Am I The Problem?

I was reminded of a story that comes to us out of antiquity about a man with a lot of power and authority. He decided one day to stay home from work and upon doing so saw, something he ought not to have looked at, or maybe, to have kept looking at. It was the form of a woman and he had the authority and power to even call her to him. He slept with her even though she happened to be the wife of somebody he knew very well, who worked for him. To make matters worse, she became pregnant and he realized it was his child and there was no way the husband would think it was his own as work had taken him out of town. So he decided to do something about it. Calling the husband back from work, this man tried to get the husband to go and sleep with his wife. He wouldn't. Finally, to make a long story short, he actually had this man killed.

It's a sad story, but gets sadder because this man then continued in his role of power and authority quite oblivious to all he had done – the heinous crime that had been committed against this family, until another man who knew him well confronted him through a simile, ending with, "You are that man" who was responsible for the injustice. When the grave crime he had committed finally hit home, the man felt great remorse over what he had done.

Reveal Yourself

I wonder whether you have been in a situation where somebody has discounted your ability to get something done. You believe that you could and so you tell them you can do it. Or perhaps somebody is pushing you in a particular area of your life and you tell them – "You really don't want to push me on this!" Or maybe in another situation, you tell somebody, "There's a part of me you don't really know and I don't think you want to go there." All of this has to do with the fact that there are parts of us that we hold very private. This is a part we don't really share with people around us. It's a part of ourselves that we know, but others don't.

Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham, way back in 1955, put together what psychologists call the Johari window, combining both their names (Joseph and Harrington) to coin the term. The Johari window really talks about the 4 panes or quadrants of a window.

1.     Open Space: what is known about you by yourself as well as others.

2.     Blind Spot: things you don't know about yourself but others know about you.

3.     Private Arena: things you know about yourself but haven't revealed to others.

4.     Unknown: things not known either to you or to others.

Burst Bubbles, New Beginnings

We've been having a wonderful time with our family. All our children have been at home with us for the last 10 days – children and grandchildren. It's been such a wonderful time spent enjoying each other – the joy of being together. Yesterday while I was in my bedroom my granddaughter walked in and said, "Look, Grandpa, bubbles!" She was blowing bubbles with a contraption she had. She was enjoying the bubbles of different sizes – how they would rise in the air, fall back down and of course, burst. She played around for a while and then left the room.

I was watching these bubbles hit the ground and burst and couldn't help but think that sometimes New Year greetings are like that. We cross over into the New Year and there's a short period almost like a little bubble, that brings us some delight putting everything else on hold. We are able to say, "Happy New Year" to everybody and that's our little bubble. But eventually work catches up with us; things that we left off in the old year are still around in the New Year waiting for resolutions and stuff like that. The bubble bursts and we need to carry on with life.

I realize however, that to think of a bubble  bursting as just another day in our lives is to have an almost pessimistic view – looking at a glass and saying it's half-empty rather than half-full.  I thought that there are already enough opportunities around us—whether in people, or situations and circumstances—for one to talk of the pessimism of a New Year and how fleeting some of the wishes can be and how it doesn't change too many things.

Better, Not Bitter

Reminiscing this morning, I was reminded of a friend I had met about 5 or 6 years ago who had wanted me to meet another friend of his who, he said, would really leave an impression on me. I was curious as we sat down to lunch and waited for his friend to come. When he did, it left me shocked. Sitting across from me was one of the most disfigured faces that I had ever seen in my life. After I got over the initial shock, he smiled at me and said that he used to be a baseball commentator. He said, "One day, after a win, we were letting off fireworks and one of them malfunctioned and blew up in my face. I went from hospital to hospital doing multiple reconstructive surgeries on my face. It wasn't helping, and my attitude too was very bad. One day, I was in this particular hospital and a nurse walked in and said to me: 'We get people like you all the time. There are always two things that happen to the people who come in here. They either get better or they get bitter. The choice is always up to the patient.'"

I still think about that, remembering him and seeing what a wonderful attitude he had. Passers by kept turning and looking at him, yet he was quite oblivious to their stares. He just sat there having a normal conversation with his friend and me. It made me think about bitterness. I wonder if, as you read the word bitterness, whether it brings up some emotion in you. Maybe you've trusted somebody who has cheated you out of a large sum of money. Or maybe another person got the promotion or the raise that you deserved. Or you've been unfairly criticized while trying to do your best. Or you have children who continually disappoint you? Or maybe you have suffered a very ego-deflating setback in your office. Or maybe you've discovered that your spouse is having an affair. These days it seems that the harder you try, the more things seem to be going wrong.

Self-Awareness --> Self-Improvement

Twenty-five years ago, I remember taking the Myers-Briggs Personality test. I vaguely remember that I was an INFJ at that time. I went through all the processing that goes with it, remember listening to the person who was trying to unpack it for me, understanding myself and some of the things that stood for being an INTJ, and all of that. Over the years, it has helped me understand myself. It has brought a sense of self-awareness to me. Then in 2003 I did another personality test called the DISC and that again helped me understand myself even more.

As I looked back on it, I realized that, while I was able to understand myself and what it meant, at that time I didn't do anything about some of the things I found out about myself in terms of strengths, weaknesses, understanding how I would be as a parent, or as a spouse. It was just self-awareness rather than any attempt at self-improvement.

Data Analytics is a buzzword these days. What you do with data is beginning to be important. Companies, especially, are realizing that you can mine for data, but unless you are able to take that data and start translating it into effective processes that will bring change and enhance the process or product, it's of no use. So they're doing that and more with huge budgets.  As Louis Columbus says in Forbes Tech, "Data analytics continues to accelerate as the most preferred solutions for gaining greater business insight and value from data, with this category increasing in importance 55% from a 2014 survey results." That's how important data analytics continues to be to companies.

Ditch That Negativity

I came across a quote by Shannon Alder that set me thinking. "Relationships with negative people are simply tedious encounters with porcupines. You don't have the remote knowledge how to be close to them without quills being shot in your direction." That's a statement that I read and re-read and then thought, "Wow! You really need to be careful if that is how negativity works itself out that people begin to be wary of you. Unconsciously you are poking people or pushing them away from you because of a negative attitude."

It begged the question – Am I negative? Am I a negative person who has quills out and whom people would avoid? As I talk to you, I can maybe ask the question – Are you? Sometimes we can allow our environment to create who we are, to make us into who we are if we are not careful, if we are not really secure in the kind of people we are or we are prone to having other things shape and mold us. Either that, or we've always been a negative person and then, we might be able to know it. But sometimes if it's the environment or maybe the workplace that has shaped you, then it's something that has happened subtly.  It hasn't happened overnight but over a period of time. It could be that you've had people in your team who've been prone to be heavy spenders, who buck the budget every time and you have to rein them in. so, every time they come up with a huge idea, you've had to be the one who had to pull it down and bring it back to a place where you can deal with it. Or maybe you just have people who love to ideate on your team and you felt the need to be ale to be pragmatic, to be able to say "Okay, how can this happen?" rather than let something just get too airy out there.

Personal Branding

I was reading through our Scriptures early this morning and came across this passage where, King David, writing many, many years ago, says these words to the Almighty God – "You made all the delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank You for making me so wonderfully complex. Your workmanship is marvelous. How well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb."

I read it and re-read it and thought over those words, "Thank You for making me so wonderfully complex. Your workmanship is marvelous." This is beginning to be so much truer each day as science unveils new findings in the complexities of human beings. As we see the uniqueness of each person's DNA and to recognize that each one is different, yet uniquely put together. There aren't two individuals the same and yet, with God's fingerprints on us, we are divinely created.

That made me think that each one of us, even on this call, is a unique person. We often don't see that uniqueness in ourselves for various reasons, whether we think it's not good to look at those things or talk about it or recognize it or whether it is out of humility or being self-deprecating. Yet, as we look at the world which we live in, we find that it is of utmost importance that somehow, we are able to let other people know that we are unique. Ultimately it is what makes you different that makes you stand out from a crowd and makes you hirable in an organization.