WORK IN PROGRESS
(Life, Me, You, This Newsletter)
Vol. VI, Issue 16, October, 2002 ><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>><<>>
In this issue:
--- Success through Specificity
--- Communication problems when we Generalize
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SUCCESS THROUGH SPECIFICITY!
Despite the fact that there is great benefit from remembering "the big picture" when we are considering strategy, there can be equally huge benefit in being quite specific when it comes to many forms of action. For example, in communication (and to communicate is a form of action), particularly when giving directions, being precise about what you mean, and what you want someone to do, can avoid a multitude of problems.
When listening to people talk about their problems, I have noticed that those who are the most stuck often wrap all their problems into one bundle, and then wonder why it is that they are unable to find a way out from under. Most frequently, when I am coaching someone in such a situation, my advice is that they be more specific. Rather than looking at one immense problem that has many facets, I suggest separating them out. One problem may be personal. Another may be financial. Perhaps another involves work or career. Even though each may feed into another, it is best to separate them from each other as well as we can. Now there are several, perhaps many, smaller problems, but each one is likely to be solvable if we focus on it alone. Then we can turn to the next one in importance.
Another place where specificity can help us in our move toward whatever we define as success can be in scheduling time. Long-time readers know that I recommend making an appointment with oneself for whatever tasks need doing. If you believe that you need to spend an hour a day reading, or marketing, or tidying and filing, then schedule that hour just as you would schedule an appointment with someone else. However, lately I have realized that this is not enough. These 'appointments' are too general to help us to keep ourselves on task. We need to be more specific.
For example, suppose that you run your own very small business, and you decide that marketing needs an hour a day every day - or perhaps more. You schedule the allotted time, flexing it around other activities, and you believe that provided you keep those marketing appointments you are all set. Right? The problem is that you may spend each of those hours on marketing activities, but you may also tend to spend them on the marketing activities that you most like to do. Perhaps you like to network and meet people, but you dislike recording keeping, or writing. What are you most likely to do during your marketing time? You may make phone calls, keep appointments, have coffee or lunch or attend information meetings and networking functions, but you will very probably not give sufficient time to the tasks that are not your choice.
This is where it helps to be specific. Rather than just lumping all your marketing time together, decide how much time you REALLY need to spend each week doing EACH of your various marketing tasks. Then schedule accordingly. Perhaps meeting and greeting on Monday, record-keeping and following up on Tuesday, writing on Wednesday, and so on. That way your calendar will help you to keep on track of what you really need to do.
The same system works for others aspects of our lives. I know one person who schedules a different room for tidying and cleaning each day of the week, so that no room is ever ignored for longer than six days. This helps her to avoid forgetting the rooms that she uses less, but that still gather dust nonetheless.
So now, a challenge! What are the tasks that you most regularly overlook even though you know that they are important to the life you want to live? When and where can you fit them into your schedule, naming them specifically? Will you do that? Why not take a look at your schedule now, and see where you can fit them into your plans.
CONFUSION WHEN WE GENERALIZE
Generalization is a very normal part of how we think and talk. When an infant first learns that the furry four-legged animal in the living room is a dog, it tends to assume that all furry four-legged things are dogs. So the child sees a cat and excitedly called out "Doggy." Same with a cow, and perhaps a horse. Very soon, after being corrected, the child will learn to discriminate one animal from another (though how one can explain that a Saint Bernard and a miniature dachshund are of the same species I'm not sure). However, it is quicker and easier to generalize than it is to clarify specifically what it is we mean, and this can cause misunderstandings - as most politicians learns to their cost. (And I did it myself, right there, before correcting it. I wrote "as every politician learns..." and then I caught myself. No doubt there are some politicians who don't make the mistake of generalizing, and no doubt there others who don't learn, so I would have been inaccurate to write that.)
At a dinner party the other day I heard someone remark that all the former employees of a particular company were incompetent. Well, maybe all the ones that she knows were, but was she correct to generalize to all the ones she does not know as well?
It is SO easy to do. We have experience of something... a particular industry, a nationality, a make of car... and we assume that our experience is typical of everyone's experience with whatever it is. So, if that experience is bad, we malign all companies in that industry, all people of that nationality, all cars by that maker. Sometimes by so doing we make ourselves look stupid, when other people know that what we say is wrong. Sometimes our words can shape the thinking of others who have no experience in that particular arena. In that case we may be influencing their behavior in ways that are not necessarily beneficial for them, for perhaps their experience would not be the same as ours.
It is for this reason that I urge more care with our use of words. Obviously there are times when we are in full flow of conversation and we don't want to be pedantically backtracking to be sure that we clarify and re-clarify. However, there are a few words that we can work to avoid, so that we equally avoid the trap of overgeneralization. Most of them are even more wisely avoided when in an argument, for then just one exception can put us in the wrong.
My top four, which I try very, very hard not to use, are "always" - "never" - "all" and "without exception." Suggestion... would you like to start your own list of the words that you use when you are generalizing in a way that makes you inaccurate?
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What's happening at ChoiceCoach.com?
I'm in process of upgrading the web site. I think you'll like the lighter, cleaner look. In particular, the Services Offered page at http://www.choicecoach.com/6Services/ServicesOffered.htm
now includes the four offerings for business owners that I mentioned in my last issue of Work in Progress, plus greater clarification of my personal coaching offerings.
With the summer over (at least, it is for me, in the northern hemisphere) Work in Progress will return to twice monthly distribution. Its sister e-zine, the spirituality-oriented Grounded in the Earth, Reaching for the Sky, remains a monthly publication.
On the topic of my newsletters, another reminder that if your mailbox is full so that the newsletters get "bounced" (which happens fairly frequently with the free addresses if you don't check them very regularly) you may be unsubscribed from your newsletters. The system that I used allows three bounces, but when it receives the third one it will automatically unsubscribe you, with the assumption that your address is no longer good. So if you notice that you are not receiving your newsletters regularly (1st and 15th of the month for WIP, 8th for Grounded/Reaching) you may wish to re-subscribe, or to contact me directly (at Diana@ChoiceCoach.com).
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Copyright 2002 Diana Robinson, PhD., PCC.
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