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| We Can Tell When We Forgot To Think Deeper |
That kind of question is a heady one. It requires some deeper thought. Most leaders do not want to think this hard. If they catch themselves over-thinking an issue, they fear they might get into trouble making moves in territories they do not fully understand. For the most part, very few leaders like to make decisions in areas they do not knowingly understand. Making decisions with too many unknowns is the perfect ground for making mistakes. We all hate to make mistakes. Our fear for criticism runs too high.
Doing some hard thinking requires our complete and devoted attention. That means we cannot multi-task during the time we need to perform serious thinking. For some reason we have come to believe that this kind of work is non-productive. We think if we are not doing several things at once, we are less productive. Although that notion is not true, we protect it often as if it is. We have become so used to making the best use of our time that we plod through our time chips trying to multiply how much we can get done. When we slow that process down to stop and do only one single thing, like think about one single subject deeply, we feel inadequate with what we are getting done. As a result, we do not devote the proper attention to doing some serious thinking about one single heady thought. We tend to graze over a deeper thought and treat it like the rest of the other ones flowing by our minds on a moment to moment basis. We try to jam five dollar bills into a small hole that should be seeing a fifty dollar bill go. We squeeze very little value into a full space that could use something more valuable going in. Leaders get easily trapped by this simple process. Most of them do not even see it coming.
Heady concepts are everywhere. We just fail to devote proper attention to them. They come to our leadership areas in single file. They do not travel to our view in groups of volume like all of the other thoughts we deal with daily in our management ways. Heady concepts take more time to review. Who has that kind of time? We are too busy jamming five dollar bills down a tiny little hole. We do not have time to slow that process down enough to place fifty dollar bills into that hole once in awhile. We are busy keeping up with being busy. I love to walk up to someone who is working hard. I will ask them how they are doing. They will usually answer with this phrase, "Boy, I've been really busy." We love to be busy. We love to tell people how busy we are. I once had one of my business mentors tell me to become more productive, not more busy. There is a huge difference between these two concepts.
Let's ask that question again. Only this time, let's listen to the question more deeply. Let's give that first question some uninterrupted attention. Let's zero in on the fifty dollar bill and lay down at least ten of the fives for just a second. Does our mouth and the thoughts that flow out of our mouths participate in being an active part of our vision? Think about this concept.
Everyone has some kind of future vision. Some are filled with empty thoughts. Some are filled with negative potentials. Some are filled with wonderful dreams. Some are surrounded with guarded hopes. Some are skeptical wishes and desires. Some are tunneled wants that secretly dominate how we think. All of us carry some kind of future vision. There is no blank screen of how we see our future. If we have a blank screen viewed in our future, that is our vision. We all have a future vision. It might be a blank vision, but we have one.
Since we all have some kind of future vision that rests in our minds, we should take a look at how that vision dominates the way our mind thinks. Our mind does the thinking that our mouths generally reveal. I cannot spew out something that I have not put in. I must first place it into my mind before I can dump it out. This is basic math. Everyone can add one and one to get two. That is simple stuff. It is basic math. Likewise, everyone can see how we must first put in to be able to dump out. Our mouths roll out what was once placed in. This is basic math. So far, no rocket science here. Nothing heady to disturb our moving minds. Easy thoughts and ideas. Now back to the heady question. Does our mouth and the thoughts that flow out of our mouths participate in being an active part of our vision? Well of course they do! Now the answer gets much more clearer. It works just like the chicken or the egg question. Once you know the truth, the answer comes out easily understood. Have you ever seen an egg lay a chicken? No. Never. Have you ever seen a chicken lay an egg? Yes. Lots of times. Now that you know the truth, the answer becomes easy. Chickens lay the eggs. The eggs come second. It ain't rocket science. Heady mind work is simple when you belly up against the truths.
Yes, the stuff that comes out of our mouths is the same stuff that harbors space in our minds. It goes into the mind first. What we allow in becomes how we speak out. That is why so many leaders do not perform great leadership. They do not protect what is going in. It ain't rocket science. It ain't as heady as one might think.
We need to pay closer attention to fifty dollar bills and quit grabbing fives to do the job. We need to slow down and think better. We need to learn how to use the mind more often and more productively. We need to slow down busy and start doing productive. We need to devote less time doing and more time to studying. We need to begin a better exercise program for the mind work we do. We need to increase our serious thought work. Business owners need to learn how to think deeper. We need to stop flashing the volume of lights we allow to dominate the millions of thoughts we daily process. Business owners need to think deeper.
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| Thinking Deeper Is Hard To Do |
Does our mouth and the thoughts that flow out of our mouths participate in being an active part of our vision? I recently watched a co-worker 'press' the upper management to examine some inappropriate leadership actions performed by his business supervisor. The act was not only inappropriate, it was seriously illegal. For the most part, I applaud that co-worker for having the courage to rub up against this act and do something strong with it. The results were rough during the next days of going. Meetings and issues were reviewed with quiet levels of real seriousness. In the end, the supervisor was removed. The key point that helped to secure the best review with the most effective end was that the supervisor practiced leadership in an illegal way. Without the right laws put in the right place I doubt anyone would have drawn the same ending that was delivered. In the end, the law provided the most respect for the actions needed to be made and drawn. The right results came form the fear the business had for being sued for employing a leader who subjected an employee to being treated illegally. All that business was required to do was to prove that an illegal act was in fact performed. Once that was secured, the decision to remove the supervisor was an inevitable step.
Does our mouth and the thoughts that flow out of our mouths participate in being an active part of our vision? See how that works? It does. In fact, I will go deeper yet. This same 'co-worker' described how the seed of corruption comes from the favoritism a leader practices. I have no argument with that stance. Favoritism can, in fact, lead to corruption. It does so in a very often way. It is dangerous for a leader to practice acts of favoritism. It may be one of the most effective mistakes a leader performs to destroy the leadership they are trying to acquire. It kills good leadership with its hands down. Many business owners do not even see this truth. They are too busy stuffing fives in a hole that requires fifties. They fail to take the time to think deeper. As a result, they put into their minds a level of shallow that is hard to manage in a better way. They lack deeper knowledge because they refused to devote some deeper thoughts to the mind work they should be doing. In the end they roll out of the mouth those shallow thoughts that commonly produce wrong developments that come back to hurt their success quotients. The shallow thinkers do not win as often as they wished they could. Their vision to win gets distorted and eventually arrives battered and delayed. Just ask the millions of owners how deep they think on the critical thoughts they should include each day. Most will tell you they do not have time. They are too busy stuffing fives into a hole that requires fifties. Business owners need to think deeper.
Two weeks later, this same co-worker came to me and described another error that his removed supervisor performed with him before he was removed. He described how he was told that if he worked on New Years' Eve he would receive double time pay, even though it was his normally scheduled day of work. He said he did not receive that pay. I was silent for a short while. He went on to describe deeper how the promise should be kept. It was frustrating him. When he was done selling his case to me, he asked what my opinion was. Boy, if you know anything about me...do not ask me for my opinion on a serious subject. You might as well ask the 'pit bull' to cut loose and sic 'em.
I quietly asked him this question, "Have you ever read you employee handbook? It clearly describes how your pay will be handled on those special days, does it not? He said, "I don't know." I replied, "Did you sign the cover sheet that you had read and that you completely understand the company policies?" He said, "I did." I then asked, "So why are we having this conversation?" I continued, "It clearly states in that document how your pay will be handled by this company on those special days. Did you not understand that description or did you not read it?" He stumbled a bit with his reply. I then added, "If you took down a wrong leader because he practiced wrong levels of favoritism, then why do you continue to question more of the same stuff he once performed? Furthermore, why was it not OK for him to offer someone other than you a favorite special set of monetary treatments that you charged him for doing that was not the same benefit you were given to enjoy? It was obviously not OK for him to give to others something that was denied to you for activities each of you performed that was the same. Isn't that what your main complaint was in the beginning? Is that not the same practice that got him eventually removed? It looks to me like the very same thing that pushed you to turn him in about favoritism benefits is the very same thing you want to enjoy. Several people worked on New Years Day, they were not given the same offer. Are you not on the other side of that fence now? My goodness, you cannot have it both ways!" Sometimes employees need to think deeper. Maybe that is why so many of us are very busy stuffing fives into a hole where a fifty belongs.
Business owners need to think deeper. To the world of good leadership...it is a minimum requirement.
Until next time...
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