rowenamorais's posterous

making decisions

I’ve seen this enough times to step back and think. People make decisions but sometimes do not see it through. What do I mean?

One thing you need to employ when you make a decision is patience. If you make a decision, things flow from that decision. Some things you can see immediately and some which will take time. What sometimes gets frustrating is that the things you wish you could see happening are not taking place in the timeframe you’ve been expecting. Consequently, you make further decisions based on what you have perceived.

Sometimes, the decisions you make take time to gestate. It takes time to cool down from a boil to a simmer and then completely settle down. But if we rush things, we don’t see what we expect to see and then believe that the things we are expecting to see are simply not going to happen... when the reality is that it will be but much later.

1. If you make a decision, take your time to make it.
Don’t feel you have to rush a decision even if externalities seem to demand that of you. You have to make a decision based on the things that matter to you, not them. A rushed decision, factoring in other externalities, will then only mean a bad decision. One which you may have to undo at some point in the future.

2. If you make a decision, stick by it.
Be loyal to the process. Your process.  You’ve spent the time, effort and energy into thinking this through, haven’t you? Don’t throw it all away on a whim, an emotion or a reaction. Let a change of mind be a well thought out decision.

3. If you make a decision, give it time to gestate.
Allow yourself and your circumstances the ability and distance to develop and for things to take its course. If you rush to quick conclusions earlier than need be, all you do is waste energy and time. Energy and time in making a decision and then the same energy and time in not seeing it through.

Decisions are not supposed to be cast in stone, you have both the opportunity and the ability to change your decisions. Sometimes, circumstances change around the decision but the point to keep in mind, is that your action/reaction is completely within your control.

Why You Need to Deal with Bullies

My son is in school now and having to face bullies. I am not sure how to help him handle this.

I know that most of us have dealt with or are probably still having to deal with bullies in our relationships at home, at work or socially. In trying to figure out the cause of the problem, I’ve done some reading. It would appear that this is not only a big problem, it is a problem faced by many kids, at schools around the world and even in the workplace.

What I have learnt :
1. You cannot solve the problem for the person who is being bullied. You can certainly help to bring it to notice and being a support to that person but the victim himself needs to address the issue.
2. This issue has wider ramifications. Failure to address this in your youth, just means you bring the same face to your social network and your work network. I think that there is a great risk that if you were bullied at school, that you may very well be a target for bullying at the workplace.
3. If the problem is big, then schools, the government and the media have a role to play in addressing these issues.
4. The things that drive bullying at school are still the things that drive bullying in the workplace. Things like fear, insecurity and jealousy. In many instances, bullying is coming from a place or a situation that the bully has had to deal with at an earlier age and who may not want to/nor know how to confront these hard issues.

Andrea Matthews in Traversing the Inner Terrain argues that we should not wish the bully dead,  feel pity for him or try to get him to see the error of his ways. These are apparently typical responses, none of which work. What is therefore effective, she says, is recognition. Recognition that the bully thing is a mask put on to survive and that it is his response to his situation or his environment. If we can get recognise that, these bullies can then “see the powerlessness they felt as children for which they’ve been compensating ever since with this big, bad bully identity.....”

Ross Arrowsmith who has had more than 20 years in security and investigations and personally assessed and managed thousands of cases of threatening, aggressive and inappropriate behaviours spends most of his time delivering Preventing Violence at Work programmes. In an article he wrote on dealing with workplace bullying and creating a positive workplace culture, he cited :-
  • the National Bullying Helpline which states that “80% of managers know that bullying occurs in their workplace, and despite this, 37% say they have had no proper training”.
  • the Andrea Adams Consultancy developed a fact-sheet on Bullying Statistics, which states “43.5% of employers do not even have a policy to deal with workplace bulling, and 82.2% say that weakness in management is the prime reason for bullying.”
There are some of us who are consistently being bullied. There are others who get bullied sometimes. We all need to learn how to deal with this and take proactive steps to manage our situation. By learning to confront the issues we face, by learning to think through the problem and by learning that we can and should take the action needed, we get closer to solving our problems, of making progress for ourselves and feeling fulfilled.

When do bullies win?
1. When you choose not to stand up for yourself.
I am not talking about workplace violence here, that is far more extreme and doesn’t happen as often as the other pervasive yet subtle form of coercion. Believing in your position, your argument and your decision is the first step. You have rights – the right to be heard, the right to have an opinion and the right to express that opinion. If you allow yourself to be bullied or coerced into thinking that it is not your place to speak, that others provide more value, that you don’t know much anyway, then in effect, you give the bully the chance to push you over. No one can make you believe in what you believe in. It comes from you.

2. When you choose not to put your case forward.
Silence is good sometimes and really depends on the occasion. However, you cannot expect others to read your mind, at school or in the workplace. You cannot expect others to see things from your perspective. What you need to do is to articulate your case and make that known clearly.  It takes practice. Victims not only feel unable to stand up for themselves, they fail to articulate their point of view. Thus making it harder for others to see what they are going through or to understand their perspective.

Organisations have a role to play in addressing these issues. Unaddressed, talented people will leave. We’ve read how it’s not the money so much that motivates us but the relationships we have. How many of us have heard of people leaving because of issues with a particular person/s in the organisation  – organisations fail if they don’t recognise the deeper workplace issues and will sustain losses of both the financial and non-financial kind if these go unaddressed.

3. When you are in a new situation.
When you are faced with a new set of circumstances, new set of colleagues or manager, this can create a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty for you. It adds to the other issues you might already have to deal with. Recognising this will help you to see that regardless of the ambiguity, you know whether action taken is right or wrong, at its most fundamental level and how you can best address the situation.

4. When you believe that silence and putting up is ok.
Bullies win when no one stops them, when no one responds effectively. They gain traction from there and worsen, gaining confidence with each successive ‘blow’. Silence and putting up is not ok. Certainly not for you and not for the bully. But you don’t need to deal with this alone. This is a big problem that not only affects us as kids; untreated, it also creeps into the workplace. Why would you believe, even for a second, that if you failed to deal with bullies at school, that you would able to deal with bullies at work? We carry it with us everywhere we go. We can address this by bringing it to the notice of the authorities, the organisation’s leaders and others who can help and support you. Many heads together can help deal and address these issues, some of which go deep.

5. When you are scared.
Fear is crippling and letting it take you over, only makes it worse. It will move from a mental state of being into a more physical manifestation. Fear will work itself up, gathering speed and momentum and before you know it, you’ve considered possibilities in your head that may not even be. The first step is to recognise that you are scared and deal with that. Embrace the fear. Then, find a way to overcome it. I feel the best way to do so is just to jump headlong into it. Nothing quite matches. Facing your fear will only make you stronger. You have to accept that things may go wrong, you have to accept that you may fail. But once you do, and you move ahead, there is a liberation to be felt. The first step is the hardest.

You are not alone in this.
You have the capability to examine the problem yourself and find a way to overcome.
It takes time, it requires support, it demands distance from the issue.
You can talk about it. Talking about it brings closure and helps bring insight to others.

How to Get Closer to Doing What You Set Out to Do

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have failed. You set out on the wide open road, full of expectations, promise and hope. Then, time goes by, things happen. Hope is replaced by the reality of what actually happens, not what you want to make happen. Desire wanes, expectations drop and unhappiness/despair/gloom set in.

Having been down this road so often, I can say that  I am finally getting closer to understanding what this is all about. Why it is that we set out to do something and then don’t. It’s a combination of things but if you’re hoping for some easy explanation that can put into words what you fail to articulate to yourself, I don’t think it will be as easy as that. Here’s what I have done to make it easier and more real for me.

1. Stop trying to do everything
You really need to pick and choose. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. Some achieve success and some don’t. For many, success is a journey, not a destination. How successful we are at any point in time is really about where we are in that journey. Taking on too much is a recipe for failure. We have to work at the things that are important to us, as we cannot do it all. Even if there were three or four things that were important, it’s better to focus on achieving traction on one item than nothing much at all on all of them. You have to remind yourself that this is hard and you have to cut yourself some slack. If it were that easy, you would have been able to do it some time ago but it’s not. So cutting some slack here is just about giving yourself the opportunity to make a good go at it. Being all over the place, taking on too much and trying to literally ‘do it all’ is only going to make you a miserable person.

2. Focus on one thing at a time
I speak from experience. Here, the key word is focus. I have tried to do everything at one time. Multi-tasking is good for some things but certainly not for all. There’s lots to gain from pushing all else away from you and focusing on just that one thing. That intense concentration and prolonged focus helps you to really get a handle on things. The multi-tasking approach - chewing little bits of everything at any one time helps you feel like you are getting things done but you will get more depth, more substance, more meat by completing one thing at a time.

3. Developing the habit
I think this has got to be the single most important thing you can do. Develop the habit around what it is you are trying to achieve. So, if you want to make more connections with people and expand your network, you have to develop the habit of making the connection. Whether it’s picking up the phone and calling a colleague or connecting with people on LinkedIn or even meeting someone for coffee. Spending the time figuring out what you want to achieve and what habit you need to work on to develop that is hard in the beginning for you need to spend time thinking about the what, why and how. But once you have that figured out, it’s about consistency. I find, from experience, that this is really the most effective way of gaining traction. Most times, I think we just decide we are going to do something. But then once that is decision is made, we leave it up to chance or providence or worse, ‘someday’ to see how best to make that happen. Yet, someday never happens. It’s like we make a decision in our head but fail to follow it up with what we will do about it. This is hard to do as you are aiming for change. Expecting random occurrences to cause you to make a connection between an event and your state of mind is wishing in vain. We need to develop the habit so that what happens around us is largely irrelevant and what then gains importance is what we are doing ourselves.

If you want to reduce your debt, cut your credit card or put it away.
If you want to save money, set an auto-debit facility up.
If you want to purchase property, start looking at property prices and visit properties.
You are connecting what you think with real-time action. You feel empowered. You see results. You are motivated to keep going.

4. One day at a time
Aim small. Do it so you can gain quick small victories that will give you confidence and that will propel you forward. It works.

5. Start now.
As I said earlier, in 6 Things I Learnt About Execution, having spoken with Marshall Goldsmith, start now. Start today. Just start. Don’t allow yourself that one excuse. Don’t give in to the malaise. Don’t allow yourself to see the mountain of work to be done, it’s only one step you need to take right now and it can be done. One step at a time.

Join me.

Bring your gift forward

We would like to think that some are gifted and some aren’t.

We’d like to think that because it takes it outside of our control and therefore, our responsibility. But your life, your perception of life, changes significantly, when you embrace control and direction over your life. Things change when you focus not on what happens to you but rather how you react to what happens to you. We all have a gift to bring forward and our job in life is to find out what that is. Our job is to find out what we are good at and what we are passionate about and to bring forward, in essence, better versions of ourselves. What does that mean? You have a version of yourself which represents who you think you are. There is also a version that everyone else sees and a version of what you put out.

Being more of who you are takes time and practice. It requires skill borne of experience, patience and a willingness to embrace who you are. Sometimes you wish you weren’t who you were. But if you could decide what parts you were happy with and what parts you wanted to change, you could work on it. And the key here is that it is a journey, not a destination that we strive for. Living a life truer to who we are meant to be comes pretty darn close to bliss.

You can’t do this ...
if you ignore or don’t believe this;
if you don’t allow yourself the full breadth of experiences you know you need;
if you presuppose exactly what it is that you can or cannot do;
if you stop yourself before you’ve even started.

Assumptions and expectations - 5 Steps to Ruin

I’ve learnt a painful lesson of late. The problem with talking a lot about that lesson (read rant and rave), and feeling all those emotions (read bitterness, anger, shock and dismay and not necessarily in that order) is that it makes you feel like you’re dealing with the issue/problem. The reality however, is quite the opposite. What I’ve come to realise recently, is merely talking about the issue, going over it chronologically with a fine toothed comb, articulating those emotions and the reasons behind it are not quite enough. While doing so brings some relief, what I need to be doing far more, is working on the solution. If I don’t spend enough time reviewing how and where this started to go belly up, then the chances are high indeed, that I may repeat these very mistakes in time to come. Worst still, I may be under the delusion that again, someone has ‘done’ this to me when clearly, I have failed to take the learning I should have and put it to good use.

I would have to say, being on this side of the fence, is not entirely pleasant. But there’s something good that has come of this. This is a tie-in to my earlier post, Time heals all wounds, where I gave you a teaser on my adventure into the wild world of home décor and the perils of friendship. What I have learnt from the episode is best summarised in the five points below. Call it a lesson in making assumptions.

1. Assumptions really do make an ass of you ( and by that, I do mean me)
Every time we choose to assume as opposed to clarify, we ruin the chance to get better clarity on the issue. We choose assumptions because sometimes the issues are unclear, or the discussion is difficult. It may be that the relationship cannot withstand such scrutiny and is based on a level of assumption anyway. But which would you prefer – the hard-to-have discussion up front when things have yet to move or the emotional discussion later, when you’re well down the way on that well-travelled road? Trust me, up front is better. What I have come to realise about being honest and upfront is that it makes it easier for you. You know exactly what it is that you have to deal with. The problem with dishonesty - there are many shades of this that can apply, from the mild misleading or even the act of omission (to say what needs to be said) to the outright lie -  is that you always need one more lie to cover up the previous one.

2. Assumptions lead to more assumptions
I’ve learnt that when you start making one assumption, you inevitably begin making more of the same. And that is not a good thing. An assumption is something you take for granted, there is no test of its validity, there is no real basis for how you got to that place aside from the lovely and temporal comfort you get in persisting in your own delusion. When one goes down the road of assumptions, the line between what’s real and what is clearly not, becomes ever so faint as layer upon layer of falsity weave between facts and reality.  It leads to more error and failure.

3. Assumptions affect your state of mind and your approach
Assumptions will blind you as to what is before you. Whatever you see and how you think about an issue is undoubtedly, affected by your assumption. What you need to be doing at all steps along the way, is testing your assumption/s as best you can. This keeps you agile, alert and responsive.

4. Assumptions can lead to laziness and peril
The most important takeaway for me is that assumptions can lead to failure and loss. I don’t think that we can go through life without making assumptions. I am not talking about that. Clearly, its necessary just to live. However, the kind of assumptions I am referring to here are the big ones, the ones that go to the crux of the matter.  It is my belief that if you rely on an assumption, it leads to certain beliefs which you then rely heavily on. The things you would normally do, had you not relied on the assumption, such as checking things out for yourself, gaining more knowledge on the topic, asking the right sort of questions, help prevent a certain malaise which would put you at risk.

5. Find out for yourself. Arm yourself. Get the intel. Do the work.
I know, it does sound obvious. But hey, there’s a reason why they say that common sense is not very common indeed. The best way to arm yourself is to gain the knowledge you need, on your own. Do the hard work to acquaint yourself with the body of knowledge you seek to rely on someone else for. In the long run, you benefit from it. It will benefit you to realise that while you ‘can’ pay for anything, including knowledge, expertise and know-how, that doesn’t always happen. It is not every person who shares all with you, regardless of receipt of financial benefit or not. For every one who has done the hard work of arming themselves with the knowledge, expertise and experience to get from where they were to where they stand now, there is someone who has done it the quick and easy way (and who may or may not not possess the body of knowledge one expects). Some people may find that there is gain and joy in sharing their life lessons for others to benefit. Others may feel that the lessons they have undergone have been at a price that does not justify their sharing all and sundry and that competition means one stands alone. Further, every person puts their own take on their experiences. Their perspective on it colours how it is presented. Doing the hard work yourself, in that sense, gives you a more accurate feel for where things are, as opposed to relying on how others have perceived it to be.

In the final analysis, I would have to argue that we must choose the assumptions we make very carefully. We should also make the distinction between assumption and emotional quotient/intelligence. EQ can sometimes be confused with assumption but EQ has depth, even if sometimes we are not really able to articulate it.

What I learnt today talking to Marshall Goldsmith

It’s been a whirlwind day for me. To say that I’ve had a lot to take in, would be an understatement. I met Marshall Goldsmith in person today at a full day workshop he ran in Kuala Lumpur, What Got You Here Wont Get You There. It’s also the title of one of his books. I had the opportunity to chat with him which was a wonderful experience, short-lived as it was. Marshall is open, humorous, present and very down to earth. I will share stuff from our interview in the April 2012 issue of HR Matters.

But meanwhile, there’s more. When you have the kind of experience that he possesses and that world view, it’s a hard job being on the other side, listening and taking it all in. Your mind will skip through stuff, you will probably zone out at times and your brain will be going tick tick tick on so many things while he is busy talking to you. So, rather than put all the good stuff in a single post where most of it will be glazed over, I thought it better to spread it out so you can savour them one by one, thereby giving each nugget of information, the attention and care it so rightfully deserves.

Marshall took me aside during our chat to very pointedly tell me something he learnt from Peter Drucker a long time ago. Something that has stuck with him. And it is this that I would like to share with you today.

“Every decision in the world is made by the person who has the power to make that decision. Not necessarily the ‘right’ person or the ‘smartest’ person or the most ‘qualified’ person. Make peace with that.”

Don’t be fooled into quickly coming to a conclusion about what this statement means. Refrain from jumping in and let it rest with you quietly. You can come to a conclusion about what this means for you, later. Just think about it for now, mull it over.

Time heals all wounds.

Time heals all wounds.
I think that whoever said that didn’t mean it literally. I do not believe that time passing, in itself, heals the wound. I’d like to think that it is the passage of time coupled with your experiences in the other spheres of your life that slowly give you perspective ... something on which to think and even rethink how you’ve viewed whatever it is that has hurt you.

How we position the event in our mind changes over time.

New experiences, new emotions give us the distance to reconsider whatever we’ve felt or thought about a circumstance. Without having to necessarily admit or concede to anyone, you have the opportunity to reconsider or change your mind. It is this ability, this chance to look anew at something, that allows for things to heal and for the situation to take on a different meaning, one that perhaps in previous years, you might not have thought possible at all.

Failure helps you.
There’s nothing great about falling down and hurting yourself. Nothing particularly sublime about getting screwed by someone you thought to be your friend. Nothing so great that can shake you to your core as to realise that the one thing you held so dear or thought you knew so well, turned out to be un-dear and the opposite of what you believed you saw. In any situation where you face failure, you have choices. And you can do many things with these choices. You can deal with it and confront the misery in front of you. Or you can just watch more telly or have one more drink. The best thing that you can do is to tell yourself the hard facts.

Do it early when the wound is still fresh. The experience is still new and you have all the information at your fingertips. As time goes by, facts get dimmer and perception gets more and more into the picture and this can be affected by emotion. Then move on to make decisions about what you’ve learnt from the situation.

The good thing about confronting failure is that once you’ve heeded the lesson, you wont make the same mistake again. I believe those who make the same mistake over and over again have yet to deal with, understand fully or come to terms with the issues raised within the situation. Allow me to introduce you to the wild world of home décor and the perils of friendship... best kept for another post.

the world today

The world before : You don’t like/can’t stand/don’t agree with your employer or the organisation anymore. You quit. You send them a letter of resignation or you just don’t show up.
The world today : You do that .... and you tell the world about it.

The world before : Employers looked after their brand in their time. They focused on the activities they did and the experience people had. Time gave them choice.
The world today : Employers have to trawl facebook pages and communications of their employees to see where and how best they need to respond to situations. If large enough or relevant enough to them, they take on social media feverishly. And now more than ever, employers are literally forced to respond or post public messages in response to single ‘attacks’ on their brand or integrity. Failure to respond is simply not an option.

The world before : You had time on your hands. You had the opportunity to distil thought and go through a process, whatever it may be, to make the decisions you need to make.
The world today : There’s no time to take your time. In the world of ‘send now’, twitter and facebook updates, a slow response will be viewed with suspicion as much as a non response. Everything is suspect and called into question.

Times are not changing. Times have changed.
We must not only keep up with these changes. We have to be completely on top of them, if we are to succeed.

Read the open letter by Greg Smith, Why I am Leaving Goldman Sachs, in the New York Times where he very publicly resigned two days ago as Executive Director and Head of the firm’s US equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Deal with problems immediately

I’d like to recommend you read  Jeff Haden’s article, The 5 Qualities of Remarkable Bosses. (Thanks to Vidhu Kannarapath for highlighting this article to me). It’s short and to the point and makes a lot of sense. The argument Jeff makes that resonates the most with me – deal with problems immediately. Jeff argues that nothing kills team morale more quickly than problems that don’t get addressed. But the weightier issue for me – the fact that problems never go away. They remain rooted where they are, regardless of how you’d like to label it or worse still, they get worse with time.

Quite apart from Jeff’s point that an ignored problem just results in your team’s loss of respect for you – it shows them that you don’t execute. All the talk in the world ultimately needs to give way to action. And when people have a choice between believing what they read/hear from you and believing what they see you act/do, it’s the latter that wins hands down any day.

In my experience, problems do not go away. I’ve seen them resurface in time to come, in a different form but it’s still there and yes, you can recognise it. So, I would ask, why put off to tomorrow what you can deal with today? Get it over and done with. Avoiding dealing with it only provides temporary relief and I reckon that the stress you feel under your skin or at the back of your head as you try not to deal with it, is usually not worth the effort. I do find that, at times, it can be ugly to have to be head-on collision with a problem. Then again, there’s rarely a pleasant problem. There is something to be said about being honest and having a go at trying to fix it, starting with calling a spade a spade. Problems only get compounded when we beat around the bush or take people down a complicated path by lie, delay or omission. It leads to unnecessary confusion and assumption.

Speak clearly, call it like it is so you can get down to the real task of the day – fixing it. And then you can move on.

There's rarely a shortcut

I know this. I live it daily, in the life I lead and the work I do. Sure, some of us might have taken a few shortcuts here and there. I am not talking about the drive to work. I am talking about big decisions, life-changing decisions, decisions that lead to fulfillment, happiness or peace (or all of the above).

I used to think before that if you could take a shortcut, you should indeed. But then over time, I have seen with successful people, and successful endeavours, that most everything of value or of beauty, takes time and effort. And it takes patience and persistence to see it through to the end. It is the kind of patience that comes with dealing with stuff one thing at a time. One day at a time. Slowly and regularly. Take for example, an athlete. It’s great to see their well-toned body and think, oh, if only that were me. It’s easy to look at it, in the minute and reflect on what is right before you at that point. But it took months, if not years, of solid dedication, of untold sacrifice to get to that point. What you see is what he wants you to see.

How much did he have to give up? What changes did he have to make? What hard decisions did he take that led to that point? Furthermore, none of these would be decisions in isolation. You decide on something and then you have to act on it and you have to do it every day. Talk about mindfulness. Having your decision slap you in the face every day. Challenge you every day to see whether you are serious about what it is that you have decided.

The successful ones give up a lot to get to where they want to be. But they accept the sacrifices as part of the process. They don’t fight against it. They accept it, with body and mind and then move on, with that. They get into the flow. What makes it hard is when you make a decision, but it’s a decision without conviction – almost because you have to or are pressured to. So, you don’t accept it or you accept it with no conviction leading to blowing the deal at every point. It is easy to cave at each of these points because you are not really there. The fight has not been won yet and you’re just blowing in the wind.
So, if its something seriously great that you’re after, and great is as you’ve defined it, then be prepared that you will have to put the hard yards in. There’s no two ways about it. If someone has convinced you that there’s a shortcut, they are lying or deluded.