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Sun 20 Jul, 2003 11:35 pm
(What a title. This piece has no relationship to any discussion that I have recently or am currently involved in. It was just an independent thought that came to mind)
HERE'S THE DEAL
You know, sometimes you have a thought and decide to put it to paper. At that point comes the decision of how to incorporate the thought within body of the piece. Do you build a foundation and then lay it upon that foundation or, start with an example and state the thought followed by support for that contention? I'm feeling a little heady so up front; my thought is that talking and thinking are find but its in the doing that gets **** done.
I like discussion forums and have been reasonably involved with a couple that I feel are a step up from the chitchat ilk. (A big step). The areas I find most interesting and thus hover around the most are those that deal with relationships. I like them because opinions are unique little playthings that we all have and, unlike taxes, we can hold them without the slightest bit of documentation. I actually do a lot more reading than commenting. I generally have an opinion about some difficult or testy interpersonal situation but most often it boils down to my initial thought: "Talking and thinking are find but its in the doing that gets **** done." Not a good observation to make as it will generally be regarded as surly and will often be responded to in kind. I hold it as true non-the-less.
"I love A and A is engaged to B and B is my best friend." "What should I do?" Well hell, do something. Are your hots for A worth the loss of the friendship for B? If so, go get her. If not, suck it up and find someone else. Make a decision and live with it. Do something!
"I want to tell Martha that I love her but I'm scared." "I've tried several times and I just can't do it."
What's this can't stuff? If you don't she'll never know and probably will end up with someone else.
Can't. Sometimes we mean won't but say can't. It seems to me that if you gave 100 people a sheet of paper and told them to write all the things that they "Can do" and then gave them another piece of paper and told them to list the things they "Can't do" and evaluated both lists as to time of completion and length of list, the "Can't" list would be longer and finished sooner. Then if you asked them if they had ever tried to do all the things on that list nobody would say yes. So, they have no idea if they can't do all those things, a bunch of them are just won't.
Oddly enough, I think a lot of emotions are also like that. It's not that we can't feel happy, it's that we won't feel happy. It's not that we can't trust, we won't trust. We can chat about it a lot but it doesn't get any better until do something. We have to step out and just trust. We have to just engage in behaviors that have a likelihood of making us happy. It's the doing that lets us be happy and trusting, not the thinking and talking. "Oh, I could never do that."
"Excuse me?" "Don't you mean you would never do that?"
We have a tendency to get the two confused.
One I dealt with a lot as a manager was, "The people down there just don't like me." At some point I would always ask what they thought they might be doing that would cause others not to like them and what could they do to make people like them more. In almost all situations, the answer to one of those two questions would resolve the problem. Do something or do something different. That thought didn't preclude my being supportive and showing empathy but we didn't stay there long. Talking helped them feel better for the moment, doing something helped resolve the situation and many times helped them think better of themselves. Plus, if they came back to me with the "Thank you Mr. Wood!" I could always say "Don't thank me, you were the one that did the work!" and, it does take some work.
The biggest example I could site to saddle my opinion on is the guy that was rock climbing and fell and had his arm pinned under a bolder and he cut it off to free himself. Talking and thinking were fine but when it came to can't or won't, doing got **** done!
Sooooo, what do you thing of that as a thought for 1:30 in the morning?
Good night all!
Morganwood, "Get **** done" is sooooo true. (or get someone else to get it done.
)No, I'm not being flip, I was just thinking myself about how difficult it is to relegate responsibilities, and then give positive feedback without fawning all over, 'ya know? I liked this piece, Morganwood, because it reinforced my thinking about action.
A response!!!
Thank you Letty. I find that the things that I dread the most are often those things that I've not donee something about. If I sit here and fret about a graphic project I end up putting it off longer and longer. Sitting down and doing it stops all that.
When I was doing management training, I used to call positive feedback, paying the employee. It is often difficult to decide what type of currency the employee needs (verbal Feedback, recognition, etc) and how much to pay. It's a balanceing act and all employees are different.
Funny how things come to mind: One thing I've never done is tell a work group that they are all doing a great job. The individual slackers know they aren't and the whole group know who the slackers are. If they are all doing a great job, then I acknowledge each persons performance. Just a thought that came to me abnout feedback and work.
A provocative essay, morganwood. I'll ponder on it over the next several days.
Hey, Rog. It does take more than just one reading.
Morganwood you made a really insightful observation about subordinates. I can imagine that you got things done, too. When I taught, the only problem that I was ever confronted with, was that often a principal seemed to be looking for what he thought was wrong, more than what I thought was right.
I guess teaching in a public school is a little different from other work places.
Morganwood your essays are always provocative and often relevant (at least to me). If I often do not respond it is because I do not know what to say, or at least have nothing that would seriously add to the discussion, but I do read them.
Letty, I often taught a course I called "Catching them doing sometyhing right." I tried to address exactly the situation you brought up. Employees (teachers) always know the boss is around. They also know that he/she is looking for things. If the manager looks for and rewards good/productive behavior, that is what will be seen most often. If a manager looks for problems 1) employees will hide problems, 2) employees will not bring up problem issues for fear of being blamed. Too many managers, both public and private, tend to confuse problem finding with fault finding.
A process that I most often used to solve problems was to note the problem and ask the employee "What do you suggest?". People generally know when there is a problwm and very often have a good idea how to solve it.
Acquiunk, Glad to meet you and Thanks!!
And, to refer back to my original idea; if the employees discovers the problem and is part of the solution, they end up doing something rather than thinking and bitching about it.
There is not one person on this forum, that I know of, who doesn't want to try and correct what we see as short-sightedness. Tonight, I was stunned to note that there was a concern about third graders in Florida who did not pass the FCAT test..
Third graders? Sheeeze, folks. Since when was a little child held accountable for multiple choice items, and just who sits up there somewhere in an ivory tower blithely making decisions about who is fit and who isn't. Ok, that's my rant for the night.
Hi Vivien!
Letty, If those 3rd graders are anything like me, if they just sit still long enought to take the test, they should pass.
Rant on!
Actually, I was pondering the differences between can't and won't.
Back when I worked for a living we had an adage that went something like this: if a guy doesn't want to do a job, he says he doesn't know how, but if he doesn't know how, he says he doesn't have the right tools/equipment. This usually holds true, by the way. In neither case does the employee say won't.
I always read morganwood too, also without a thing to contribute.
Get dangerously close to blowing an important deadline, morganwood. That's what cured me of procrastination. I honestly thought that I was gonna miss my deadline and professionally, my name would be mud. After making it by the skin of my teeth, I swore to never screw around like that again. Not professionally, that is. Now, the spider webs that's been expanding in the corner of my living room for God knows how long...
Unfortunately, Morganwood. I taught a young man who sat very still and remained invisible. He made it through the eleventh grade by being quiet until I discovered that he did not know how to read. I offered to stay after school and help him. He dropped out and subsequently was murdered having become, somehow, involved in a drug situation. Ya know, I fault the teachers who simply rewarded him for not making a fuss.
Ok, through now.
I think we are mostly procrastinators by nature. Even when I think a good idea pops into my head for a new invention or a title for a autobiography, it disappears as quickly.
If you want to get **** done, you just gotta drop everything else and do it! c.i.
I think sometimes you are scared off doing things because you expect too much of yourself.
When i made a decision to do my degree as a mature student (and work and cope with family) i thought through why I was going. It wasn't for the piece of paper at the end but to learn to paint better. I told myself that if i couldn't hack it then i could drop out at any time and i wouldn't be a 'failure' , because i would still have learnt during my time there.
I hung onto this attitude throughout the degree, telling myself i was allowed to jack it in at any time. So because i could, i didnt! I saw it through to the end.
Facing things in bite sized pieces can turn I can't into I can.
Vivien, That's so true of life's career goals. "Bite sized pieces" is the secret to success in anything one pursues. c.i.
Hi Vivian.
Sorry not to have responded sooner. As they say in the south, "I been bad sick."
What was it in "What About Bob?" ? Ah, Baby steps! So true.
A moniker that I used with kids I worked with was that every time they said to themselves "I can't" to replace it with "It will be difficult." I did it so much that when they sait that they couldn't I'd look at them and they"d say "I know, It will be difficult." Just changing the self-talk helped a good number of them. Way back I posted a piece on "Belief in Self."
(Back to bed! Glad to meet you!)
Morganwood - sorry to hear you are ill and hope you are well soon.
Look after yourself.
PS I enjoy your posts!
Morganwood, great essay, and great responses here too.
Addressing the part about people who say things like "I love Martha but I just can't tell her. What should I do?"
I post on another message board, mostly in the relationships section. I frequently see messsages like: "I met this guy and we really hit it off. I gave him my phone number but he never called me. So I called him three times and left messages, but have never heard anything. Should I keep calling him?"
Of course, the answer that person gets are things like, "It's obvious this guy isn't interested in you. Quit trying and get on with your life."
In my opinion, it's obvious that the person who originally wrote this post must already know the guy isn't interested (unless she's a total lame brain). I believe sometimes people need to be told what to do, even if they already know. Or maybe someone in the above situation is so infatuated with the idea of being with the man she met, she's hoping someone will come up with a suggestion on how to get this guy's attention.
Why do you think people ask questions that seemingly have only one obvious answer? Do you agree with me or do you have some other ideas? Anyone?
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