Tag Archives: principles

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

30 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by in Character and Competence

≈ Comments Off on “But we’ve always done that way, you fool!”

Tags

, , , ,

“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.

Legal ethics – aren’t ethical.

21 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by in Rants

≈ Comments Off on Legal ethics – aren’t ethical.

Tags

, , ,

“Principles are the simplicity on the far side of complexity.” Stephen R Covey.

The legal system is a poor example of principles in action, even though you will often hear it quoted as such.

I say this because of the (money-generating, anti-justice) focus on the observance of process over the principle of truth.

UK readers will know of Nick Freeman, ‘Mr Loophole’, whose expertise is on getting people found not guilty of things they did, on the basis of – well, loopholes. For example, a drunk-driving client who was charged by a civilian and not a police officer, so the court erroneously let them off even though I can’t find ANY legal requirement that a police officer read the charges out. Charge-reading is no more than a means of bringing a suspect to court. The message, “My client did what is alleged but you didn’t dot a t and cross an I” does not serve justice, it serves the procedure – and the lawyer’s pocket.

They call this ‘legal ethics’. They are the ethics that allow lawyers to NOT ask their client if they did it because to do so might prevent them defending that client. But here’s a question – if you have to pre-describe a term, doesn’t the term become redundant. In other words, doesn’t the word ‘legal’ before the term ‘ethics’ mean that they aren’t ethical at all?

For me, the overriding question in all human endeavour should be – what is the ultimate purpose of this process? If the process has not been followed, can the principle still be achieved reasonably fairly?

Such a question would rule out the use of deliberate or even grossly negligent errors in convicting people who endanger society, while still allowing us to prevent ‘honest error’ letting criminals and other dangerous offenders getting away with it.

Alternatively – some courts, judges, magistrates and prosecutors should just stand up and be counted.

You CAN tell the future.

20 Saturday Dec 2014

Posted by in Discipline

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

,

“We are free to choose our actions, but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions.” Stephen R Covey

And that quote is the fundamental rationale for the imposition of self-discipline and self-denial.

The facts are: if we eat too much and do not move much, we gain weight. We can ‘positive mind attitude’ otherwise all we like, we will get fatter. We can treat people with disrespect and optimistically expect them to respect our motives and authority, but they will eventually move on and leave us adrift in a mess of our own construction. We can flog an engine to death and not maintain it, and it will break down. Consequences just ‘are’.

But the beauty of principles is that we can anticipate consequences and adjust our behaviour accordingly. We may perceive a period at work where we won’t be able to exercise as much as we normally do, and reduce our calorific intake accordingly. In a moment of anger we can want to say something pithy, witty and sarcastic, but choose, instead, to shut up. We can maintain an engine through periodic maintenance.

Self-discipline lets us apply principles to ourselves in such a way as to almost guarantee that the consequences will be of our choosing, and not that of fate.

Principles always apply.

Want a Life of Quality? Value Principles.

29 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by in Character and Competence

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

,

“Values will not bring quality of life results – unless we value PRINCIPLES.” Stephen R Covey

I, like most personal development writers, like to emphasise the importance of having a set of personal values or Unifying Principles, rules by which you live your life. They provide guidance, much like the Personal Mission Statement, when you have a ‘shall or shan’t I?’ question hanging over you.

But Principles are slightly different. For Dr Covey, Principles are not values; values are personal, can change, and are true to the individual whether or no they are true to others. For example, I may value ‘Money’ but others may not.

Principles, on the other hand, are Universal, Timeless, Understood and External Truths. They are unarguable, they have existed and will exist for ever, and they are true whether we believe in them or not. Like Truth and Honesty. The key test is said to be ‘argue the opposite and see if it makes sense’.

In this quote, therefore, Dr Covey is saying that if your values MATCH Principles, or at least accurately reflect them, you have a better chance of living a quality life because one thing Principles provide is consistency. Unlike values, they CANNOT change. They do not lie to you, they don’t present any illusion. With Values, ‘If – then’ is a possibility, with alternatives. With Principles, ‘If – then’ is an absolute, a given.

That’s why (for example) having a value like ‘Money’ is doomed. It is doomed because Money might go away, leaving you with nothing. Having a value like ‘Honesty’ (and adhering to it) will never go away. Even if YOU push it away, it is still there. Try lying your way through life.

Value Principles.

The Roadblocks to Inner Peace

28 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by in Character and Competence

≈ Comments Off on The Roadblocks to Inner Peace

Tags

, , , , ,

“Two of the most deadly roadblocks to peace are discouragement and pride.” Stephen r Covey/A. Roger Merrill.

In the book First Things First these two authors, along with Rebecca Merrill, opined that discouragement (literally lack of courage, as defined in that book) is a result of building life on an illusion rather than principle. It occurs most saliently when we are tired, angry, disappointed – in other words, when our focus on our mission is diluted by emotion. Instead of acting in accordance with our mission we excuse poor performance in the name of those emotional challenges, and ‘rational-lies’ our behaviour. The illusion is in the excuse.

Pride, in this context, stops us from behaving in accordance with our mission because Pride lies to us and tells us that our disciplined sacrifice may, in the moment, provide us with ‘less’ while providing someone else with ‘more’. It is a state of mind that in the moment seems to satisfy our ego (you now have something), while in the less obvious and longer term it also teaches us that someone, somewhere will have more than we have. By virtue of our pridefully thinking that we have the opportunity to obtain or do something ‘great’ and making a decision based on that pride, we accidentally accept that something else is greater, and in time we realise that we don’t have that. Peace is impossible when you spend your life looking for an illusory ‘better’.

Peace, inner peace, has been defined by Hyrum W. Smith as “having serenity, balance and harmony in your life through the appropriate control of events.” As events include every decision we make (and the consequences), it makes sense that one way to develop inner peace is through controlling events – by controlling each decision we make and by making sure that those decisions are based on compliance with our personal values and our mission statements. When we do that, inner peace is incubated because our conscience is not reminding us that we aren’t compliant with our chosen principles.

So to gain ‘inner peace’, make sure that you have identified your own Unifying Principles and that you make your decisions wholly with them in mind.

Act with courage – overcome the emotion of the moment and consider the greater emotion of the future peace. Act without pride – remember that what you gain from compliance with your principles is priceless. No-one has greater possession of personal value congruency. They either have it all, or they have none. You have it all – or you have none.