Tag Archives: family

Are you a Lifelong Learner?

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Interesting question. You may reply that your employer keeps you up to date with industry developments, legal and practice changes that influence or dictate how you work. That is, indeed, training. But I am not writing about training to which you are directed on pain of death. I am writing about self-directed, self-financed (if necessary) and possibly self-interested education. I am referring to off-the-job training.

There are countless options for most of us to learn something that isn’t job-related – for example, we might decide to learn to play a musical instrument, to scrapbook (now a verb as well as a noun), to reorganise flowers or to cook. Community Education is a big area. And I recommend you do some research about that.

But available through the same route, but more competence-focused, are courses provided outside your work but which would enhance your ability to do that work.

No, I have no odea what that might be – I’m not in your industry.

But let me provide my example. I was a serving police detective, but outside of that I trained as a legal executive (lawyer) for 4 years, obtained a qualification that allowed me to teach adults in further education, and di other courses related to both of those. They weren’t provided by, nor funded by my employer – I funded part of it, grants funded the rest. Ker-ching!

On the face of it you may ask what legal training in probate law, land law and contract law had to do with policing, but I assure you the benefits to me as a Fraud Detective were amazing – the number of cases I could deal with because of that knowledge rose, as did the number of cases we passed back to complainants. Cases passed back because we knew they were trying it on – for example, solicitors, rather than dealing with a probate dispute, would point their clients at the police and scream ‘FRAUD!’ so that we would get all the evidence and they could use it having had it gathered gratis. I, on the other and, could show why it wasn’t a fraud (at least at that point) and make a perfectly good legally-sound argument for that decision. And we had one man alleging a commercial fraud that I sent back pretty much annually for 10 years because I knew about contracts while not one of my colleagues had the foggiest.

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

Competence in the workplace is obviously covered by that statement, but I argue that such competence can extend, indeed should extend outside one’s professional obligations. In fact, I suggest it should include your societal and familial obligations, too.

Be a better citizen, be a batter parent, be a better child. It’s all there in that simple sentence. Be (character) a better (competence).

There are many facilities available for training, and in areas you might thing weren’t catered for. For example, parenting training is available from many charitable foundations, including Care for the Family. You might think parenting comes naturally.  Lucky you if it did.

Identify and seek out training in respect of the competencies you lack – and identifying and admitting that lack is an example of good character, by the way.

As they say, admitting the existence of a gap in your education is the first step to closing it and reaping the rewards that follow – both financial and personal.

What will you seek to learn after today?

A Productivity Poser for you.

28 Monday Oct 2019

Posted by in Time Management, Uncategorized

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Stakeholder.

There’s a word we all understand. Defined, I might say it means anyone who has a financial or emotional interest in the success of a particular entity, be it organisational, community or even family. Anyone, therefore, who has a stake in the entity’s wellbeing.

Consider the organisation for which you work. Ask yourself, “Who are the stakeholders?”, and write them all down.

Of course you won’t. You’re busy, as am I.

I would hazard a guess, though, that if you made that list you would, like 80% of the groups I have asked, miss out one or two. One or two important stakeholders.

Go on – try me out. Make that list before you read further and before I provide the answer/s.

Did you read my last-but-one post on team time management? If you did, first of all thank you. Secondly, the answer to the above question may be found in your understanding of that article. If not, no problem because every article on LinkedIn, on my website or anywhere else contains a nugget of information that you may find useful. For me, it was in David Schwartz’s book ‘Think Big’, and that piece of gold was ‘Be a Front Seater’, where he proposed that people who sit at the front get more engaged and more noticed. People who sit at the front also volunteer, get opportunities and (in my case) make money and get a reputation for being authoritative.

People who sit at the back are scared of something. Think about that next time you go on a seminar.

Back to stakeholders. If you did your list of the stakeholders in your organisation – and therefore the people for whom, with whom and as a result of whom you carry out your tasks and therefore manage your time, I bet the ones your missed were

You, and your family.

They are the most important stakeholders in your workplace. They have the biggest stake in the entity’s success, because no entity equals no money (work), no purpose (work, family, service) and no happiness (relationships).

Think about that next time you go to work.

Ask yourself – “Is what I am doing, or is the quality of the work I am doing, serving the stake I have in the success of ‘X’?”

Thinking about this may just improve your attitude, or perhaps even your sense of purpose in doing what you do, which in turn gets noticed when opportunities arise to improve your own lot.

In essence, how well you do your job for the stakeholders that rely on you doing that job requires that you do the best you can with the resources available to you. Including how you use your time.

And your stakeholders include you and yours.

And if that isn’t motivation for you to learn how to manage your time as well as it can be managed, nothing is.

Have a great, productive day. And love to you and your kinfolk.

First Service – no, not your car’s.

27 Saturday Dec 2014

Posted by in Purpose and Service

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“There is so much that we can do to render service, to make a difference in the world – no matter how large or small our Circle of Influence.” Stephen R Covey

This season being one dedicated to friends and family, I would like to remind y’all that service to others starts with service to family. There is no nobler service than to look after family members in time of need. Yes, service to others is noble, of course it is. But what kind of nobility can exist if, while nobly serving the community, your own family wonders what you look like and does not get the attention it deserves, nay, requires.

This particular quote, from Covey/Merrill’s First Things First, follows a description of service by Bryant S. Hinckley, who said:

“Service is the virtue that distinguished the great of all times and which they will be remembered by. It is the dividing line that separates the two great groups of the world – those who help and those who hinder, those who lift and those who lean, those who contribute and those who only consume.”

He goes on to provide ideas on how we can serve, saying:

“To give encouragement, to impart sympathy, to show interest, to banish fear, to build self-confidence and awaken hope in the hearts of others – in short, to love them and to show it – is to render the most precious service.”

If you can’t do that for your family, what are your motives when you give it to others?

Family first.

Why (some) personal development advice is WRONG.

20 Saturday Sep 2014

Posted by in Purpose and Service

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This week I was running along on one of my longer runs listening to my iPod, this time to an audio book called ‘The Good Psychopaths Guide to Success’ by Kevin Dutton and the SAS veteran Andy McNab. They proposed that the one way to get anything done in this world, the only way, was to decide what you want and then focus on that 100% of your waking hours – okay, perhaps not quite 100%, but certainly to focus 100% on achieving that goal. This was also a suggestion made by the personal development writer and speaker Brian Tracy, who says, “Decide upon your major definite purpose in life and then organise ALL (my capitals) your activities around it”, which I took to have the same meaning as that proposed by Dutton and McNab. It seemed sage advice when I heard it from Tracy, so much so that I downloaded a picture of that quote and used it as my smartphone home screen screensaver for a week (before I re-loaded my Personal Mission Statement again).

There is certainly a lot to be said for discovering your fundamental purpose in life and dedicating your time to it, putting your heart and soul into achieving that noble purpose in the hope that it will come to pass. The great successes of our history are often said to have done it ‘like that’. And, like I said, it made sense. For a bit.

I say ‘for a bit’ because I realised that this piece of advice was absolutely fine for a single man or woman, who is responsible and accountable only to themselves for what he or she does, and for whom other people are not necessarily a factor in that success. I don’t mean that other people aren’t important to them, only that the focus on their singular purpose is so precise that those other people are either with them, or they’re not in the circle, so to speak.

For most people, there is a problem with focusing all your time on your passionate purpose and that is – you love, respect, like and need to spend time with other people who are not, necessarily, involved in your noble purpose. They may support you but they aren’t part of the great plan. For most of us, those people we love who are not part of the inner circle of The Plan are those in our other inner circle – our family.

I suggest in my (it’s coming, honest) book that one example of a noble purpose is that of family. This isn’t a mind-blowing discovery for which I take credit, it’s the counsel of Dr Covey. He didn’t only write about personal success like so many other authors (and I’m surprised how many do focus only on ‘you’ when I think about all my reading), he always, always included that most important of organisations to which we provide great service, known to all as The Family. (Not the Mob, that’s a different family.)

Half of ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ was about relationships. In Principle-Centred Leadership two who chapters were about family relationships and ‘Making Champions of your Children’. ALL of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families was about family.

Providing service to others (the Third Resolution) must be part of one’s Noble Purpose if it is to succeed. NOT providing a service is unlikely to serve a noble purpose anyway – try not serving your customers in a business. Seriously, though, one organisation, one set of ‘customers’ that we all should serve – indeed, when we married them or created them we intended to serve them – is Family. For me, great service to others is noble, desirable, and honourable. But how about service to your kith and kin – is it any less noble?

If all you can do in your own circumstances is serve your own family, then that just might be enough. And if you think about most of the true historical greats you see (more often than not) that they had fantastic familial relationships, too.

I guess what I am saying is this – if you can serve your organisation, community to a high level, that’s marvellous. But if you have to choose (because of time or circumstance, e.g. the needs of an ill relative) then choose family. Your work will forget you soon after you leave the job. Your community changes and develops. But your family is always there and will always need you.  Don’t focus all of your time on your Purpose at their expense.

It so nice to think that if you serve family well – you will serve yourself, too.

 

Weekly Challenge

Make the effort to ‘be nice’ to your family. Pay them compliments, honour their achievements, or just say ‘hello’. Truly forgive someone who has offended you, even if you do so only in your own heart and mind. Write what you have done in your journal, and see how good it makes you feel without having to feel better through manipulation or appreciation.

 

Blog Part

I lost 5 pounds, folks. I saw the number 14 on the scales for the first time since at least 2009 (if not 2008). My running is (almost) at the point at which I am enjoying it – I won’t pretend it’s the opium of the masses yet, but it is feeling more comfortable as time passes. I did break my mile record (twice) and I’m ‘back’ up to the 30 minutes (3.45 mile) mark. Well on target. Yesterday’s run was after 8 hours shopping (I am a dynamo) – it was seeing my PMS as my laptop screensaver that reminded me of the purpose. T does get you moving provided it is on your mind. Many people say they’ve written one only to file it away (mentally) as ‘done’, and so castrate it at that moment. I know I’ve done that. As I believe I said – it’s on my laptop, my wall, my phone, my dog-tags, my wristband (I bought 10), my 4 t-shirts, 2 sweatshirts, 2 hoodies and a hat. My daughter also bought me a lovely stainless steel business card holder with the words “Seven Habits – Three Resolutions” engraved on it. I really mean to live it, as you may deduce. It’s not only on those ‘things’ – it’s on my mind, too.

In terms of other PMS objectives I spent four days editing and updating the Manual for Investigators that I originally wrote in 2003. A student on our course gave us some feedback on how dated it was and we welcomed that feedback. (I know, surprised me, too.) Initially expecting the work to take weeks, in three days I’d broken the back of all 29 chapters. Of course, with greater resources and time we could make it even better but as a training manual it does what it needs to do, at a cost the Institute can manage.

And yesterday I spent money on improving the home. (Oooooh! Me wallet!) We bought a bit of furniture to remove the need to fill all flat surfaces with (a) flotsam and (b) dust.*

*(He said, hopefully yet with a resigned ‘sigh’).

 

 

 

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