HERE. At no cost.

It IS worth the effort, and NOW is the time.

Are your habits making or breaking you?

08 Wednesday Apr 2020

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This has been reproduced from the internet. Unfortunately the original author hasn’t been identified, and is frequently stated to be that prolific philosopher, Anon.

Enjoy

The Habit Poem

I am your constant companion.
I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden.
I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.
I am completely at your command.
Half the things you do, you might just as well turn over to me,
and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.
I am easily managed; you must merely be firm with me.
Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons I will do it automatically.

I am the servant of all great men.
And, alas, of all failures as well.
Those who are great, I have made great.
Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine.
Plus, the intelligence of a man.
You may run me for profit, or run me for ruin; it makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me and I will put the world at your feet.
Be easy with me, and I will destroy you.
Who am I?

I am a HABIT!

 

What Habits do you have that serve you best – and worst?

And what are YOU going to do about the latter?

Start today. Start NOW.

This isn’t worki…… WOW!

07 Tuesday Apr 2020

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I had an experience this morning. I can’t say I haven’t had one like it before but it was the first for a wee while.

Jack Canfield wrote a book about 15 years ago called The Success Principles. It is good. This year he (finally!) brought out a workbook as a parallel. I like workbooks, they make me think. The trouble is that over the years I find them hard to complete because I’ve had the same thoughts over and over again.

There was a set of exercises about finding your Life Purpose. Done it before. One question was ‘define your Joy’. Ick. It was to finish the sentence “I feel joy when ……….” I don’t do joy. I define joy as being almost ecstasy, which means 5 minutes after the miracle of birth I’m all “What’s next?”

Then a few more exercises and finally one I’ve actually done before but ….. well, “Meh!” anyway, in the interests of science I went ahead, anyway. The questions were pretty much ‘Describe 2 characteristics you possess’, ‘Name 2 things you like to do’ and ‘What would your perfect world be like?’

Now, I cannot for the life of me recall what happened in terms of the order of thinking, but I came up with “I use my integrity, intellect and productivity to create, master and promote an inspiring philosophy so that all can live congruent, organised and purposeful lives.”

Pretentious? Moi?

I know I cheated – 3 words instead of 2 – but I realised as I drafted, edited and finalised it that (apart from the mastery part!) I am wholly focused on doing exactly that. Now, you may not be reading this (at all) and thinking, “Yeah, that’s Dave,” but that is what Dave does and that is what Dave aspires to.

It’s not a goal statement. That’s the next bit. But now everything I do and all the goals I seek will reflect more accurately, and more consistently, that Purpose. I’ve written four books, two specifically on my philosophy and productivity, and I have two more on the go. I teach people Advanced Driving and enjoy the requirement that I master it myself. And above all, in a sense, I aspire to mastering myself, too. There is a need for discipline, character, competence and service implied within that sentence, too. Three Resolutions compliant, so it is.

And the best thing of all is – and don’t take this personally – that whether or not people read, accept and implement the counsel that I advocate is not important. Their interest is outside my control. What is within my control is whether my daily activities reflect that sentence. Anything else is a bonus.

The AHA! that came with the realisation that this reflected what I was already doing, allied to having finally been able to put it into as short a sentence as that, boggled my mind. It may not boggle yours, but is there a similar sentence that accurately reflects your purpose and personal aspiration to live by some personal philosophy that you know makes perfect sense but you aren’t quite up to speed in terms of congruent performance?

Go on, I DOUBLE dare you.

Purpose

A Kite, to be free, needs an Anchor. So do we.

06 Monday Apr 2020

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Years ago, I was on a needed holiday. I’d arrived in a bad mood – I can’t remember why – but I felt tired, depressed, unmotivated and just completely uninterested, even in the holiday itself.

On the second day of that break, I found myself lying on a warm, grassy playing field. I was basking in warm sunshine, and I held the string of one of those plastic kites you can only seem to buy at the seaside. As I twisted and pulled the string of the kite to make it go hither an’ thither up in the sky in a fashion that I decreed it should, I had a sudden flash of the blinding obvious. You know the sort of thing: that realisation that you actually know something which you already knew, had forgotten, and needed to know right then.

The kite only succeeded if it was firmly anchored at the other end of its string.

If I let go of it, the kite would plummet uncontrollably to the ground. Even if it flew in a heavy wind for a few moments, eventually gravity – a principle – would take command of the situation and force it to clumsily dive into terra firma, and the flimsy toy would probably perish in the process.

He same applies to us, psychologically. Imagine that you’re like the kite. You are capable of whatever it is you have been trained and prepared for. In an ideal world you’ve selected the profession in which you work.

Then you lose some perspective. You forget why you chose that line. Perhaps someone has changed the rules and the values you upheld last week are no longer welcomed. The impositions have increased, but neither the time available nor the compensation have increased to match the added workload. The situation and the dedication that applied yesterday – have gone.

Suddenly, like an un-anchored kite you lose direction. You float where the wind blows but now it’s with no sense of control.

Maybe that’s how you feel in this period of isolation. You can’t do what you’ve been able to do for ever. So you drift, aimlessly. Towards the fridge, like as not.

But there’s a solution.

Rediscover that anchoring point, that ‘other end’ of the piece of string that can refocus you on what was important, and always will be important. Being current, professionally. Being available to family, friends, colleagues and your community. For me, that is a set of written, defined values and a personal mission statement. It could be like that for you, but you may choose other terms or a different route.

But it’s the anchor that lets you fly. Always was, always will be.

Find it, rediscover it, renew it. Perhaps, given the current uncertainty, completely rewrite it.

Whatever you decide is important, get it down in writing (rather than trying to remember it), and then work from it.

Your kite – a metaphor for your life – will fly all the better for that fixed point.

NOW is the time to prevent the post COVID explosion of stress.

03 Friday Apr 2020

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David Allen of Getting Things Done fame, wrote:

“Many organisations are exhorting their people to be ‘customer driven’ and to ‘go the extra mile’ to add a competitive advantage of extraordinary service that will win more business. But they may not be addressing the ability to handle that business. …… When your front line feels overwhelmed, watch out for resistance to new customers and opportunities.”

That, leaders in the public sector, is how your staff feel every day. Every time you say yes to a government diktat, or to a local authority project, or to a promotion-seeking evidence gatherer, you add to your staff’s stress. Every time you ‘listen’ to your staff and take no notes and do nothing, you’re adding more. And when you take on more and more new work in the knowledge that it’s not you but your front line that has to do it, and you do that without ridding them of the other work, you add stress.

No matter how productive your staff, you cannot just keep loading them with more without then having to wonder why they’ve gone sick for 6 months. And why they sue you for constructive dismissal.

Wake up!

Now would be a great time to look at all that stuff that is building up because of what’s happening, and respectfully, considerately, courageously but resolutely decide what to leave behind when it’s all over.

And where necessary, tell those who want that cr4p that they can’t have it unless they cough up money and resources for the catch up process.

Otherwise the cost of what you think you’ll be doing is going to be a lot more than you can afford.

Loss of morale (minimum), loss of staff (probably) and in extreme circumstances, loss of life. Some people can’t cope.

You’ve all heralded the new world of Mental Health in the Workplace.

Actively choosing what is TRULY important (as opposed to every different department demanding ‘their’ figures and forms be submitted by the end of any working day).

Train your staff in time management methodology,  and divest them – and you – of the Quadrant 3 and Quadrant 4 ‘nice’ stuff that is burning up their potential productivity. THAT is the way to keep staff and create the results that matter.

So put your money where your mouth is. Decide what isn’t going to be done when this is all over. And stand by your decisions.

 

Stretch yourself – be like Pregnancy Pants.

27 Friday Mar 2020

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“Sometimes things can go right only by first going very wrong.” Edward Tenner

And here we are. We exist at a time where the whole world has come to a grinding crawl, with the retail and hospitality industries taking a big hit. Which means that we, the citizens, denied our access to the dopamine of retail therapy and the opportunity to get away from it all suddenly find we have to find some other way of feeling good and ‘finding ourselves’.

Charles R Hobbs, of the original, non-Brian Tracy title TimePower, observed that when we go on holiday, the first thing we do on arrival is recreate the Comfort Zone that is home. First, we check the TV channels, and then we find out the wi-fi password. Is he right? Be honest.

Today, the comfort zones of shopping and the workplace have been denied to many, and to be fair that has resulted in a lot of imagination being utilised to cope with new challenges, which is arguably Mankind’s greatest skill. And as one esteemed philosopher put it, Mankind’s development has been the result of Challenge – Response.

The Challenge today is how to live in a confined space and feel happy, secure and productive for the period of the Lockdown. Of course, the nature of this lockdown is, shall we say, a bit like pregnancy trousers – there’s a bit of leeway that will expand and contract as needs demand.

Notwithstanding the ability or otherwise to do your paid work, we have a twenty-day window to:

  • Discover Kindle e-books, which can be in your lap in seconds and can feed your mind on a subject of interest to you.
  • Access on-line courses which can make you more employable.
  • Do all those jobs around the house that have needed doing. (My kitchen FINALLY looks organised.)
  • Talk to your partner and kids.
  • And your neighbours, whether they work for the NHS or not.
  • Telephone friends, neighbours and workmates using those unlimited minutes you’ve paid for.
  • (Personal favourite) Study The Seven Habits, First Things First and Principle-Centred Leadership and discover new ways of thinking – how to think, not what to think – an important distinction. All available on Kindle and, if you’re clever, very cheaply.
  • Read my blogs more often.

All of the above ideas, and any you can discover for yourself, will mean that you come out of the other side of this a better person, more organised, and possibly even more productive than before.

But, above all, doing something like those things will absolutely, unarguably and without fail MASSIVELY increase your sense of self-esteem – the value you place on yourself.

Go on – don’t just be a public hero like everyone else. Stretch yourself.

Win a Private Victory as well.

I’ve heard it before. Stop re-posting.

26 Thursday Mar 2020

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There is a tendency in all of us, and I say that because it is in me (and ‘what is most general is also most personal), to listen and understand only what we want to hear.

Evidence – the response to COVID-19.

I am avoiding news broadcasts because I do not want to hear the daily countdown to my own tragic death, and that of my loved ones. I am avoiding Twitter as much as I can because of the apparent glee with which some people speak of it, and the preaching from those who wrongly consider it their job to tell me what to do. The Government can do that for them. It’s in their Circle of Influence. Nobody else’s. How I respond is in mine. Everything else is outside, in the Circle of Concern. Including death tolls.

That said, I am grateful for the fact that HMG has started to use my mobile number to text me important updates, and Facebook for the unusually real updates.

What I am fed up with is everybody else’s reposting of the same posts I’ve had 10 times from someone else. If someone posts ‘how to wash your hands’ one more time I swear I’ll practice hand-wringing on their necks!

But these are strange times. There is, among the best of us, a willingness to comply for the better good. And the intent behind such posts is well-meant.

Unfortunately, and I refer back to my opening paragraph, there are those who understand only that 2m (what happened to 6 feet??) is the gap we should keep between us, so that means a 2m gap into which we can impose ourselves when jumping a queue. Those of us who think that it is noble to protect one’s family by behaving in a way that threatens another’s. And such people will, rest assured, find the evidence to justify what they are doing through reference to some nonsense that a moron has posted onto social media with the title ‘This is true!’, when it patently isn’t authoritative, responsibly sourced or cross-referenced.

At the same time, trotting out doctors to tell us we’re all going to die makes sobering, and therefore emotionally-avoided reading.

Which is why I have kept my reading about the virus to Government broadcasts and briefings. The rest is fluff and nonsense as far as I’m concerned.

Good ideas on the challenge in terms of how to Keep Calm and Carry On are great. Selfish preaching that points at me and says ‘IT’S ALL DOWN TO YOU’ – not so much.

Think about what and why you are posting. Has it been posted elsewhere, more authoritatively and widely? Is it in your area of expertise? Is it in the right Circle?

If the answers are Yes, No and No – don’t post.

Please.

Character, Character, Character – and Standards. Now, more than since 1945.

24 Tuesday Mar 2020

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The lockdown of 2020 has begun. Not since 1939 has anything like this been asked of the citizenry of the UK. That year, 40-odd million citizens did right by their country and their fellow Brits by complying with and trusting the advice and orders of those we elected to deal with exactly this kind of situation.

And a few thousand or so took advantage. Spivs, we called them. We decried their disobedience to the rule of law. And then we bought eggs off them.

We find ourselves in the middle of a truly extraordinary – for us – series of events. Which means we are now being called upon to demonstrate more character, as a people, than we have for quite some time.

Now we can stand up, or we can fall down.

It grieves me to say this, but the nature of televisual celebrity suggests that this might not happen. The young of today, fed as they are by the ‘me’ cult of the Kardashians and Made in Chelsea, will either act true to expectations and, as the evidence so far suggests, stamp their feet and demand their rights to do what they please regardless of the truth of principled living.

Or they may surprise us and show the kind of character that the youth of 1939 demonstrated when they knuckled down, volunteered, fought and died in defence of what had gone before.

Note that – they had a life, and Hitler interrupted it. They accepted that intrusion and a nation rose up to the challenge.

We had a life yesterday, and a virus has interrupted it.

I am calling upon everyone to demonstrate the same levels of character that were displayed then, by people just like us who had loved ones to protect, lifestyles to preserve, and an enemy to defeat.

And I will call out any selfish idiots I see.

Now, on a slightly different tack, I’m also going to ask that people do something else they may be tempted to put to one side while they are in isolation.

Maintain, or even Raise Your Standards.

At home, it is easy to let standards slip. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that suggests that the standards people visibly maintain and expect in the workplace don’t apply when they’re at home. Suit wearers get into their baggy sweatpants, don’t shave, watch telly all day eating fast food.

That is the slippery slope to weight-gain, depression and lowered productivity.

Work as hard at home as you do at work. I’m not suggesting you wear business attire in your house (although why not?), but you can at least dress as if you’re going to be seen in public, ensure you’re clean and well-presented, and only grow a beard if you really mean it. (Ladies excepted.)

Then ‘normal’ will be a lot easier to achieve when it’s all over.

Bon chance, mon amis.