Good intentions...Can of worms

Your best intentions can be the culprit behind your social aggravation. Those well-intended niceties spoken to the people in your daily sphere were supposed to have communicated a sense of "you matter." Instead, ambiguous discussions were recycled into fuel for the optimist to create an alternate perception that puts them in a better light.  Later, when time and misinterpreted intentions are full grown, and the hoped for fruit is nowhere to be found, the person that you felt you communicated your decision compassionately with, suddenly becomes your integrity's nemesis.  What you believed was a soft letting down, or a simple surface interaction, was actually a moment of truth for the other person.

Letting others feel that they matter is a motivating activity that we certainly need more of if we are to create a productive environment.  However, like any veteran change agent knows, activity can always have a shadow side.  In this case, the shadow side of a well intended surface interaction is how the other person weighs the content of your discussion.  Since we are emotional first, the information you intended may in actuality have been processed through a favorable lens that filtered the facts to support a hope for their own desired outcome.  When timelines and anticipation collide, the disappointment felt by your counterpart is exponentially more in comparison to what it would have been if affection was balanced with attention during the initial conversation.  The fallout can be as simple as a trust debit, or as grand as your character/brand defamation. Before you know it, the person's disappointment is being delivered to anyone who will give them an ear. All the while, you can't believe how your good intentions turned into such a can of worms. Making one feel that they matter is much more than nice talk.  It must be done with a sincerity of interaction. Here are five tips I'm learning to help ensure that my next honest attempt at making others matter is a successful one.

Sincere listening requires an honest ear - When someone wants your attention, it doesn't mean you have to give them their way to communicate your appreciation. While it is much more convenient to skirt the hard facts and frame your position so that it lets others leave your office with a positive feeling, eventually this will only hurt you and the organization all the more.  Sharing the facts notwithstanding the emotion, respects the person.  Even more, it is interpreted as an honest ear.


Know your setting - Casual answers should be reserved for casual settings.  If you are in a work environment, understand that you are interacting in the midst of the greatest emotional triggers for others. Their livelihood.  Weigh your words so that when the day ends, false hope doesn't go home with those you spoke with throughout the day.

Know your audience - The weight of your words changes depending on who you are speaking with. If you are speaking with your child, your words are like the oracles of God. If speaking amongst your buddies, they can be as light as a feather. Slow down, and take account of the parties involved. Making others matter takes recognition.

Recapitulate -  Ordering food is an emotional event for us. Drive-thru service restaurants understand that an order gone wrong can set off an emotional thunder that will echo to many other potential customers.  This is why they spend so much time training the cashier to repeat the order.  In the same manner, take the time to summarize what you are agreeing to or stating.  This will help reduce the confusion that may occur due to the emotional filter that the other party has on.

Write down your responsibilities - Did you agree to a follow-up on anything? Even if what you said was a casual "yeah maybe," in the other person's mind it's something that will occur. Following-up with that person may be a marginal cost to you, but it provides finality for the other person.  Write down or record the slightest of follow-up responsibilities that you may have insinuated.

Each interaction is a purposeful moment.  BRAND YOU is counting on your ability to manage it correctly. In the end, good intentions managed well, will serve to enhance the respect others have for you as a stand-up guy or gal who make others genuinely matter.

Win Today!


Victor

Leaning into limitations...Making the impossible possible

Bungled attempts at one-man flight

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” – Henry David Thoreau

In human history, there have been things in this world that have appeared impossible. However, as time and ingenuity progressed, impossible then evolved into limitations that just took time to be figured out.  Mankind wanted to fly.  In themselves it was impossible. Yet, through an industriousness mindset and a lot of failure, flying became possible. 

Even to this day, when flight has lost its marvel, "impossible" limitations still surround us all. How we interpret those limitations will determine if we use them to grow or diminish. If seen as ambition fences, limitations will wrangle our aspirations to the point of feeling boxed in.  Eventually, the boxed in feeling gives way to hopelessness; robbing the very dreams that we believed we were supposed to somehow achieve.  On the other hand, as it pertains to you and me, limitations may not be the fences at all. In fact, they may be the tutors that will serve to draw out the behavioral adaptations to make"impossible" possible.

When impossible occurs, the issue isn't zero-sum. The core of the matter is; what are you really trying to accomplish in the first place?  For Oral and Wilbur Wright, the goal was that of transportation. Could a human being efficiently transport themselves from point A to point B in a straight line?  Air travel would accomplish this.  Instead of creating wings so that the traveler could individually experience the romance of flying like a bird,  a larger encompassing vehicle was needed to be built in order to accomplish air travel.   Impossible made possible.

I am very fortunate to have had the privilege of speaking with many a person who, from my vantage point, were living the "dream." Through our conversations exchanged, I learned that while such persons may be experiencing a life full of accomplishment, their day to day "dream" job has headaches like any other position. Those headaches are just called by different names.  For some, the title of their achievements still lacked in providing the self-worth fulfillment that they hoped would come with their professional arrival.  When limitations arrive in your life, ask yourself, "What am I really trying to achieve?"  If re-framed, limitations can be the catalyst to positively re-invent ourselves.  More often than not, our envisioned goals are just models of achievement that we associated with self-worth.  Once limitations are re-calibrated, our endeavors may find the traction to discover an even greater avenue for a more fruitful actuality.

Recently, I viewed the life on film story about Manuel De Los Santos. Manuel is a Dominican living in Paris who lost his leg in a motorcycle accident. With the loss of his leg, he also lost his dream of playing baseball.  Through a series of insignificant events, he significantly changed his mindset and his life. In the video below, Manuel encourages us all with this statement, "I think for me, and for many, the most important thing is to try and find something that (makes us) feel good. When you feel good, the impossible becomes possible."

Win Today!

Victor

Is your world still flat?

As I prepared to attend a funeral for a relatively young man, the words of King Solomon echoed in my mind.  "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure (Ecclesiastes 7:4)."  The reality and brevity of life crystallize with clarity when one happens to attend this everyday human occurrence.  Life is happening now. Without warning it can be gone tomorrow.  Not to go off on a morbid downer, but as Solomon is stating, the reminder should in fact inject productive action into our everyday lives.

Zombie Workforce...What happens when we don't matter

YOU MATTER

As a person in authority, you can always create activity. You have the power to do so, since you hold  the proverbial whip. The question isn't if the expected activity is happening on your watch, that's the minimum.  The real question is whether or not you are a leader who can engage activity.  In this depressed time of our economy where  by we have lost the gushing optimism that used to over-flow not so long ago, it has been replaced with a barricading pessimism from the hurtful lessons learned.  Over the course of these recent years, we've seen money easily slip away.  Hopefully, by now we've realized that money is only a necessary unit of trade and not what makes us matter. What good is a self-worth that can easily be taken away.  As the fallout of the economy continues, we are also seeing a human productivity fall out that goes beyond the lost homes and unemployment rate. Throughout this down turn, the workforce has lost its humanity and has been transformed into an emotionless cog. Or, at least the bean counters would like to think so.  The holy grail "bottom line" has created a fear fueled loyalty to those fortunate to be working that resembles activity, albeit minimum. A work force can only keep up the work activities in the fear of being fired for so long.  Eventually, the person loses all engagement and becomes a zombie worker.

The Armagedon of ambiguity...Canada set to drop the penny

"That will be $4.01."  Says the clerk at the store. "Oh, you don't have a penny?" "Oh well, I guess I'll just  have to round it up to $4.05." Are you ok with this? If you are Canadian, you will have to be ok with it soon.

Canada has declared that it will be dropping the penny from their currency, citing budget cut-backs and anecdotal claims that the penny only adds to clutter on our dressers. When it comes to financial transaction details, the future of Canadian money exchange between customer and clerk will come down to either the round up or cash-less option.  As it pertains to us, taking the penny out of circulation is symbolic of removing the fine print out of fundamentals.

When you lose the details, you lose the envisioned whole.  Having the principle to manage the fine details in daily living is how we build our lives on solid ground instead of ambiguity.  Ambiguity is a word that has never been associated with success or strategic. Does the Canadian removal of the penny reflect societal trends that we are now ok with living in ambiguity?

It's something to consider, because in the end, the person with the power will make sure they end up on the positive side of the rounding up phenomenon soon to come.  I don't foresee the commerce giants being "OK" with rounding down, since they know darn well that a penny earned over multiple transactions will quickly add up to millions.  The American for Common Cents, understands the broad implications for this tiny transactional tool by stating,  "The increased cost to consumers will be felt in everything from the grocery store to the gas pump. Pennies add up to millions of dollars every year for charities across the country. Simply put, the penny plays an important role in our everyday lives and in our nation's economy." Our daily penny-type actions will always add up.  While you and I may not have much influence in Canada's recent decision, however we can use this as a wake up call for our own life. Take the power position and demand that you value the details in your life, before time and ambiguity eventually add up to regret.

Win Today!

Victor