All posts by steve@kerrzone.com

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Writing your obituary

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Sometimes people tell me I seem very content.  A long time ago I read about a cool way to measure your personal contentment.  Draft your obituary.

Every few years, or sometimes more often, I write down what I think people would say about me.  Of course this is deeply personal and I never share it or discuss the content with others.

The exercise focuses on what you think about yourself.  Not surprisingly, most people are their own harshest critics.   Self assessment can be a valuable to to check how successful you are.

If you don’t have a positive feeling about your life , both lived and to be lived it’s unlikely others would.

Checking How you feel about yourself

The draft obituary is a great tool for a personal checkin.  The content accentuates the positive (few people write obituaries a about a dead persons failings.).

The narrative is objective and factual to a point, that is history, career and acomplishments are based on events.  The subjective portion, for example, “he was loved by his children” is indicative.

Usually you would omit those types of subjective comments if they did not have a ring of truth.   So ultimately the obituary you draft about yourself is really a reflection of how you view yourself.

Things you identify that you don ‘t like about yourself you can change and the other things make you feel good about yourself.

Give it a whirl, better than even a personal massage.

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Conscious Thought

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Conscious thought requires more effort than unconcious thought.  It is theorized that one possible cause of autism is a persons inability to think unconciously.

While most people can behave in an autonomic  way for many routine actions it’s thought those inflicted with autism have to think through eveything in a conscious way.

The danger of Unconcious thought

In theory, being able to rely on predefined soltions to external behavioural clues allows us to focus on the important things directly and conciously.

Those things that require analysis and thought to arrive at informed conclusions, and subsequently, leading to  appropriate behaviour are best handled consciously.

Think about the scenario first thing in the morning.  You begin to encounter other people and mainly great them with a “good morning”.

This is a typical sub conscious behaviour.  Somewhere in your store of unconscious behaviours is a routine grreeting to use in the morning even when it is not reflective of reality.

How often have you muttered good morning to others when in reality for you it was anything but.  People with autism will usually think consciously what their morning  greeting should be and then say it.  Many of us find this disconcerting.

And so that highlights both the benefit and danger of unconscious autonomic behaviours.  They may not really be appropriate because they are based on a pre-defined action and so they could be off putting to some or result in truly inappropriate behaviour.

Of course acting conciously when a routine action is expected could be unnerving as well.  On the whole though acting consciously is more likely to be both supportable (you had a well thought out reason) and the outcomes will often be better.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Failure is a choice

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Lack of personal success can be a result of many factors.  The things that impact success, or the level of success, that are within your control, are exercised by your own determination.

Failure is defined as a lack of success.  To what degree success is not achieved can be largely subjective; However, ultimately, for the aspects within your control the decision to succeed or not lies with you.

Of course the determination of whether the results represent an acceptable level of accomplishment depend on subjective analysis, both yours and others.

Deciding to Succeed

If you decide not to succeed does that equate to deciding to fail?  My own thought is yes.  While failure can arise due to factors outside your control it is just as likely to occur because you gave up.

In the second Star Wars movie (episode v) the character Yoda states this in a very simple way.   “Do or do not, there is no try.”   If you try there is a conscious acknowledgement a goal is being attempted and you may succeed or fail.

In fact, the decision to succeed requires you to believe in success.  You don’t try, rather you just do.  The things outside of your control willrestrict your ability to do things within the realm of the possible, the things within your control won’t.

Trying restricts your success not only to the realm of the possible but also to your own decision to proceed or give up, “I tried but could not do it.”

Doing and not succeeding is always about factors outside your control.  An extreme example of this for illustrative purposes would be to enter a room without opening the door.

Most likely all you do to  get through the door would fail, not because of what you did, but rather because the door was stronger than you.

Succeed more often than failing by deciding that is what you want.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Seeing Answers

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Our lives are a series of events.  We get to choose how to interact with, embrace or even ignore these occurrences.  And of course we can create them as well as just being a passenger along for the ride.

How you percieve the things that impact you, including those that are self initiated, is usually either optimistic or pessimistic or some balance of these two extremes.

Optimism

This is a preconceived belief in a successful outcome.  Your perspective focuses on solutions, that is sucessful outcomes.  What answer, when applied to this event will result in success.

Of coures this approach relies on your awareness of what answers support your goals and objectives.  Your own happiness and pleasure can be achieved only if you know what you seek (the answer).

Pessimism

Your perspective leans toward believing the worse will happen and your confidence in the future is low or non existant.  This is a choice that can reduce disappointment but it diminishes the opportunity for enjoyment and pleasure.

Positive Attitude

As commented in a recent post, attitude equals behaviour.  Your behaviour, ( how you act) defines you.  Simply put, a slight varience on the old saying “you are what you eat” becomes “you are what you do”.  This accurately depicts how others decide how to percieve us, it is based on behaviour.

Optimistic approaches to everything you encounter forces a positive attitude leading to exemplary behaviour and voila you are a star.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Achieving clearly understood, cost effective, quality products and services

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Many distain process and governance as bureaucratic practices which have more cons associated with them then pros.  This could not be farther from reality.  It is very dependent on your perspective.

Organizations, even households have a common generic objective.  That is to provide clarity to all stakeholders  (e.g., employees, volunteers or family members) so outcomes are cost effective and high quality.

Processes are:

Through the practice of simple, repeatable, well communicated and easily understood steps, the results will be consistent (repeatable), and assuming the practices are designed to be easy (cost effective) and of course the activities are formulated to ensure the highest quality.

The combination of executing  multiple practices or steps becomes the process.  By following a process everyone is clear on what to do, or what they get or how to get it.

The outcomes ( product of the process) are therefore never a surprise and since, clarity is practiced throughout, problems which may arise are identified early on and so can be resolved before they become too impactful.

In the Real World

MacDonalds operates a hugely successful restaurant business.  Their success is soundly based on consistent, repeatable, clearly communicated and understood processes.

When you go to MacDonalds you know upfront what you can get (consistently every time, anywhere in the world) when, how and at a low cost.

The companies sales and ongoing longevity are pretty good indicators that their seemless execution of well defined processes works.

So if you think process is a bad word, if you have visions of bureaucratic slowness and wasted effort on unnecessary tasks, get over it, processes are a powerful way to guarantee you can reach the  objective.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Attitude

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Your attitude, that is the way you feel about someone or something is typically translated to behaviour.  Very simplistically bad attitude leads to bad behaviour and vice versa.

Being conciously aware of your attitude allows you to exercise control.  Like most emotionally founded behaviours this is usually not easy.

However, the results can be highly rewarding, not just to you but those you interact with as well.  Using your attitude effectively can be a great tool to make friends and influence others (to quote the very insightful Dale Carnegie).

Step One

To take control of your attitude toward anything you must start with recognition that you have one (an attitude).  Is your perception of someone or something fully open minded (without bias)?

The answer is probably never.  Significant bias or percieved feelings about a person or thing constitutes attitude and affects how you act.  Mild bias usually does not.

Recognizing you are displaying attitude is not always easy as it is as natural a personal behaviour as thinking or breathing.  You need to give it some concious thought otherwise you will not even be aware of the message your attitude is sending others.

Attitude is a powerful driver of behaviour and can be used for good.  Unfortunately though, rarely can the power of attitude be harnessed if you are not in control (i.e, your feelings are in charge).

Think of the incredible hulk, when his attitude takes over he becomes big green and powerful but not always in full control of his behaviour.

In the comics we see he fights for control to try and behave in a heroic way, but often his attitude overrides his good intentions. This is very similar to real life.  Success requires some level of control.

 

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Everybody is Important

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The last few days I have been musing about leadership.  Todays post is in the same vein, but with a bit of a twist. How others percieve you becomes the foundation of who you are to them.

On the positive side, if you are viewed as warm and friendly, thoughtful and knowledgable, kind, empathetic, easy to understand, motivated and successful, (to name just a few of the critical life skills) it is likely you will be able to exercise your earned power to a greater degree.

These skills are not only valued in leaders, but in fact serve everyone well with helping achieve their goals.  The key to their practice though, is the ability to be liked.  Arogant and conceited delivery can override personal effectiveness.

Everyone is Important

Embrace the thought “everyone is important” as a singular personal value and always behave according to that concept.  If everything you do is founded on this belief, by default you respect everyone and this permeates your behaviour.  Others will feel it clearly.

So whether you desire others to think of you as a leader or just want to use your own earned power to its best effect, start with an underlying mantra embedded in everything you do that will send others a clear single that you value them.

Leveraging this basic underlying default value as the drive of all your behaviours, that is good communication, empathy, self awareness, etc, will just be all the more powerful.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Measuring Leadership

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A multitude of behaviours are needed to be a successful leader.  The balance exercised around which actions to use, how and when is key to achieving success.

Leadership behaviour and being in a leadership role can be distinctly different.  In in leadership roles the expectation is you will exercise the optimal balance, but being in the role does not guarantee that will be the case.

Use leadership behaviours anywhere, anytime.

Behaving in a way that results in others perceiving you as a leader is not context, location or role specific.  The only distinction is the outcomes are achieved because of the way you behaved.

Unfortunately the outcomes leaders inspire and are accountable for initiating  can be good (e.g, Martin Luther Kings achievements) or bad (e.g. Adolph Hitlers achievement) but the leadership behaviour accountable for the achievement (good or bad result) is actually the same behaviour.

Behaviour

Being a successful leader is always associated with strong behavioural skills.  The key behaviours of communication, empathy, self awareness self confidence and self motivation are practices that can be executed at a variety of levels of competence.

Typically, if you think of a leader you know and admire and consider their behaviors together with the level at which they practice these behaviours, it will most likely be very skilled.

The Ultimate Level of Leadership

Leadership is not necessarily aligned with your role and having a leadership role is not indicative of anyones level of leadership skills.  A powerful measure of whether others considered you a great leader during your lifetime is not what you achieved during your life,  but rather how many people attend your funeral.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Oh behave!

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One of my favorite movie scenes is from Austin Powers International Man of Mystery.  It is  Austins response to the movies femme fatales offer to slip into something more comfortable.

“Oh behave, baby!”

Defined by our Behaviour

How do each of us assess others?  Basically, you start with the apparent, appearance, grooming and so on, moving on to speech, actions and non verbal communications.

All these things, from grooming to non verbal communication queues are derived from a persons behaviour.  So it is not a stretch to conclude how well you control your behaviour is key to achieving your goals.

Self Awarenes

Self awareness is the practice of being intimately aware of both your and others behaviours at any point in time, constantly analyzing the impacts and outcomes of your own behaviour (within context of those around you) and molding your actions to achieve the desired results.

To lead others, whether via the traditional “in front” practice or more innovatively from virtual or pheripheral places where physical positioning is irrelevant, the ability to behave in a self aware way is foundational for success.

In the simplest terms everything you do from how you dress, walk or talk to your written communications, facial expressions, emotional vibrations (what people sense about you) must be conciously managed.

Everything is carefully orchestrated to realize planned outcomes.  You know what you want to achieve and through awareness of your own and others strengths and weaknesses (expressed behaviourally) you get what you want.

The practice of strong and effective self awarness behaviours alone might not make you a great leader but it undoubtedly frames you for success.

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Inner Peace

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Although external factors strongly influence our behaviours, it is technically correct to say you are both reponsible and accountable for your behaviour.

Responsibility

This noun can be interpreted with slight variations but as it applies to an individual it is primarily about the opportunity or ability to act independently and make decisions.

Accountability

This noun has a strong relationship to responsibility.  It refers to the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for your actions.

Feeling Peaceful

Proactively recognizing that taking accountability for things you accept as within your sphere of responsibility puts you squarely in charge of your life.

With this level of ownership worries, annoyances and frustrations need not exist.  By deciding how to deal with external influences on your terms, inner peace is achieved.

Consider this.  Is there any point to be frustrated, worried or anxious about things in your control?  Probably not.  If they are outside your control you can’t do anything so its does not make sense to waste time on them.

So logically as long as you take accountability and control you will never be frustrated, worried or anxious, in short a constant state of inner peace.

Too Simplistic

Emotions and human behaviour realities probably lead most to conclude this is interesting logic but not practical.    Before leaping to a conclusion it might be interesting to give it a try.

The success measure is simple.  Practice personal control consistently, then ask yourself, at any point in time, how do I feel? If your answer is consistently “ relaxed and happy” , than maybe  it does work.