I Hate It When Someone Tells Me What To Do.

Good Ideas Often Find Their Beginning In The Minds Of Others!

One of the children playing next door uses her age to manipulate her two older sisters.  I can see them playing down the hill about a tenth of the mile away.  One thing cool about being uphill is that noise travels uphill very well and very clear.  The wavelengths of sound have no interferences to break them up.  They arrive to my yard in clear tones.  I hear just about everything those children say when they are outside playing in the yard.  For the most part it is a very cool discovery.  They are pretty good kids.

One of the more fascinating parts of listening in on the volley of conversations between these three sisters is to hear how they use their words to 'work' on each other.  They play with a good deal of creative manipulation.  It gets real clever, even at this young age.  The youngest one has learned the art of manipulating her young age very well.  She plays out to be very innocent in her acquisition process.  She usually wins.  She has become very good at her skills.  The two older siblings get taken for a ride more than half of the time.  What's more, the baby has figured out how to manage the parents in a dispute.  It is clever stuff.

There is another factor I find interesting about this unprotected lesson I receive from these three children.  I am also able to get a good sense for how their parents say and do the things they practice, as well.  I hear how the parents think and how they use speech to manage conflict and cooperation.  It simply comes from the children's mouths and actions.  The children only practice what they have witnessed.  If the parents are abusive, so will the children behave.  If the parents use foul language, the children will also.  If the parents use divide and conquer techniques in their leadership patterns, so will the children.  It is simple to detect.  It is simple to see.

My parents, for example, hate it when someone tells them what to do.  They have always hosted that kind of slant in what they do all through their lives.  It has become a lot of who they are.  This characteristic is certainly not a flaw of life that many others have somehow missed.  In fact, it is quite common.  Millions of people hate to be told what to do.  Millions of those people are parents like mine.  I am a parent.  I hate to be told what to do.  We pass this stuff on.  We are not any different than that small family down the hill.  All of us are prone to behave the same way our parents taught us to behave.  Those three little girls downhill of my home play and do the very exact same stuff their parents do.  We are all by-products of our social heredity.  That little sister has learned the art of doing what her parents allow her to do.  It is not bad parenting.  It is life and human beings.

When a business leader hires the next employee to do a job that needs to be done, early life patterns become part of what that leader has agreed to manage when they hire who they hire.  We all bring our past experiences forward when we go where we go, when we do what we do.  That becomes how we manage where we are.  It is not rocket science.  It is not a flaw of society.  It is exactly the very thing that makes humans become humans.  Some day a business leader will need to hire that little girl who has learned the art of clever manipulation.  When she becomes of age to work, she will be seasoned very well at what she does to win her ways.

Page two.

Plagiarism Is The Art Of Stealing Good Ideas From Someone Else!

I would venture a qualified guess that this little girl already does not like it when someone tells her what to do.    The moment any one of her sisters suggests a pattern to follow, she begins her actions to manipulate a change in what they suggest.  At her young age she clicks into overdrive to refuse the ways they are trying to make her go.  It is as automatic as the sun comes up each day.  They make a suggestion, she counters their thoughts.  It is immediate stuff.  Off to the running of her clever responses to deflect those directions.  It runs natural in her way of thinking.  She has become very good at managing this pattern.  Oh, do not get me wrong, she loses once in awhile and goes crying to her parents to plead her case.  It is always interesting to witness how the leadership deals with these sudden bursts.  

If this little girl is not schooled on how to manage what her skills have become, she may develop some serious barriers that will thwart her future ability to see others ideas, thoughts and creativity in a way that will help her achieve what she ultimately wants to acquire.  She may interpret the ideas others share as being something they are telling her to do and as a result, counter what may have been a great idea.  Many business leaders have grown up to become this way.  They hate so much to be told what to do that they interpret all suggestions as forceful directives trying to control how they must do what they do.  It is a very common pattern.  Many business leaders are afflicted by this force.  They hate being told what to do.

Most business owners possess a strong sense for doing what they want to do.  That is usually one of the key reasons why they own a business instead of work for one.  They like being in control.  They want to be that little girl in the backyard controlling how she wants her environment to respond.  This force of actions is a dominating force.  It consumes the ones who have it the most.  The little girl down the hill is consumed by this  very same force.  She has learned the art of manipulating it into a way of life.  She will use it to manage how she deals with others.  She is not threatened to apply it with adults.  She may be nearly three or four years old but she is not easily intimidated by the adults dealing with how she has decided to play.  How many business owners practice this very same pattern?

I hate it when someone tells me what to do.  I have this affliction even if what they have to say will help my business do much better.  I still hate it.  If it is not my idea, kick it out.  I do not care if it will help.  It is not mine and I want no part in it.  Right?  This sounds much like how the three-year-old down the hill behaves.  She will likely grow up to become very staunch about refusing to 'listen in' on other ideas.  It may quietly become her most debilitating anchor for keeping her away from great success.  Great ideas do not ever come from the one who thinks them up.  They come from a process that allows others to contribute their share.  Most self-taught business owners fail to recognize this simple truth.  They usually hate being told what to do.  As a result, they can easily mis-read some good ideas.

I hate it when someone tells me what to do.  I just remind myself to listen in anyway.  More than I care to admit, I have found some extremely good ideas that someone else shared.  They have produced ideas great enough to become part of some very cool winning ways.  In many cases, it is a good thing I did not go the way I wanted to go.  The results may not have become so good.

Learn the art of managing your hate for others ideas.  Some of those ways are just exactly what your business may need.  It is an amazing thing to witness.

Until next time...