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.”

What!!?? It’s MY fault you offended me?

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Years ago, I made a mistake. I sent an email to a small group, and accidentally sent it to the world. The content was accurate, but the world didn’t need to know it. Embarrassed, mea culpa, apologised publicly to the individual, copied in the world who’d read it.

Unfortunately, sometimes instead of mea culpa, people who make that kind of error don’t apologise. They double down like a wronged spouse, who raises every fault the husband (usually) has committed, ever. Their mistake is entirely YOUR FAULT. Everything you ever did (even if you didn’t) caused the offender’s error.

The unfortunate part is that doing this destroys any good will. The party who was publicly stabbed will no longer go the extra mile to serve the offender. Which may have impact on any corporate, commercial or community interest within which that offender works. Where a simple apology, taken in good humour, could have healed all wounds, the doubling down defensiveness adds infection to the mix.

And the really funny part is that people committing this error are usually people who would consider themselves ‘senior leaders’. They may have that title, but do they read the leadership material that espouses humility, integrity, honesty? Evidently not. Years ago, I wanted to be taken to task in bad faith by a certain boss, because he had a copy of Stephen Covey’s ‘Principle Centred Leadership’ on his bookshelf and I would’ve picked the book, turned to the relevant page and shoved it in his face.

(Unfortunately, I never managed to offend that particular chap.)

This is not an attack on any individual. We all make mistakes, and we all have regrets. I have many. And I seem to amass them quite frequently despite all my best efforts to live according to my ‘code of conduct’.

And that leads me to the other dimension of character errors such as blaming the person you’ve offended. If you don’t apologise, how can you be forgiven? Don’t you want good relationships? Do you want to be thought of badly? Is there something wrong with being liked?

My code requires me to apologise when I’m wrong. I made a bad character error on holiday, recently – impatience – and even though it took me a couple of days, I walked up to the person I offended, offered her flowers, apologised twice despite her repeated ‘no needs’, and walked away with a tear in my eye, partly because of her forgiveness but also because of my humility – which sounds backwards but it is really emotionally satisfying when you act as per your personal code of conduct when the potential consequences could be severe – she might have called security, after all!!

So next time you make a complete noodle of yourself, acknowledge your error, apologise (truly, not just say the words) and take whatever comes.

It is soul-affirming.

Buy The Three Resolutions HERE – available in paperback or Kindle

“But we’ve always done that way, you fool!”

02 Thursday Sep 2021

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“Once we get into routines we feel comfortable. From comfort comes confidence.“ Judith E. Glaser, author of ‘Creating WE’

Nothing confines us more than an imposed requirement to comply with ‘the system’. In many ways systems serve us, keep us safe, and provide for the creation of consistent results. A properly considered system is a valuable tool. Or we could all decide, every morning, which side of the road we feel like driving on today.

But blind obedience to a system disallows creativity, stifles innovation, and doesn’t allow for the unexpected to be properly challenged. When something arises that is a bit off-the-wall, the system might not work and our slavish adherence won’t change that. A new system is needed, or at least a modification. And don’t we fight that!

Change is the greatest constant. So fighting change is pointless. On the other hand, applying Aikido to take control of change does have a point. (Eh?)

Aikido is a martial art that doesn’t resist attack like the fist- and foot-focused arts; it takes the force used by an attacker and redirects it until we can take over control. For example, as an attacker moves towards us, instead of resisting we step back and take the impetus away from the imposed force and send it where we want it to go until such time as the threat dissipates.

In the same way we can take a proactive step back when a system is challenged, and redirect our thoughts not to resisting the stimulus, but instead to re-identifying it and its likely direction, and then deciding what to do about it so as to achieve a desirable objective. In that stimulus-response gap we can identify whether the system is wholly inappropriate or just needs tweaking.

Which leads me to the repeated realisation that principles apply. They always do. They never change, and they influence the success of a tweaked system more than any other factor.

So the order of events must be:

  1. What is the system for?
  2. What has the new challenge done to affect the system’s ability to achieve that original objective?
  3. Where in the system has that happened?
  4. Can the system change in order to achieve the same result? If so – change it. If not – design a whole new system.
  5. And if a new system needs to be designed – do we have to change the way we see the problem? Because just changing what we ‘do’ might not be enough of an answer. The ‘why we do what we do’ might be what’s changed.

In any event – don’t blindly and repeatedly apply the ‘old’ system and expect it to work. Because it won’t.

(Reposted from 2015)

Are you an Investment Banker?

26 Thursday Aug 2021

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That title woke you up, didn’t it? But this is a serious question, with serious consequences.

An experiment was conducted by psychologists, and as space prohibits great detail on the hows and whens I will get to the point. The researchers conducted an experiment to identify how ethical a group of investment bankers were at the office and at home. They conducted some tests which required self-reporting on results by the subject bankers, but the tests were designed so that random results could be prevented even though the subjects weren’t being supervised. Basically, they were honesty tests.

The results were interesting. What they found was this: investment bankers lie very easily and quickly in a working environment, but far less so, indeed almost never, in a home environment. Taken across the occupational board, could this mean that we all lie easily at work, but less frequently at home? Are we inclined to be two-faced?

Yes.

Advertisers can’t possibly believe half the tripe they peddle. Politicians are the greatest hypocrites of all. Lawyers have to conceal their own suspicions – even truth – if they are to make an honest (sic) buck. And police officers? “Of course you’ll get bail if you confess.” Ahem.

But lie to their kith and kin? Not if they want an easy life.

To an extent, I understand how dishonesty has become a ‘legitimate’ worklife tool. Ugly as it is, the legal system would collapse if people couldn’t trust their lawyers to at least act in confidence. Some dishonesty – usually of an omission rather than commission type – is required as a means of getting to the truth. If we told criminals about all the evidence held by the coppers, they’d invent excuses to cover it; withholding facts so that the dishonest can be caught out, is a necessity.

But there comes a point when absolute honesty is essential, and as a ‘character’ exponent (no I’m not perfect but I’d like to be), I believe that we all firmly know where the truth line sits.

The question always follows – are we always willing, even dedicated, to staying that one side of the line?

Some people are, some people aren’t. I know that to my own cost. People invent stuff, or they invent consequences of stuff, or they twist stuff. It’s human nature, to make facts fit the Markle – the ‘personal truth’ – in order to get what you want.

But one thing about human nature is that people can choose. They can choose to lie, cheat, steal and exaggerate, or they can choose to

  • Tell the truth whatever the cost;
  • Act in keeping with ethical codes; and
  • Forgive others when they proverbially trespass against those codes.

I know which side of the line I prefer to stand. And I know what I think of those who don’t. even if I do forgive them, eventually.

Bunch of bankers.

For more on this subject, read The Three Resolutions, available HERE from Amazon (paperback and Kindle available)

Unwanted service? Do it anyway.

29 Thursday Jul 2021

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I write regularly for LinkedIn, the professional Facebook. (Although the lines continue to blur….) Owing to the fact I will not pay LinkedIn £30 a month for services I won’t use, I suspect that what I am writing isn’t getting the airtime my magnificence deserves. Alternatively, sobering as it is, I might equally have to accept that what I am writing isn’t being read – not for any particular reason, but perhaps for no better reason that people haven’t the time.

My ego says, “Why bother, then?” BUT the Third Resolution requires me to provide that service in any case. And it occurred to me this week that the simple truth, for an individual as much as a business is – you can’t force people to subscribe to your services.

You can market, you can advertise (different, apparently), you can beg and cajole, but no-one can be forced to accept what you have on offer, even if HMG is moving slowly from ask to cajole to enforce in terms of the vaccine. (Conspiracy, moi?)

Particularly if you can’t convince them that they need what you’re offering. (Although convincing people they need something that costs more than they earn is whole other level of begging.)

Which I think is odd, because – and I’m going out on a limb here – most people know that they could be better than they are. We can all be better, and we all know it. But we pretend otherwise, and we certainly (and in monetary terms, perhaps justifiably) resist investing money and time in closing the Gap between what and where we are, and what and who we want to be.

Some people – yes, you know someone like it – would even violently (verbally or physically) fight anyone who suggests they could be calmer, more restrained individuals.

How big is YOUR Gap – the distance between your current emotional, physical, financial, spiritual and mental state, and your ideal? I digress. Mull over that question  later but, for now, let me get back on point.

Despite the fact that people don’t want your services today, or ever, there is great personal gain in carrying on trying. In maintaining professional and personal relevance, in keeping up with technologies and thinking in your field.

(Did you know, all thought leaders pretty much think what their predecessors have thought? They just put it differently. Fair dos, so do I.)

If you do that, the moment you are called upon to provide a service – you’re ready. You’re not embarrassed by ‘having to look something up’, to buying some piece of kit that supports your efforts.

As you may be aware, I teach advanced driving. You may appreciate that for the past 18 months that hasn’t been possible. So rust could set in. meanwhile, my qualification to do that is up for renewal next week. In preparation for that, I figured that I would hit the books and prepare. So I did.

And I discovered that I knew it for the simple reason that I practice it. It’s not just something I teach, it’s something I do. As I read the books I realised ‘I know this stuff’ because I review it constantly, not just before an examination process. (In fact, three years ago I got a call from a tester about a due retest, and he said, “How about tomorrow?” I was ready. I just drove as I now routinely drive. It wasn’t an exam as much as it was a demo.)

Keep up your service standards. You may get the opportunity to provide them sooner than you expect.

For more on this subject, read The Three Resolutions, available at AMAZON in paperback and Kindle formats.

The Intolerance of Those Demanding…. Tolerance.

22 Thursday Jul 2021

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Bit of a political bent to this post. It relates to character, and I hope it won’t appear partisan.

Every day we are treated to politicians of all sides avoiding questions, criticising the ‘other side’ for not doing something while declining to help by making suggestions as to what they would do, attacking the opposing party for something they or their own members have done before, and so on.

These people are supposed to be people of character. They are constantly demanding tolerance of others while manifestly failing to demonstrate their own. They are permanently guilty of everything they accuse the other side of committing.

GET A GRIP!

One problem I see that is preventing the situation changing for the better is the childish manner in which any change of mind is addressed by both the ‘clever’ opposition and the ‘informed and objective’ media.

As soon as any politician gives an inch – even an iota of a millionth of a millimetre – they are pounced upon. It’s a U-turn, or a lie, or disingenuous ( a posh, intelligent, wordy lie). It’s proof that the other side was right and “HAH! We told you so!”

Juvenile behaviour that would be cracked down in a court of law, by a judge who would remind those present that decorum is demanded.

The other thing about politics is how private conversations are conflated and used. Yes, “Look what HE said!” is the infantile, finger-pointy, name-calling style of debate we voters have been stuck with since cameras were allowed into the chambers, and social media became the preferred means of contact.

And today, a Japanese Olympics officer was sacked for a joke made 20 years ago.

TWENTY YEARS. Even the courts acknowledge that what applied then wouldn’t apply now.

What a bunch of intolerant, judgemental, idiotic numbskulls we are becoming.

Are you part of this? If so

LOOK AT YOURSELF.

You are conflating character with judging. You are judging others by others’ standards, which you have adopted because you ‘should’ and not necessarily because you truly believe – or even understand – those ideas.

Dr Stephen Covey once said, “Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic.”

No, not easy. I have difficulty with it, too. But in the space between stimulus and response, ask yourself – “Is it true? Does it matter? Have I not done something similar in my own life? Should I be judged for my mistakes? What right have I to judge others?”

By the time you’ve gone through all that, you’ve moved on to less ‘judgey’ and more important thoughts.

Have character. Let others have theirs, even if you don’t quite agree with it. And stop showing off, politicians. You’re supposed to be better than us.

Set an example of patience, understanding and intellectual excellence. And exercise the same levels of tolerance you’re demanding of others.

Please.

Two kinds of Character – but not really.

15 Thursday Jul 2021

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I’ve stated before that I like to compare Stephen Covey’s material with that provided by other learned people, and here is another nugget I found.

In his book ‘The Only Way to Win’ (Hyperion, 2012) Author and coach to tennis stars Jim Loehr makes the observation that there are two kinds of character, although when he explains he is talking about two types of characteristics.

He writes about Performance Characteristics, and Moral Characteristics. He provides examples of each, suggesting that Performance Characteristics relate to excellence, resilience, perseverance, self-control, bravery, commitment, positivity and so on. Moral characteristics include truthfulness, kindness, honesty, gratitude, patience, respect and so on.

Next, he proposes that the Performance Characteristics are external – they tend to promote and provide external results, results that are dependant upon others in the sense that doing them requires they be done for others, and they require relationships to make them work. They tend to be ‘doing’ characteristics, in that without visible action they have no meaning.

Moral characteristics are internal – they relate to the value we place upon, and the relationships we have with, ourselves. They tend to be ‘being’ characteristics, where their invisibility doesn’t matter because ‘we know’.

The problem, opines Loehr, is that while society rewards performance character, a lack of moral character underpinning it creates the Madoffs, the Epsteins, the Nixons, and so on. Performers are great, until their corrupt morals muck it up for everyone, including themselves.

The Second Resolution, written about in the early 1970s by Covey, speaks of the desire to overcome pride and pretension using Character and Competence. Isn’t Loehr just repeating what Covey says, but in different words? Performance Characteristics relate to Competence, while Moral Characteristics relate to Character.

I am not saying Loehr poached Covey’s idea! What this reflects is two things – first of all, great minds always come to the same conclusion when independently exploring the same material. And second – it underpins the fact that the findings are correct, universal, external and timeless truths.

Loehr applied his philosophy to developing moral character in his tennis prodigies as much as he ever did their tennis competence. In fact, moral character was his main focus. John Wooden, famed US Football Coach, did the same with the young people he coached. Both created winnners, but winners with a higher purpose than self- aggrandisement.

Are you a winner? If so, great. But if you are a winner at someone else’s expense, shame on you. I’m not saying competition isn’t good – it is. When I suggest ‘someone else’s expense’ I am talking about whether your objective is ‘Me Me Me’ or a genuine effort to be better so that others may be entertained, or so that your greater purpose can be achieved, e.g. teaching others. Andre Agassi ( a Loehr trainee) said that it wasn’t until he decided to use tennis as a means to find efforts to teach others and develop young people, his game was never right. In fact, he credits his resurgence with that realisation – that serving others (moral) was a better motivation than any self-serving goal (performance).

In essence, the Moral (Character) serves the Performance (Competence), but it is the former which matters most of all. If Agassi hadn’t been tennis seed No 1, then his later revelation would still have made him a great teacher.

You don’t have to be famous to be successful. But you really do need to ‘be’ your best, perhaps more than ‘doing’ your best.

For more about The Three Resolutions, listen here:

Or read the book, available from Amazon HERE as a hard copy or HERE in Kindle format.

Listening requires Discipline, too.

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One competency that people often lack is the ability to listen. I recall as a husband and as a school pupil the accusation that ‘you never listen’, but I don’t recall the lessons in listening that accompanied literacy and numeracy. Do you? Do you remember being taught attention management as a listener rather than as a teacher? Nope? Me neither.

Listening is a skill. The ability to not just hear what is being said, but also to see how it is being said and to understand why it is being said are the three elements of good listening. They are summarised in the expression that good listening requires HEART – an ART of using the EAR to HEAR what’s in the HEART. Yes, I know – ouch. Yet perfectly apt.

The ability to truly understand through listening is therefore a competence, one that can be studied, learned and finally applied. But all of that competence requires something else, something that underpins all learning.

Discipline.

Not just discipline required to apply oneself to the learning of the competence, though. That’s only half the story.

Discipline is also required to actually apply that learned skill at the appropriate moment. It means pausing in the gap between hearing someone say, “I want to tell you something” and the knee-jerk “Not now, I’m busy” which we tend to apply.

Not as easy as learning about how to listen, I’m afraid. We all live in our own world, and other people’s need to intrude upon our inner peace (i.e. while watching Line of Duty) tends to lie secondary to what we have ‘going on’ in our own heads. It takes discipline to decide to be present for another person. Until that discipline can be applied, all the listening training in the world won’t make you a great listener.

It’s easier to pause and listen to someone important to you in an intimate sense – immediate family, best friends, and so on. It’s also arguably easier to listen at a time of crisis, because the crisis is salient, it’s ‘in yer face’ and can’t be avoided.

But there are times when someone needs to be heard, but there is no obvious sense of urgency and so the moment is missed because the intended listener hasn’t developed the skill, and discipline, to be (a) willing to listen and (b) able to see that listening is needed now.

Next time someone seeks to attract your attention, pause and ask yourself – am I ready and willing to take the time to understand why this person wants me at this moment? That pause will inevitably result in better communication, even if the result is to arrange a better time for the conversation – the individual knows they have been and will be heard if the counsellor actively acknowledges that there is a conversation required.

Not easy.

But try.

Win-Win NEEDS the Three Resolutions

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You are familiar with the expression Win-Win, are you not? It’s a management go-to term when you are engaged in some kind of negotiation. Of course, in most negotiations the term is interpreted to mean that ‘I will win most and you will win some’. For example, the nice double-glazing salesman my father played, whose opening gambit for doing our whole house was £10,000, but when he wasn’t getting anywhere with that dropped straight to £6,000, at which my Dad suggested the salesman had (a) just tried to con £4k out of him and (b) better leave while he still could.

Another example – when someone with a purpose on television says ‘we need a debate’ may imply they are seeking a win-win solution to the issue at hand, but what they really mean is they want a debate where the other side does what they want done. My evidence – politicians stating that the other side should ‘show leadership’ by doing what they’re told.

Readers of the classic Seven Habits of Highly Effective People will know that a true Win-Win means that both sides seek out a solution that is better than either of them foresaw when they began the relationship, or they just don’t do the deal. That takes courage and consideration – the courage to stand for what you believe while also being considerate of the other’s needs and perspectives. It’s not surrender – it’s a deeper discussion.

It also means applying all of the Three Resolutions. It takes self-discipline to not blindly default into seeking what you want at the other’s expense, and it means denying yourself your initial victory in preference for consciously seeking a better one. It takes character (knowing what you value and being unwilling to compromise your principles) and competence (specifically the intellectual capacity to negotiate, to understand conceptually within the practices and legalities which cover the matter at hand, and the technical ability to do what is agreed). And it requires that you know your purpose and are willing to serve the other party and their stakeholders as much as you wish to serve your own.

This isn’t just a business related idea. This applies to all interpersonal transactions, from deciding on a family holiday to getting a stubborn teenager to clean her room. (That adjective was redundant, really, wasn’t it? They’re all stubborn.)

It means being proactive. It requires a momentary pause between the stimulus of getting your needs met and starting to demand them, instead using the pause to ask ‘how important is this relationship’? It means deciding that you want to consider your ultimate objective from the broader perspective of a whole-life view and any future dealings. It means giving thought to how you want the project to progress, and whether carrying it through is ethical, and won’t compromise your values and external principles.

Nope. Negotiating from a desire for all involved to benefit is definitely not easy. But it all starts with your being the kind of individual who is conscious of the above principles, and sufficiently proactive as to notice when they need to be applied. Instead of jumping straight to the default ‘win’ programming that we tend to adopt as we grow up – and learn from our ‘betters’.

Next time you want something that involves someone else, ask yourself – “Am I disciplined, congruent, competent and service-orientated enough to take the time to find out how I can be a part of making this a mutually beneficial project?”

If the answer is No, even in the moment, then decide to wait until you are.

The results will be truly extraordinary.

For more on The Three Resolutions, got to Amazon and buy the book.

Relationships Fund Dentists, You Know.

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I would love the patient of a saint. It would be a characteristic could be humbly proud of (it is possible), but of late I find that my patience patina is wearing thin. I shan’t go into why, but suffice to say the expression ‘gritted teeth’ comes to mind because – I think I’m gritting my teeth. Nevertheless, I am trying to keep my counsel because of the relationships involved and the potentially negative and expensive consequences of just telling it like it is.

Which raises the question – is it better to be completely open to the point of bluntness (that’s an oxymoron if ever I wrote one), or hold back because one isn’t walking in the shoes of the people who ‘need telling’? The former approach could be said to be the most honest, but the latter the more respectful. A principled decision is called for in every different case.

There is no blanket strategy. You might argue that there is but have you ever opted for a specific approach only to discover that the facts and assessments that led you to use it – were wrong?

The only advice I can give – and which I would dearly love to consistently apply myself – would be to us the space between stimulus and response to really, conscientiously dig deeply into the situation, and act accordingly. Think broadly and deeply – what do you know, what do you think you know and can find out, and what is the situation as seen from the other side. Just asking those questions can truly serve your strategy for dealing with the event.

But there is another assessment I would invite you to consider.

If your selected approach requires careful wording and you can’t think of the words – consider letting it go.

It is easy to think you’re using the right words only to wonder why the other person didn’t hear what you said, but instead heard what they decided you meant and the situation worsened rather than improved.

And here’s the rub – sometimes they won’t tell you what they thought they heard; instead, they’ll go off and report their inaccuracy to someone else, and it all goes Pete Tong. Of course, that ‘someone else’ will be their friend, therefore on their side by default. They rarely go to an objective listener.

This whole idea is a ‘soft skill’ that requires wisdom, considered thinking and occasionally resignation to a situation.

Which means being willing to surrender, to leave things as they are while mitigating the potential risks of staying silent on the matter.

Which is bloody stressful, my teeth can tell you. Ask my dentist.

For more on good Character as a specific, rather than accidental life choice, read The Three Resolutions.

I beat The Stig. And learned a life lesson

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Last week I suggested I would monster everyone at a racing circuit Track Day. How did it go?

I arrived at Castle Combe and immediately realised (a) I was possibly the oldest driver there and (b) mine appeared to be the only unstripped, unchipped and unmodified car there. I was surrounded by Caterham 7s, quasi-sponsored trackday specials and even a Radical racing car. I knew I was toast.

But I really enjoyed myself. Although I was often a mobile chicane (except when I overtook a string of four slowly driven, identical Honda coupes) I was able to drive to ‘my’ max.

I discovered something apposite to life. Being the slowest (ish) car there by virtue in part of my being bog standard, I frequently found myself alone, which meant no-one was getting in my way, which in turn meant that I could perform without others influencing what I could and couldn’t do.

How often is that true? How often is what you are doing in terms of personal performance influenced or even impeded by the actions, inactions or rules created by others – and created in their interests rather than yours?

I’ll leave you to ponder that one, and then move on to suggesting that being ‘at the back and alone’ with no-one in your way may just be the best time to learn – about yourself, about your capabilities, and about your potential.

When unfettered, we can occasionally go further than we think. Like on track, we can focus forward rather than backwards. We can try things out and see what occurs, without the external critics that point out how ‘they could’ve done better’. We discover, for ourselves, where we can do better, where we have pushed too hard, where we make mistakes – and we tweak our self-expectations and behaviours with a view to overcoming or managing our former limitations.

I am confident that my next experience, in June, will show an improvement in terms of car control and speed management around a strange circuit – I’d visited last week’s on a prior occasion – and I’ll be willing to push a little harder.

Yes. Sometimes the tortoise beats the hare not because it’s smarter but because it took time to learn.

And I beat Top Gear Stig’s lap time. By four seconds. Admittedly he was in a Vauxhall Astra Diesel and I had a Focus ST but I’ll take the win.

The Rookie Badge of Shame.