Improve Your Communication Skills

1. Listen carefully when others are speaking. Keep your mouth shut – and focus totally on them.

2. Never, ever talk over other people. This is disrespectful – and a real turn off.

3. Even if the person leaves an hour between each word, resist the temptation to complete their sentence for them.

TJ

10 Traits That Lead To Success

1. Independence
2. Self-confidence
3. Persistence
4. Creative thinking
5. Being thick skinned
6. Knowing who you are and what you want from life
7. Setting clear goals – and going after them
8. Staying focused
9. Optimism
10. Passion and a zest for life.

TJ

10 Qualities that can make your personality attractive

 
Someone with an attractive personality:
1. Is warm and friendly towards others
2. Is open and real
3. Knows their own strengths and weaknesses - and neither boasts nor puts themselves down
4. Looks for the good in every situation, and is generally positive and optimistic
5. Doesn’t gossip or pass on others’ secrets
6. Doesn’t gloat when things go wrong for others
7. Is secure and has a healthy self–esteem; is not self-centered and narcissistic
8. Is not highly critical or argumentative
9. Is not possessive and jealous in relationships
10. Makes time for the people they care about
TJ

Click-Bait - Beware what you re-post

One bit of advice. I realize it is worth what you pay for it, but here it goes,

Beware as you re-post items on Facebook and Twitter. Just because the referenced article or site might have conservative, liberal, or progressive does not make it legitimate.

Most posts that appear to come from reputable sources just do not. 

They are more often than not trying to get you to do something and are nonsensical at best, and purposefully misleading at worst. (Click-Bait) 

Bottom line - research BEFORE posting.

Knee-jerking is for reflexive testing when performed by a qualified physician.

I'M OFF THE SOAPBOX NOW.

TJ

Leadership (vs Management) Part 1

Leading and managing are not necessarily synonyms. Some leaders can manage, but the converse is not as common. This is part 1 of a series on leading and managing.
This is a set of competencies identified by Boyatzis (1982). through critical incident research.

Efficiency orientation

Focusing on objectives, tasks and achievements. Setting challenging goals and supporting appropriate planning. Facilitating overcoming of obstacles. Encouraging people to act in this way.

Concern with impact

Demonstrating a significant interest in power and its symbols. Use of power-oriented behavior such as using various methods of influence, seeking positions of power, etc.

Proactivity

Showing a strong belief in individual self-control and self-driven action. Acting without waiting for full agreement or authorization. Taking responsibility for actions. Acting to dissuade defensive and risk-averse behavior. 

Self-confidence

Showing belief in self, values and ideas. Able to talk decisively and take confident and decisive action. Communicating this self-confidence to others and hence instilling confidence in them.

Oral presentation skill

Able to speak well, using effective language, modes of speech and body language. Uses effective symbolism and metaphor in words and actions. Appropriate use of visual aids.

Conceptualization

Uses inductive reasoning to identify patterns and relationships. Able to create models and symbols to communicate these concepts. Uses synthetic and creative thinking to develop further ideas and solutions.

Diagnostic use of concepts

Able to use deductive reasoning to convert models and ideas into specific instances and possibilities. Concepts are turned into practical and useful tools.

Use of socialized power

Developing networks and hierarchies of people and mobilizing them to to achieve specific ends. Acts as a person in the middle to resolve conflicts and bring people together. 

Managing group processes

Building the identity of groups and people in them. Building common goals and objectives. Developing group roles. Creating ways of working together and facilitating teamwork.


Historia est vitae magistra 
History is the tutor of life

TJ

Thinking About What Is Not There (Creativity 101)

 

 

Think about what you are thinking about, and then think about what you are not thinking about.

When you are looking at something (or otherwise sensing), notice what is not there.

Watch people and notice what they do not do.

Make lists of things to remember that you normally forget.

In other words, deliberately and carefully think about what is not there.

 

An artist draws the spaces between things.

A market manager for a furniture wonders about product areas where customers have made no comment. She watches them using tables and notes that they leave the tables out when not using them. She invents a table that can be easily be folded and stored.

The psychology of thought is such that we are very good at seeing what is there, but not at all good at seeing what is not there. Thinking about what is not there compensates for this by deliberately forcing us to do what we do not naturally do.

 Ab amicis honesta petamus
"One should only ask from a friend what he is capable of." 

TJ

How to Live

Do not tell people how to live their lives.

Just tell them stories and they will figure out how those stories apply to them.

TJ

Normal Family?

“Normal” seems to be a moving target when discussing the family. Walsh claims that “normal” is not useable category when trying to describe the family and that family should be defined more in terms of markers present. 

I believe that cultural shifting probably plays some role in what most people consider a normal family. The basic Christian belief that all humans are created in the image of God, and therefore equally valuable before God, should be the mantra that equalizes the differences between. 

 However, societal/cultural shifting concerning the value and dignity of human life has contributed to the diminishing role of this Christian belief. Culture has shifted to more of a comparative view of people, and when we compare ourselves to each other we soon find that no family is “normal.”

The thought process behind comparing, whether we understand it or not, views people more in terms of worthiness, honor, success, and just about any other attribute we might inject into the comparison.

I’m off the soap-box now.

Assessing normality seems to be a very arduous task. Do we base our evaluation of a family on sociological, psychological, or biological factors? What I have learned is that to properly evaluate a family one must include all of the above to varying degrees. From a secular point of view, families need to be groups that provide for the basic needs of the members of the group such as food, money, shelter, psychological support, and problem solving. 

However, I might offer a few thoughts about what constitutes a “normal” family. I would suggest the idea that normal families can have some minor problems and even major problems although these should be few. “Normal” families can have communication problems, and they often will. The reason, I suggest, is that although God created everything and called it “Good.” Man (and woman) fell into sin, and therefore no matter how perfect a family may seem, there will never be a perfect family situation. We are not capable of normal. 

So, how do I define “normal?” “Normal” is the family that a midst all of life’s struggles, including social, psychological, and biological, strive to maintain God’s original design for the family (one man / one woman / and wherever that leads). It also includes Christ-like behavior toward those within the family group, and to those outside the family group.

Assuming you subscribe to the traditional model, with changing ideas about what a traditional family looks like how would you help a client understand the value of the traditional model? 

Do you think that many have just given up trying to maintain a traditional family? 

If so, why?

TJ

Unpacking the Boxes

You tell the world who you are
in a million different ways.
Some are subtle, some are not.

But it doesn't seem to matter:
this world has already got you pegged.

When you were born they put you in a little box,
and slapped a label on it.
So they could keep things organized,
and not have to think about what’s inside.

Over time you learn to make yourself comfortable
packaging your identity in different combinations
until you feel like you belong,
and can wear your labels proudly.

But there’s a part of you that never really found a home
rattling around in categories that couldn’t do you justice.

You look around at other people,
trying to judge how loosely they fit in their own lives
sensing a knot of confusion hidden beneath a name tag.

And you realize we’re still only strangers,
who assume we already know what the other is going to say,
as if the only thing left to talk about is
who belongs in what category
and which labels are offensive.

You have to wonder if these boxes are falling apart.
If we should be writing our identities by hand,
speaking only for ourselves, in our own words,
taking our chances out in the open
and meet each other as we are,
asking: “What is it like being you?”

—and be brave enough to admit
that we don’t already know the answer.

Maybe it’ll mean that we’ve finally arrived,
just “unpacking the boxes”
making ourselves at home.

And maybe we’ll look back and wonder
how we managed to live in the same house for so long,
and never stop to introduce ourselves.

TJ

Questioning Your First Assumptions

Your life is a story. The days flip past, too quickly to absorb, a mess of seemingly random events. So you look back and highlight certain moments as important, as turning points in the main plot. You trace each thread back to its origin, finding omens and ironies scattered along the way, until it all feels inevitable, and your life makes sense. You know how this story is going to end, but you’re still eager to skip ahead, dying to know what happens next.

But there are times when you look up and realize that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore. You thought you were following the arc of the story, but you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don’t understand. Either everything seems important or nothing does. It’s a tangled mess of moments that don’t even seem to belong in the same genre, that keeping changing depending on what you choose to highlight.

What kind of story is this? Just another coming-of-age tale, the same one your parents told, with the names switched around? Is your everyday life part of the origin story of something truly epic? Are you unwittingly getting by on other people’s charity, mistaking your own luck for your own success? Are you a character in a romance, a tragedy, a travelogue, or just another cautionary tale?

As you thumb through the years, you may never know where this all is going. The only thing you know is that there’s more to the story. That soon enough you’ll flip back to this day looking for clues of what was to come, rereading all the chapters you skimmed through to get to the good parts—only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure.

TJ

Seen from this point forward

You were born on a moving train.
And even though it feels like you're standing still,
time is sweeping past you, right where you sit.
But once in a while you look up,
and actually feel the inertia,
and watch as the present turns into a memory
—as if some future you is already looking back on it. 

 One day you’ll remember this moment,
and it’ll mean something very different.
Maybe you’ll cringe and laugh,
or brim with pride, aching to return.
or notice some detail hidden in the scene,
a future landmark making its first appearance
or discreetly taking its final bow.

So you try to sense it ahead of time, looking for clues,
as if you’re walking through the memory while it’s still happening,
feeling for all the world like a time traveler.

The world around you is secretly strange:
some details are charming and dated,
others precious and irretrievable,
but all fade into the quaint texture of the day.

You try to read the faces around you,
each fretting about the day’s concerns,
not yet realizing that this world is already out of their hands.
That it doesn’t have to be this way, it just sort of happened,
and everything will soon be completely different.

Because you really are a time traveler,
leaping into the future in little tentative steps.
Just a kid stuck in a strange land without a map,
With nothing to do but soak in the moment
and take one last look before moving on.

But another part of you is already an old man,
looking back on things.
Waiting at the door for his granddaughter,
who’s trying to make her way home for a visit.
You are two people still separated by an ocean of time,
Part of you bursting to talk about what you saw,
Part of you longing to tell you what it means.

TJ

Lessons I've Learned:

It is foolish to hope you will reach your dreams while you are hanging around people intent on pulling you down.

You can forgive incompetence. You can forgive lack of ability. But there is NO excuse for lack of discipline.

“There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.”
Susan Cain,
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

Some people think they can.
Some people think they can't.
They are probably both right.

It’s a lack of clarity that creates chaos and frustration.

Adversity presents us with numerous possibilities for success, if we are just willing to see them.

If you want to be successful in life, never let things happen to you. Go out and happen to things.

In general people are about as happy as they decide to be.

TJ

New Formula for Behaviorism

Edward Tolman

A New Formula For Behaviorism

This article represents Edward Tolman’s ideas about a new version of behaviorism that was to bring unity to the conflicts between cognitive psychology and behaviorist psychology. Tolman, although a methodological behaviorist, did not venture near the zealous ideas that B.F. Skinner promoted. 

To make it clear where he stood, Tolman issues his review of Watson’s version of Behaviorism, “he [Watson] says, will be the study of stimulus and response such that given the stimulus we can predict the response, and given the response we can predict the stimulus.” (Tolman, 1921) Tolman does not end his critique in just defining the idea; he offers an interesting quote from Watson,

“It is perfectly possible for a student of behavior entirely ignorant of the sympathetic nervous system and of the glands and smooth muscles or even of the central nervous system as a whole, to write a thoroughly comprehensive and accurate study of the emotions.” (Tolman, 1921)

Tolman’s response is how can someone ignorant of these things, “account for anything.” (Tolman, 1921) For the remainder of the article, Tolman lays out how his idea is to be structured.

He begins his theses by stating how non-physiological Behaviorism is possible. He goes on to maintain that this new Behaviorism will be capable of utilizing, “mental tests, objective measurements of memory, Animal Psychology, and valid results of Introspective Psychology.” (Tolman, 1921) He then differentiates between Introspective Psychology where consciousness is private and only observable by the individual, but that the information is not translated well, and Behavioral Psychology where the behavior or potential behavior is more easily observable.

Tolman finishes the article by covering the 4 concepts required to understand his new form of Behaviorism. 

First he states the “Stimulating Agency” is the initiating cause of behavior, and it can come from various ways. It can come through sense organ stimulation, administering drugs, and it can be neurologically based.

Once you have the Stimulus then the second part is the “Behavior-Cue.” The “Behavior-Cue” is the internal response, how we feel and process those feelings, our perceptions of color, shape, ect… 

Third is the “Behavior-Object.” The “Behavior-Object” is the process of afixing meaning to the “Behavior-Cue(s)” that are formed. 

This entire process leads us to the fourth concept called the “Behavior-Act.” The “Behavior-Act” is the observable, physical behavior. 

With this format, Tolman believed that the value in this idea rested in its ability to be more successful in treating patients.

 

I did find this reading to be enjoyable despite the arduous deciphering of the ideas presented. Of all that I have read, this short (five pages 10pt type) article proved to be one of the toughest so far. I think I enjoyed it so much because I can relate to the type of thought processes that, I believe, passed through Tolman’s mind. Trying to forge ahead with a new idea amidst detractors on all sides is very difficult, but sticking your neck out anyway and moving forward is somehow its own reward.

From a purely pragmatic view, I think Tolman was on to something. Taking the best of the experimental method, behavioral method, and introspective method seems like a good way to create a better environment for studying behavior. Tolman believed to understand behavior it would have to be seen as a system of interrelated functions. This idea seems very reasonable to me. 

From a Christian perspective, as far as this article is concerned, I will briefly touch on a few problem issues. First, the doctrine on which Behaviorism rests is naturalistic. This means that the material world is the supreme truth, and everything can be accounted for through the expression of natural laws. That would imply that man has no soul and no mind, only a brain that responds to stimuli. Behaviorism relieves man of his responsibility, removes his dignity, and makes freedom impossible. He is reduced to a machine that is, “shaped” as Skinner might say, by those who are able to wield the implements of Behaviorism effectively.

I would like to end this paper with an interesting quote,

“Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision.”

G.K. Chesterton
Orthodoxy, 1908

Tolman, E. C. (1921, August 5). A New Formula For Behaviorism. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from Classics in the History of Psychology: http://psychclassics.asu.edu/Tolman/formula.htm

TJ

Understanding Others

We commonly believe that we understand others better than they understand us.

The rationale for this stems from our external, objective viewpoint and the assumption that the other person has a significant blind-self, while our own blind-self is small.

There is also asymmetry in the reverse situation -- we believe we understand ourselves better than others understand us and may feel insulted if they try to show they understand us more than we do.

The same effect happens for groups, where the in-group believes they understand out-groups better than out-groups understand them.

Overall, this is a position where we generally assume we know more than others, perhaps because we know more about what we know.

TJ

Root Principle

Having and using a right standard of why we do what we do is important to sound judgment and understanding who we are and why we do what we do. Without a right standard we will be susceptible to the fundamental attribution error.

 Measuring ourselves, our values, and our behaviors using our situation, and excluding our personality traits is equally as dangerous as others judging us by using our personality traits to the exclusion of situational factors in our lives.

The root of just about all of the principles in social psychology usually comes in the form of cognitive bias called the fundamental attribution error. It reveals how people tend to consider their own behavior in a different, biased, way from the way they perceive the behavior of others.

Real Life

Within the world of congregational Christianity, or, one might say, the church world this error has proved to be very invasive. As a minister, there never seems to be a dull moment. Each week brings many and varied challenges that seemingly pop up to derail us from our already overloaded schedule. 

One of the major points of conflict between staff members (ministers) and laity (church members) is understanding the differences between who we are, what we do, and what we deal with everyday. Ask a church member to comment on how effective they believe a particular minister is in their role, and many of the comments will revolve around likes and dislikes pertaining to the minister’s personality. 

In contrast, ask a minister about his effectiveness and you will likely hear about the daily grind, and all of the areas of responsibilities and unforeseen circumstances that make up their ministry. As much as the minister’s tend to lean into the situation, the membership leans much hard into the personality.

It is normal to want to understand why people behave the way they do. It is just natural curiosity for most of us. Using cognitive biases is a standard way for the brain to process human behavior. The problem we need to recognize is that cognitive biases can be wrong. 

Observing someone’s personality can allow us to make quick decisions about that person, but we need to be careful and remain cognizant of our biases so we can consider the alternate explanations for someone’s behavior.

To remedy the fundamental attribution error I try to put myself in the shoes of the other person. I think about what I might do in the same situation. 

By doing these things, I can come up with some situational factors that may lend themselves to the behavior exhibited. I also look for hidden factors to help me better read the other person’s behavior. 

The inverse is also just as important. When I look at my own behavior, I need to avoid the actor-observer effect, and be sure to include my own personality when I am assigning credit for my own actions. 

TJ