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.”

Values-based Time Management Means Achieving the BEST Goals.

19 Sunday Feb 2017

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“If a goal isn’t connected to a deep ‘why,’ it may be good but it usually isn’t best.” Stephen Covey

I hereby truly and solemnly declare and affirm that I want to run a marathon.

That is a true statement. Deep down I want to be able to say that I ran a marathon, that I did it in less than 4 hours, and here’s my medal on display in the cabinet with my bronze swimming certificate.*

Yes, as far as running a marathon is concerned, I really want to run one. But I am not prepared to make the effort.

The reason I am not prepared to is because such a goal is often a dream that is planted by the achievements of others, by a desire to demonstrate a high level of physical fitness when such a level is not necessary for achievement of any of my other goals, and ultimately by ego – I want to brag about it.

Let me emphasise – they would be MY motives, and if you want to do a marathon for truly personal, deeply emotional reasons you go ahead and do it, and good luck. I am not here to tread on your dreams.

The point I am making is that achieving someone else’s goals, or seeking achievement for reasons of ego, probably won’t result in the deep happiness that comes from achievement pursued for truly personal, deeply impassioned motives. On the other hand, if achieving those goals is a means to a better end and not ends in themselves, the passion for those longer-term outcomes will help you achieve the smaller steps on the road to that greater success, the success you really seek. And let’s face it, you’ll be fitter and better able to enjoy that success (provided you haven’t crocked yourself in the process). And the greater success will be the one that serves your values system.

Seeing the goal as something which serves your values is the essence of values-based time management. Selecting a goal that doesn’t dovetail your values system is futile – you won’t do it, or you will detest every moment spent in striving for it, and UN-happiness is not a normal pursuit, is it? (Masochists excepted.)

I suspect that a 10k running ability is ample for most of us who don’t enjoy sport for sport’s sake. If you can run 6 miles in an hour and have a sensible diet you’ll be fit enough for most professions. If you want to get fit enough to achieve your other goals, decide on a sensible level of fitness, pursue that, and spend the rest of the time on the actual objective.

Spend as much of your time as you can on getting the result you seek, and a sensible-but-lesser proportion of time on the ‘side-issues’ that serve that objective. Plan your time so that you maximise the likelihood of achieving the (your) Main Thing, without spending too much time on achieving side-goals that will serve the greater objective but aren’t goals in themselves.

It’s a fine balancing act and using a suitable, personal planning system will help. In that, you put your Mission and Goals to the fore, and plan to spend as much of your time not on ‘shoulds’ or ‘coulds’, but on MUSTS. The other two can be fitted in around them.

And be careful that those ‘shoulds’ and ‘coulds’ don’t become excuses for procrastination! (Next week’s subject.)

*I don’t have one of those, either. I am not a fish and if I am going two miles on water, I know people with boats.

 

For more on Values-Based Time Management, go here, or go to the Books page on this site

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Don’t learn TOO much. Find ‘The Way’ that works, then ignore alternatives.

12 Sunday Feb 2017

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I attended a talk last Monday by an excellent speaker, Jamie Denyer, whose presentation included a sobering observation. Once I got past his odd clothing choice – a bit hip-hop for a grandfather living in Swansea – I really enjoyed all of his talk, except that sobering bit. The sobering bit thrown right at me, personally. At least, I thought it was personal. I thought it was personal because the cap did fit and I had to wear it.

He described the individual who buys a personal development book, avidly reads it to the last page, then puts it down and “waits for the magic to work.” Then, when it doesn’t work because they aren’t applying it in a disciplined fashion they go out and buy the next one – and repeat. Then they repeat ad nauseum. He said that this is referred to in the trade as ‘shelf-development’, in that your book shelf gets fitter by holding up all your books.

Ouch. You should see my collection.

When I give talks on self-leadership (yes, fraudulently to some degree), one of the things I tell people is this.

  1. Choose your self-help book carefully. (I recommend The 7 Habits or Awaken the Giant Within, plus a couple of good time management books.)
  2. Apply the content religiously and don’t buy any other book!

There is a personal reason that I do this. I will sit there and read one of my books. I will then think, “This is the system I will now apply.” I will then see another book, listen to another trainer, see a new form, or just have something come to mind when I am walking the dog, and I start to think about how I will apply that instead of what I was already (supposedly) doing. As a result, instead of ‘doing’ I am perpetually ‘thinking about doing’.

The daft thing is – and Stephen Covey wrote about this in The 8th Habit – they are all saying the same thing.

  • They ALL say that taking responsibility for our thoughts is the key to a directed, patient, principled life.
  • They ALL say that having goals and a sense of direction towards a passion is key to a successful life.
  • They ALL say that relationships are important.
  • They ALL say that looking after your body enables success in the former three endeavours.

BUT they all have subtly nuanced alternatives to how to apply the philosophy to the discovery of a purpose and how to define goals.

I have suggested before that success is created by application of self to a simple philosophy.

  1. Know what you want.
  2. Manage your time accordingly.
  3. Communicate with clarity – in and out.

After that, it’s all about method, system and practices. For me, I always come back to Covey’s template because I understand it so well, teach it in schools, and absolutely believe in the systematic approach and principled teaching that it is. You could choose Canfield’s, Robbins’, Ziglars, Hobbs – whoever you like.

But just pick one. It leaves the mind clear for the important stuff. Then apply it with discipline.

‘Tis the Season to be Stupid, falalalala, lalalala.

11 Sunday Dec 2016

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“To change one’s life: 1. Start immediately. 2. Do it flamboyantly. 3. No exceptions.” ― William James

Funny, isn’t it? Right now, with 20 days to go, I am positive that millions of people are making their rules for 2017, applicable from Day 1. (Okay, maybe not so much the Chinese, who have a different New Year.) They plan to diet, exercise, rise early, watch less telly, etc. Or maybe that’s just me. Again. Every year since ever.

Honest intentions, I have no doubt.

Next funny thing. Having promised to eat better, exercise etc. etc., they (we)  rationalise that because this is the season of celebration (and the conventional wisdom for celebration is to eat and drink to a massively stupid – yes, stupid – degree),  the fact that we are definitely starting to live better on Jan 1st means we can justify doing the exact opposite.

And I am just as stupid as most of you, in that regard. (Not as stupid as those who think it’s okay to do it FROM New Year until Christmas. Love to those alcoholics who will give up booze for a month to prove they’re not.)

William James, the ‘father’ of psychology (not psychiatry, different science), sought to identify the proper prescription for a successful life. By successful, he spoke not of fame and fortune, but of greater personal effectiveness and integrity, where one lived in accordance with one’s values and therefore did not suffer the debilitation of depression, stress and guilt. His prescription was to advise people throw themselves into our primary objective – living life with the peace of knowing that what you are doing is good for you, good for others, and which serves a greater good. Even if that service only means becoming a role model for others.

Bear with. You have a conscience. It may be teeny weeny, or it may be a big bu66er. But you have one. When you fail to act in accordance with its sage advice, you feel a soupçon or a bucketful of guilt, depending upon its capacity and your willingness to listen to it. What you do with that knowledge is the difference between achieving James’ definition of success, and living a life of quiet desperation where you spend every evening wondering where the day went and why you haven’t achieved what was on your principled list of things-to-do.

How do I know? I know because that has been a tendency* in my life. A lot of my friends seem impressed with the amount of ‘stuff’ I do and the miscellaneous blobs of service for which I am known support their belief, but I know I could be a doing a whole lot better.

And with few exceptions, so do my readers.

Right now, those close to me privately and professionally are all preloading every conversation around the cake/biscuit barrel/sweet tin with ‘well, it is Christmas’, then stuffing their face knowing how daft they’re being. And (here’s the annoying part), after Christmas they’ll all go on a diet and bring their left-over cr4p into work. Thanks a bunch.

Starting today is key. It’s not easy, but it is the only truly sound route to getting what you want, and getting it soon enough to enjoy it.

My advice, therefore, is to follow William James’ advice. But be a little bit careful with the ‘flamboyantly’ bit. I think he meant do it ‘big time’, not dressed in a pink tutu, wearing a Stetson and covered in Braveheart make-up.

 

*Does ‘tendency’ mean absolute headlong throwing-yourself-into-dedicated-idiocy?

Why I am curmudgeonly.

05 Monday Dec 2016

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Okay, I buckled. A very kind gentleman complimented my blog and invited me back. So here I am.

At the last meeting of ‘my’ Speakers Club , a round robin was started by the Chair, asking us to tell the audience what we hate. Fortunately for me, by the time it came to me the tea had arrived. Unfortunately for the next meeting’s participants, this meant I had time to prepare properly. And the first challenge I had was keeping it down to 8 minutes. This is a summary of what I said.

“You’ve heard the odd rant from me, but here’s a big one. What do I hate?

  1. For a start, I dislike the demise of the letter T. Professional presenters, whose very professionalism SHOULD be pinned on their ability to speak clearly, seem unable to say it. I am sick of people ‘not gehhin’ ih’, and them going to ‘parhhies’.
  2. People who demand instant attention by you regarding their priorities, but take 3 days to even consider yours. I have worked in an organisation where everything administrative must be done now – and I mean everything – so what happens is that people doing everything administrative ‘now’ MUST fail because the things they are doing ‘now’ must replace all those other things they SHOULD be doing ‘now’. Like the things they’re paid to do – which ISN’T ‘just’ admin. And they constantly feel as though they have achieved zilch. But the paperwork’s good. (Think – if the administrators went home we could still police -unpaid – but if the police went home the administrators would be pointless. Think on that.)
  3. Mobile phone use by drivers. If you do it, you’re a tw4t. End of.
  4. The new motorway following distance in the wet of one arm’s length.
  5. Pavement parking – especially in wide streets. For 50 of my 54 years I have noticed how 52-seater buses can travel up the average street by me without bouncing off parked cars, but now people think it is necessary to park on the pavement to avoid what hasn’t happened and likely never will. Let’s face it, if they could park in their front rooms the lazy b4st4rd5 would do that, too.
  6. People standing in front of you in a book shop. I am 6 feet tall, not inconsequential in stature, and yet I will be in a narrow aisle in a bookshop clearly looking at books because my head is tilted 90 degrees to read the spines – and some (usually old) idiot will just appear right in front of me and start doing the same.
  7. Long song intros with wailing singers. If the intro is long enough to warble ‘Oooooohhhh,, yeeeeah, mmmmm’ then it’s too long. Shorten it or just shut up. And if you can’t hit the note first time, you ain’t good enough.
  8. “I’m a Celebrity Cooking while I dance or skate or drive to work” and other such programmes. And the people who watch it and post on Facebook that they watch it. Read a book.
  9. The Daily Mail website. Left column, ‘shock as eye-following glasses show men staring at ladies breasts’. Right column – bikinis, references to side-boob, ample chest, thigh-gaps, legs, and nudity.
  10. Media hypocrisy and bias – see previous blogs.
  11. Interviewed people starting their answer with ‘Yeah, no, I mean’. This means ‘I have given no thought whatsoever to the question but felt the urge to blurt something to fill the gap while I actually engage my brain. And the cliché ‘Yeah, no, I mean’ was the best I could come up with”.
  12. Politicians evading the question by saying ‘the reality of the matter is’ when it really isn’t.
  13. And TONS of other things.

Why do I hate these things – and what does it have to do with The Three Resolutions?

Man is a creature endowed with four gifts. The gift of self-awareness, to know he is a man. The gift of creative imagination – to know what he wants. The gift of independent will – the creativity, ability and drive to go and get what he wants. And the gift of conscience. We can to choose whether, or not, we will behave in accordance with reasonable standards.

When I see people who know better committing the hateful acts I have listed above, I perceive that when they are doing so, they are deliberately or even carelessly failing to reach those standards. And when doing so demonstrates rudeness, sheer hypocrisy, or when endangers me or my family, I feel the urge to make my feelings plain, and because I try to be a patient individual, that urge makes me less of a person if I inadvertently act upon it.

Shouting “SCUM!” at a litter dropper is only temporarily satisfying. As is punching someone right in the mouth for being so, so stupid. It is only temporarily satisfying because the guilt arising from a failure to stand up to one’s own standards kicks in quite quickly after the immediate psychological lift of having spoken out.

That said, if we legalised that kind of immediate punishment and thus legitimised it, the guilt might disappear. Perhaps legalising a smack in the mouth for those whose laziness, arrogance or stupidity threatens us is the answer.

Tomorrow, I write to the Prime Minister!”

idbi

Who’s in YOUR mirror?

06 Sunday Nov 2016

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“It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.” ― Patrick Rothfuss

How is your self-image? What do you say to yourself that builds you up – or tears you down? Are you one of those few people who recognises their faults but also knows their strengths, or do you focus on your flaws while forgetting just how great you are, or could be?

The stories we tell ourselves in moments of doubt do have a salient effect on our results. If we enter into some project ‘knowing’ we are going to fail, how can we ever know whether we would have succeeded if we’d gone into it with confidence? To the same degree, and I address the famed ‘Law of Attraction here, how do we know we are good enough if we keep succeeding by accident?

The truth may be that we don’t really ever get to know the truth about ourselves, and this is usually because so few of us ever conduct any self-analysis intended to make that discovery. Even if we do, the stories we are already telling ourselves influences the answers we now produce.

Can you ask somebody else? Yes, but it has to be someone you can trust, who chooses their words carefully and can be blunt without being rude, complimentary without fawning.

And for your part, you have to be willing to trust that what you hear is in some way accurate. Asking someone trustworthy what they think, and then reacting defensively won’t produce the improved you that you were looking to create.

Of course, there is also a continuum to ego – from incorrect self-doubt at the lower end, to selfish arrogance at the other, when someone believes their own publicity to the degree that they consider themselves above all principles. The stories we hear about overly-demanding celebrities demonstrates such an approach to self-awareness.

Keep it real. Know who you are. Act with character.

Apply The Three Resolutions.

 

If you wish, you can go HERE to see or download an exercise that can help you discover whether who you think you are is REALLY who you want you to be.

You really can’t wait to learn what you need to know now.

23 Sunday Oct 2016

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“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as in being able to remake ourselves.” Mahatma Gandhi

One of the fascinating things I have learned in trying to start a personal development training and coaching business is how many such businesses exist, even in my out-of-the-way, not-quite-rural part of the world. I am somewhat under-whelmed in the levels of interest shown in my own services, but if the proliferation of such businesses is a reflection of a need for such help, it must in turn represent some kind of insidious internal disquiet in people about where they are now, compared to where they want to be. They are willing to pay stupid money to some companies (while resisting inexpensive little me) in order to find something they seem unable to discover for themselves.

On the other side of the scales, however, there are those who absolutely dismiss the potential benefits of training, whether it be for them or for the people they manage, work for, or even live with.

I read a great story that might illustrate what I see to be the benefit of self-leadership training. It concerns a middle aged man, shall we say in his early 50s, who was sat at his father’s bedside as the septuagenarian drew close to death. As the old man ebbed away, he managed to impart one more piece of wisdom to his son. He said, “Don’t do it like I did it, son. I was wrong. Live life better than I did.” Then he sighed, and left.

The son was bereft, partly because his father was gone but, as he disclosed to a confidante, also because he realised something else. To that confidante he said, “I am 55 years old, and my father says I’ve being doing it all wrong. I am half way, if not more through life. What the hell can I do with the knowledge that I’ve been doing it wrong?”

The confidante smiled wisely. He said, “How old is your son?”

“Twenty-five, why?”

“What your father learned by his seventies, you learned in your fifties, and you can teach your son in his twenties. In turn, he can teach his children from the day they are born. 70 years’ wisdom available to a child. That is what you can do.”

The purpose of coaching and training is to provide the student, Oh Padawan, with a short cut to the wisdom that they may find for themselves – but now. So they can use it, now. Not when it is too late.

A coach is not there to tell you what to do. S/he is there to help you discover where to look and to open your eyes to alternatives. The coach’s job is to assist you in your relentless search to be better than you already are. On your own terms and in your own circumstances.

Seek it and use it.

My rates are pretty good………………

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Be the You that you were meant to be. REFINE.

25 Sunday Sep 2016

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“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” Michelangelo

Observant readers would have seen that I have changed the top of the page to better reflect the objectives of The Three Resolutions in three words. The ‘new’ R-word that reflect The Second Resolution is Refinement.

Please don’t think I am going to promote or counsel the adoption of better speech, tidier dress and the lifting of the little finger when taking tea, even if adoption of the first two of those suggestions wouldn’t please me. If you want to be scruffy and sound like a half-wit, good for you.

I am writing about, and proposing the adoption of a focus on making your own behaviour more closely match the behaviours that you believe reflect the ‘best you’ that you can possibly be. The Second Resolution covered this in using the words ‘To overcome the restraining forces of pride and pretension I resolve to work on character and competence’.

Refinement is the physical manifestation of the metaphor used by Michelangelo. It’s about chipping away at those things – habits, characteristics, emotions and activities – that don’t serve us or which get in our way.

Having decided (Resolved) where you aren’t behaving the way you know you should, Refinement means identifying and adopting the behaviours, values, etc. that you know will serve you much better.

Emphasise – YOUR behaviours, values, etc. – not mine.

That said, people of good character will, in the main, all behave in much the same way as each other. Their speech patterns and dress may be different but they will be honest, congruent, dedicated and just plain ‘good people’. Their values will be similar even if their way of executing on them may change.

BUT don’t be scruffy and tell me you’re rebelling. (Have you noticed how anarchists all dress the same?) Don’t say ‘actually’ and ‘obviously’ and ‘like’ every second word and then deny that you’re allowing yourself to be subject to environmental determinism. (Or use the new opening word that appears to have replaced ‘Yeah, I mean’, – the insidious viral term ‘So’.)

When you do those things you are no longer in charge of you. You’re not living. No. YOU’RE BEING LIVED. You are allowing outside influences to subliminally dictate your behaviours for you.

Refinement means YOU decide what characteristics you want to possess or demonstrate – and then chipping away at the marble until the real, self-designed you finally appears.

It isn’t easy. Right now I am battling with a constant desire to pick at food when I should be losing weight. (See my weight loss plan, below!)

But in the final analysis you can only say ‘I am who I intend to be’ when you have refined yourself enough to be exactly that. Until then, resolve to (re)design yourself – and then get to it!

weight

Good start….

 

Education, schmeducation. Focus on quality, not quantity.

04 Sunday Sep 2016

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“Knowledge will bring you the opportunity to make a difference.” – Claire Fagan

I love that advert for a major stationer, where Andy Williams sings ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ as parents escort their children around aisles teeming with paper, pens, books and other essential tools of learning. After 6 weeks (or 104 days in the US, according to the theme from ‘Phineas and Ferb’), parents have had enough of dealing with their first priority – family – and now want to pass babysitting duty back to their kids’ teachers. Tomorrow (subject to one of those Teacher Training Days that always appear to occur just after a week off), millions of kids will excitedly don their school clothes and trot quickly off to school.

That enthusiasm lasts 24 hours, by the way.

On a serious note, just as for us goal-achievement-failures who start a new project every New Year/Birthday/1st of the month/end of term/start of term, tomorrow is a great day to start teaching your children not only that education is important, but also that not all education is important. (Eh?)

We, as parents, have tendency to demand that our children excel in every single subject they study. If they have eight As and two Cs, we demand to know why they are failing in RE and Drama. The strange thing is that the reality of the UK education system is that we take 12-14 subjects at 16, and narrow that down to 3 or 4 at 18 – then down to one, or for the particularly clever, two subjects at University.

There is no question that we should encourage our kids to do their best in everything they do. But we should allow them the leeway that we allow ourselves and acknowledge that Einstein probably wasn’t a great biologist, Sir David Attenborough isn’t famous for being an expert on woodwork, and David Beckham is not the greatest English scholar ever known to man.

And our kids will generally be great at one or two things, good at some more, and rubbish at others.

They should, as early as possible, be encouraged to discover their strengths and to focus on those, while also managing any weaknesses and finding ways to deal with them.

I was absolutely overjoyed many years ago when my son, who was at the time an undiagnosed dyslexic, was asked to read something out at the primary school ‘graduation’, another American import to the UK we could do without. Did he read it? No. He learned it, and spoke without reference to the card in front of him. Word perfect. He can read, but at his own speed. He has since qualified in a field he loves – farming (not hereditary, I assure you) and is an absolute star mimic. He is happy.

But imagine the potential for someone who can learn quotes by rote and then has to speak in public. He is already well ahead when it comes to learning Public Speaking, something a lot of people dread and yet something they will all have to do at some time in their lives. He has a self-taught life skill because of a challenge.

At the same time, I am also the proud uncle of some kids who have done exceptionally well in their exams, this year. Learning suits some, but not every talent is necessarily served by the state’s syllabus.

Encourage your kids to learn well, to do the best they can, but to focus more of their time on the things that will matter to them. Utilise the Three Resolutions to instil within them the discipline to do what needs to be done to become competent in their chosen vocations so that they can serve their chosen clients to the best of their ability.

Instead of creating well-educated but exceptionally bored professional drones.

For more on the Three Resolutions, get the book at Amazon here.

3R Book

Turn the volume up to 11.

28 Sunday Aug 2016

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“The needle of our conscience is as good a compass as any.” Ruth Wolff

I write about Conscience in some detail in my book The Three Resolutions. I write about how a conscience is developed and how we all have one, even the criminals amongst us. I also write about how, in identifying our most important priorities and values, we can utilise that inner voice to direct us in our daily activities. The conscience is a core ingredient of our character.

When we listen to our conscience, we live lives of peace and productivity. When we ignore it, we feel guilt, angst, and occasionally some confusion.

Yet ignore it we so often do. We actively seek to stifle it when something potentially pleasurable presents itself to us. We don’t want to miss out on that attractive experience, and so we ignore the conscience, or turn its volume down to 1. To add to the stifling effect, we raise the volume on the ‘Why I CAN do/have this’ button, to make sure we can hear what is calling us forward to the psycho-hypocrisy that is about to occur. We find a rational excuse for what we are about to do and lie to ourselves. As Covey put it, we tell ourselves Rational-lies. Then, immediately or soon after we execute on the lie we just told ourselves, we feel that pang of guilt.

Conscience does not go away.

No, I am not a saint and I am as guilty of this as anyone. Perhaps more so, in the sense that as a writer on the subject I find myself doing it when perhaps I ought to be setting an example. I am often extremely conscious of that expression, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”

On the plus side, however, this knowledge and understanding arguably presents me with a better opportunity for positive change, eventually. Those who don’t realise what they are doing have no motive to change. They don’t know that they can.

Funny thing is, they will spend a lot of time justifying their poor behaviour. They will argue quite strongly and loudly that the behaviour they are displaying is okay, for some reason or other. (Good examples are smoking and drinking.)

The funniest thing about their shouting is because they know while they are doing it, they (and I quote), “ignore the conscience, or turn its volume down to 1. To add to the stifling effect, they raise the volume on the ‘Why I CAN do/have this’ button, to make sure they and we can hear what is calling them forward to the psycho-hypocrisy that is occurring.”

Now where have I read that, before?

“Shut up – lest thy tongue make ye look a proper nana.”

07 Sunday Aug 2016

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“You don’t understand Gandhi,” Desai responded. “You see, what he thinks is what he feels. What he feels is what he says. What he says is what he does. What Gandhi feels, what he thinks, what he says, and what he does are all the same. He does not need notes.” Mahadev Desai, Gandhi’s assistant.

I’ve mentioned before my publicly stated disdain for the speech patterns which pepper the English language, these days. Not local dialects, odd as they are. No, for me it’s the careless way people follow others’ linguistic idiosyncrasies. Last time I mentioned them it was because of standards. This time it’s because people do this to avoid telling the truth. Not a factual truth – politicians use it to do that, as do lawyers – but their truth.

People use these things to avoid telling us how they truly feel because they don’t want to be judged. This is partly because they are not confident about their ability to properly and reasonably express an opinion that is not the current fashion; and also in the quite reasonable belief that the person they are speaking to wouldn’t even listen if they could express themselves well.

You hear these pauses between question and response. You hear them when the interviewee says, “I mean” before they’ve said anything that needs re-interpretation. You hear it when they say, “like”, “sort of” and other gap words which are interspersed between thoughts because other thoughts are emerging which they have to think about while they’re still thinking about the one they are expressing now.

They are talking too fast, and worry that they may betray themselves in some way.

Gandhi didn’t do that. Gandhi knew what he had to say, and that what he had to say was something he truly believed. There was no deception, no two-facedness about him.

Oh that we allowed other people to be like that, by shutting up and letting them talk. If they have a truly held belief, let’s hear it. If it does not comply with current trends as decided by the media, let’s hear why. You can’t reasonably argue with an opinion you haven’t understood – all you can do is impose yours on someone else. In which case they have as much right to dismiss yours in the same way you just dismissed theirs.

I was recently at a meeting where one party spoke of a technique he used in training courses, and anyone there would have seen me grimace as he did so. I thought that the method used wasn’t in keeping with the tenor of the training that the rest of us were trying to promote. But even as I grimaced I thought to myself, “He said two words – you ‘know’ what that means, but you don’t KNOW what that means. So you can’t challenge its efficacy in ‘our’ programme until then. So shut up.”

I shut up. And didn’t make myself look a fool, as may have happened if I’d challenged him only to discover that what I thought I knew was in fact wrong.

Give other people the same respect, and give yourself the same chance NOT to look stupid.

Argue