Tag Archives: proactivity

Seven Habits – Day 9 – The Third Circle and Inner Peace

09 Thursday Jul 2020

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Yesterday we covered the Circle of Concern and the Circle of Influence, but there is a third Circle the Stephen Covey omitted in the 7 Habits but which he described in his 1994 book First Things First, so today we’ll briefly cover this one that, if accepted, might just change your view of how you do your work. Then we’ll finalise Habit 1 with another consideration and a recap of how Being Proactive can breed our success.

The third Circle lies within the Circle of Influence and Covey called it The Centre of Focus.

While the Circle of Influence was where we should focus our mental efforts in preference to the Circle of Concern, the Centre of Focus he described as containing ‘the things we are concerned about, that are within our ability to influence, that are aligned with our mission, and are timely.’ He went on, ‘when we set and achieve goals that are in our Centre of Focus, we maximise the use of our time and effort.’

So many people, and so many organisations (particularly public sector) dissipate and diversify and dilute their efforts by adopting new work, imposing new protocols and practices on their front line staff, so that what was once their primary aim becomes just another thing to get done. This is an example of where, instead of bearing down on their Centre of Focus, leaders try to expand their Circle of Concern in the mistaken belief it provides influence, to the point at which the Circle of Influence actually shrinks, and then throttles the Centre of Focus. (Ask any police officer dealing with another ‘partnership’ initiative. Well meant, but dilatory.)

Working in your Centre of Focus means being better at what you do, better service provision, and greater self-esteem.

The final example of proactivity is how we address mistakes. Making a mistake has consequences, we know that. The first time we make a mistake, we reap the consequences and we learn. That itself demonstrates a principle – we can choose and control what we do, but the consequences are dictated by principles outside of our control.

Covey suggested that mistakes are in our Circle of Concern – they are in the past, unchangeable. Once made and the lesson learned, our next choice is in our Circle of Influence – we choose better. Focusing on the error is reactive, focusing on the solution is proactive.

All in all, many things lie in the Circle of Influence, the ultimate locus of Proactivity and exercise of Habit 1. Making and keeping commitments, punctuality, goal-setting and acting with those goals in mind, taking responsibility for communication, defining your personal mission, thinking ‘we’ not ‘me’, personal renewal and personal integrity – everything succeeds or dies in the Circle of Influence.

If you are reactive and let emotions, moods and circumstances direct your reaction, you are not living – you are ‘being lived’. If you live a life based on your values and not your moods, you are truly going to discover that your life is effective. You will get the results you want, and you will achieve them consistently.

Dr Martin Seligman, director of the Positive Psychology Centre at the University of Pennsylvania, says three things control happiness – genetics, circumstances and the things you can control. But of the three, it is the latter – being in control – that has the most impact. In essence, he is saying you should spend as much time as possible in your Circle of Influence, ideally in your Centre of Focus. Charles R. Hobbs and Hyrum W. Smith said the same thing – that greater personal leadership and management are precursors to the higher levels of self-esteem that bring peace of mind.

Tomorrow we start to explore where you find what makes you happy.

How full is your glass?

30 Thursday Jan 2020

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I read an interesting ‘alternative viewpoint’ on the Seven Habits philosophies recently. It was an article written in 1994, early in the days of The Seven Habits (at least as a famous philosophy), which I discovered through good old Google. It was a bit of biography and a bit about the Habits, and in fairness appeared to be balanced, criticising and complimenting in equal measure. Do you remember those days? So long ago.

The part that caught my attention was an interesting, albeit negative take on people being taught to take personal responsibility and I quote:

“The problem, they say, lies in the message that is being subsidized by management: that individual workers are responsible for their own destinies, and that the way to achieve security and serenity is through continual self-improvement. For a big corporation that is mowing down whole suitefulls of middle managers, critics say, this can be a handy way to get employees to start thinking that if they are laid off, the fault lies somewhere in themselves. “If the individual worker is made to feel the responsibility for his or her condition, the social contract is no longer there.” (Quote is that of Jeremy Rifkin, author of ‘The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labour Force and the Dawn of the Post- Market Era’. Article is by Timothy K. Smith.)

That’s a bit negative – and, given the cost of the company providing the training, a very expensive strategy. Who trains people just as you’re thinking of sacking them? Makes no sense but hey, you can’t fault finding a bad motive in any principled act, eh?

The benefit of teaching people to take responsibility in the event of a redundancy threat, is to remind them that they are not reliant on others to do everything for them. They are reminded that benefits are not the only option. And they are reminded that ‘being miserable’ is not the only, and certainly not the best option. Furthermore, such advice can be taken anywhere, including one’s personal life – unlike most in-house training.

Our experience influences how we see what happens to us, but it does not have to dictate how we feel about it, or how we act as a result.

I was also amused by a second quote where someone (non-Mormon) who’d studied Mormonism for 34 years – needed a job, I guess – read some Seven Habits material and dismissively concluded ‘I can see that was written by a Mormon’ – adding, by the way, that he didn’t know why he felt that. What he had been shown was the book Principle-Centred Leadership, which included a list of suggested traits of the principled leader – fairness, integrity, honesty, human dignity, service, quality, and excellence – and these Were the terms that led him to his conclusion. Which begs the question what principles the critic felt were acceptable outside that church. Methinks he studied Mormonism with a view to proving why he was right in hating it. (I am NOT a member of the church, by the way.)

My question today, therefore is – do you ever see something absolutely normal, and conclude that there is some motive behind it that doesn’t serve you?

If you do, I bet Christmas is fun……

The Philosophy of Armitage-Shanks.

06 Wednesday Nov 2019

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In my ‘smallest room’, I like to keep a book handy for those longer visits where I can fill my mind while emptying other parts. As you may have surmised from the tone and content of my posts, I don’t like wasting time, and as my income and laziness have not yet stretched to having a door-mounted TV in there, reading is a great substitute.

Today, rather self-indulgently, I selected an old copy of The Seven Habits Workbook, something I buy from time to time to reinvigorate myself with some self-analysis. (I never seem to get to the bit on interpersonal communication, for some reason. Maybe that’s why I never listen.)

In the first pages, the book asks the reader to explore an event where their paradigms were changed because their first impressions were realigned when new information came to their notice.

My favourite example was the day I challenged some kids for throwing litter. Local shops suffered from youths ‘hanging around’ which resulted in repeated calls to police, which in that capacity I used to attend. Off duty one day, I was walking past a small group of teens when I heard a can hit the floor. I challenged the youths to pick it, probably quite brusquely, and they declined the offer. It was only as I stood there facing them down that I realised that the nearby litter bin was overflowing, and it was exceptionally windy.

They hadn’t dropped the can. Nature had.

I realised then, in my own AHA moment, what a paradigm is and how it affects our thinking. It is the way we see things, the lens through which we see and interpret what is happening. And like many lenses, it alters our vision. A lens can correct our vision, or warp it.

Yesterday, a politician was challenged for ‘something he said’. The reports outlined how he had insulted people who died in the Grenfell Tower disaster as ‘lacking common sense’. The funny thing was, he didn’t say that. People with an interest in challenging the politician – and the media, who can never let a fact get in the way of a good story – decided that ‘lacking common sense’ was what he meant.

You can see what he actually said, here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT2z-TtgElU

(You can also look up a previous post from 2016 about The Donald on this site.)

The aim of today’s post is not to tell you what to think. It is to remind you that we ‘think’ through a lens created by our history, our references and our values. And, importantly,  so do others.

Which means that when we are told something by someone else they, too, are telling us through their paradigm of the way they see things – which means that what they are saying may – emphasis may – be based on a misunderstanding, a misinterpretation, or even on mischief.

It’s not always easy to spot, and if you consider that adding our lens to their lens may warp things even further, perhaps the lesson here is to be really careful when starting to espouse your opinions on ‘what just happened’, too.

The other thing I felt about this incident was how our ‘enlightenment’ on matters which should be dealt with ‘sensitively’ (i.e. less than truthfully?) has resulted in a massive increase in tolerance.

“You should be more sensitive, you ignorant fascist bastard!” Irony.

Isn’t it amazing just how thoughtful you become after reading a book when sat with your trousers around your ankles?

And on that image, I’ll let you go. Another toilet metaphor. I could go all day……..

I would have killed him, but …….

18 Thursday Dec 2014

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“Test the principle of proactivity for 30 days and see what happens. Make small commitments and keep them.” Stephen R Covey

And that, ladies and gentlemen, ain’t easy.

For those unfamiliar with The 7 Habits, proactivity is where we exercise our self-awareness, creative imagination, independent will and conscience in the gap between something happening to us, and our responding to that stimulus. Note – response, not react. Reacting is instinctive and occasionally results in snapping, retorting, or arguing instead of contemplating, cogitating and considering the appropriate response.

T’other day I was driving along, minding my own business when a lunatic turned across my path, nearly wiping us both out. My instinctive response was to start chasing him/her, which is an example of reacting without consideration. But after about 500 yards or so I exercised the aforementioned endowments and decided that I hadn’t actually been hit, that there was nothing I could do if I caught him and I was more likely to have another bump if I kept up. I took the next roundabout and turned off. (I later called the police, it was that bad. And if he’d actually collided…… who knows.) Despite the adrenalin rush, I chose wisely.

But it wasn’t always so. In a similar incident I pursued and offending driver for about 3 miles, nearly losing control of my car at one stage. That incident taught me the lesson I applied more recently.

Proactivity works.

In terms of the second half of the quote, one of the commitments you could make to yourself for 30 days is to exercise proactivity whenever something happens that would cause you to bite, pause in the gap between that stimulus and your response, and decide instead to do something ‘better’. For example, when your partner says something you would like to correct or even attack, use the gap to decide whether any response is even necessary, or if it is, what response would not make the situation worse while still allowing you to retain your self-esteem.

Like I say – not easy, but really worth it.

Change yourself before asking others to do so.

03 Wednesday Dec 2014

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“We can never really change someone; people must change themselves.” Stephen R Covey

But that doesn’t stop us trying, does it?

One of those ‘things’ that I find wearing about other people (and which they probably find wearing about me) is when they try and impose their autobiography onto yours. This occurs during many conversations and is CERTAINLY the one that directs much of what passes for debate on tv. You know the one: “A (insert profession) once treated me badly OR was charged with a crime so THEY ARE ALL CORRUPT.”

Despite the fact that the protagonists in our conversations either have no personal connection to the incident OR that they do, but it’s only one incident through which they elect to judge everybody, they will insist on arguing the point. Any attempt on your part to argue the opposite or, grace forbid, to try and suggest a bit of objectivity, is seen as an attack on the former’s integrity and so the argument, based on a false premise, goes on.

We have to acknowledge that what happens to us may be true in the moment, but it is not necessarily true all of the time – it is not necessarily a ‘principle’ that youths hanging around a shop are trouble, for example, even if they occasionally can be.

Many years ago I was a ‘street cop’ and one problem we had outside one shop was a youth gang who were just a nuisance. We would be called incessantly, and move them on only for them to come back. (One effective method I had was to drive up at speed, slam on the brakes and open the door. The gang would run off and I wouldn’t even have to get out of the car. It was fun.)

One day, off duty, I was approaching a shop past a couple of teenagers, and just after I passed I heard a coke can fall to the floor. I testily challenged the youth, “Are you going to pick that up?!”

“It’s not mine,” he replied. It was only then that I noticed a bin, full to overflowing – and the heavy wind that had evidently blown a can off the top.

That was my ‘Aha!’ moment, when I realised that I (we) tend to judge people not so much by what ‘is’ as by what ‘we believe’.

I still do that – it’s nature. But we do have the option of using our proactive mindset to pause and ask ourselves if what we think we saw actually happened.

And so to the people of Ferguson and all those others protesting things they didn’t witness, ask yourselves whether what you’re being told by people encouraging you to damage YOUR OWN COMMUNITY is true. And, even if you conclude that it is, ask yourself why your punishing  EVERYBODY for something ONE PERSON DID is any different to what you’re saying they did to someone you never met?

(And here’s a thought – the two biggest international community backlash protests over police killings have been where the community has gone nuts over a dead criminal – not an innocent. Why IS that?)

Opinions – influenced by falsity?

27 Sunday Apr 2014

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On a theme of ‘being lived’, another question arises. Is the media to be believed?

In the UK, there is a lot of press attention being given to one particular party at the moment, one which is pro-British and which some take to be racist in intent. I am not considering whether it is or is not. Parties, like any other organisation, are made up of people and if they all thought the same they wouldn’t need committees, so the occasional nutcase will always come out and say something stupid, or contrary to a popular ‘ism’. Again, I do not want to get into that – it’s too dangerous.

What I DO intend to get into is this – can we trust the media, and if so, to what extent?

The Press have done some wonderful things – but.

They expose corruption that we should know about, but they sensationalise misconduct that we really shouldn’t give a toss about. They keep us informed about the facts, but they also twist and exaggerate using adverbs and adjectives which are theirs, and are not necessarily designed to support the facts as much as they are intended to sell newspapers. They expose the ‘surveillance society’ and then take pictures of holidaying ‘celebs’ and focus on their cellulite, or camp outside people’s houses harassing them into submission. (All the time demanding private investigators be licenced for doing far less, but that’s my focus group and I’ll say no more!)

I am amazed by how often, at 6am in the morning, I buy a newspaper that tells me that I (aka ‘the public’) am outraged by something that I don’t know about, yet. So – is that true? Is the public ‘outraged’, or do they just want us to be so we’ll buy their rag?

The BBC is now in the habit of having one journalist report a headline, only to turn to another reporter to interview them – giving us the impression that the latter is an authority on the matter, as opposed to another journalists who has a bit more information than us but is otherwise just as uninformed as us. That air of authority warps our opinions because like it or not, it comes across as authoritative opinion – which it patently is not.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the papers reported “just the facts, ma’am”? No emotive language, no sensationalist descriptive terminology – just tell what is true and leave us to decide whether we care or not. Perhaps then we’d start living in a world where the opinion of the press was no longer relevant, or that there was at least a clear distinction between the facts and the fluff?

I say all this because whether we like it or not, if we are not properly proactive about deciding whether what we hear is accurate, or not, we will allow ourselves to be influenced by things which are INTENDED BY OTHERS to influence us, not things that SHOULD influence us.

Which will really annoy the advertisers!

(Have you noticed how, despite the media’s insistence that their channels are about entertainment and information – all the adverts seem to come on at the same time so you can’t avoid them by channel hopping? )