“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”  “You are out of touch with today.”

At any family gathering throughout the years, we have all probably heard these phrases on more than one occasion.  Typically, as individuals get set in their ways, either in a job or in their home life, the phrase, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is said to address a personal short-coming or to rationalize another person’s response to something new and different. The normal dialogue back and forth between generations typically results in someone in a younger generation responding to an older person, hopefully as respectfully as possible, with “you are out of touch with today.” 

Both statements are indicative of two areas that we need to address on our journey to build and strengthen our character:  (1) We must remain teachable throughout life in order to reach our full potential and (2) We need to remain open to learn from anyone by removing the self-imposed obstacle of prejudgment.

(1) Remain Teachable:

Our world continues to grow in complexity, intensity, and uncertainty.  The issues we face in many areas of our lives will not be effectively addressed with the techniques that worked a few decades or even a few years ago.  The pace of change in most of our markets is lightning fast and business leaders need to continue to seek improved solutions to add greater value in addressing more complex customer challenges.  In our homes, whether it is managing our finances, maintaining a strong marriage, or being a more effective parent, our environments are continually changing and we need to be open to new ideas to be more effective in our rapidly changing home front.  The principles of love, understanding, compassion, etc. are timeless and always relevant.  However, how we deliver on those principles needs to adjust with the changing environment.

We must make the choice to remain teachable and continuously learn in order to remain relevant to those around us.  Making that choice will help to build and strengthen our character and Character Creates Opportunity® for better relationships.  Blaming someone else, or worse yet, in our own mind saying, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” will work to weaken our character and our relationships.

(2)Remain Open:

In addition to remaining teachable to stay relevant, we need to be open to learn from anyone.  Generationally speaking, the young should remain open to learn from the wisdom of the old and the old should remain open to learn from the new ideas and energy of the young.  In addition, diversity of experiences, backgrounds, gender, race, etc. provide potentially valuable insights to practice an openness to learn.  However, many times we prejudge the potential teacher with our own thoughts of: “What can I learn from him? He has never worked in my industry?” or “She does not have a degree in this particular field, what could she possibly teach me?” or “He is an old man, there is no way he can relate to what I am dealing with?” or “He is only a teenager, what could he share that would change what we already know?”

Diversity provides a great foundation for learning.  Many times we prejudge diversity of thought or expression to close the door to learning from others.  Making the choice to remain open and willing to learn from others who may appear ‘different’ than us will help to build and strengthen our character and Character Creates Opportunity® for our own personal growth. Prejudging people because they are ‘different’ or allowing ourselves to fall into ‘group-think’ that quiets their voice, will work to weaken our character and hinder us from reaching our full potential.

Remaining teachable and open to learn from others will help us to be more effective in our lives.  The outcome of our efforts may be small and appear insignificant, while others may enable us to reach a huge opportunity or avoid a major tragedy. 

Elie Wiesel, the winner of the Nobel Peace prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and many other distinguished honors, chronicled his journey from his hometown of Sighet, in Hungarian Transylvania, to the Nazi concentration camps in his book, Night, and provides a vivid reminder of the importance to remain open to learn from anyone. 

In the beginning of his story, Wiesel is a Jewish teenager and studies the Torah and the Kabbalah under a teacher the town calls Moishe the Beadle.  Moishe was somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades in the Hasidic house of prayer in the town. He was quiet, poor, and mostly overlooked by the townspeople.  Elie’s instruction was cut short when Moishe was deported by the Hungarian police as they began rounding up the Jewish religious leaders in 1941. 

After almost a year, Moishe returns to the village and begins to warn everyone about the future plans of the Nazis.  He told them about his experience when he was deported and how the Gestapo beat them, put them into forced labor camps, and began torturing and killing them.  Moishe had been shot in the leg and left for dead, but he managed to escape and return to his village.  Moishe continued to warn everyone in the village through the years 1942 and into 1943.  However, the people dismissed him as a bit out of touch with the times and as a deeply religious person, they dismissed his revelation as a bit over the top and beyond reason.  Then, one day, the town is seized by the Nazis and every individual in the village boards a train for the death camps to the north.  Elie Wiesel lost his entire family and most of his fellow villagers at the end of that train ride.   

Elie Wiesel, in this harrowing account of his experience, reminds us of the need to remain teachable and to remain open to learn from anyone, not just those who look and act like us, are from our generation, or share a similar set of life experiences.  If we make the choice to remain teachable and open, we will continue to build and strengthen our character and our Character Creates Opportunity® for us to have a greater impact in our life’s journey.

I received some comments on a recent topic about defining character and the process to build and strengthen character.  In one of my earliest blogs, I attempted to outline some aspects of character and I want to use today’s blog to dig a little deeper on the topic.

There are a number of ways individuals and organizations define character.  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes character as “the way someone thinks, feels and behaves.”  At Harvest Time Partners, we describe character as the ‘inner voice’ or ‘compass’ that guides our thoughts, decisions, and actions.  We build and strengthen our character when our ‘inner voice’ is anchored on principles like honesty, courage, compassion, and commitment.  These principles are timeless, universal, and self-evident.  From very early in our development and continuing throughout our lives, our character is built and continually strengthened as principles guide our thoughts, decisions, and actions,.

The reverse is also true.  When our ‘inner voice’ is anchored in pride, selfishness, cheating, and lying, our character is weakened and with repetition becomes corrupt.

The process of building and strengthening our character is no different than the process of building and strengthening our physical health.  There is pain, discomfort, and struggle in the process of building strength and endurance.  Muscles breakdown through exercise, we feel sore, and overtime, muscles grow stronger by new tissue being grown in the recovery process. 

Our ‘inner voice’ that defines our character responds just like our bodies.  When I was a cadet at West Point, we were constantly instructed to make decisions by “doing the harder right, rather than the easier wrong.”  That was very clear direction on how to build and strengthen our character with an understanding that there would be pain, discomfort, and struggle in making some of those decisions.  As we do more of the “harder right”, we get stronger and we are able to more effectively handle difficult, complex situations in life just like our muscles are able to effectively handle more strenuous activity. 

Again, the reverse is true.  If we don’t push ourselves physically, we become weaker and create more problems as we age.  As we continue to make decisions to do the “easier wrong” we weaken our character and at some point, we lose all discernment about truth and right or wrong. 

There are two realities that we can’t escape regardless of our choice to do ‘the harder right’ or ‘the easier wrong’:

(1) The Law of the Harvest, simply put, we reap what we sow is a natural law that holds true in describing outcomes with respect to the development of our character.  Building and strengthening our character with principle-based thoughts, decisions, and actions, will more often than not, enable us to reap an abundant harvest in our lives.  Weakening our character with thoughts, decisions, and actions guided by lies, selfishness, and pride, will more often than not, position us to reap a very poor harvest in our lives.

(2) The Power of Example.  The example we set will have a direct impact on those around us. There is nothing more influential on the lives closest to us than the power of our quiet, consistent example.  If we set an example of loyalty, honesty, and respect in our lives, our families and our coworkers will more times than not, follow that example.  If we lie, cheat, and steal, more times than not, our families and our coworkers will make those same choices, or at the very least, tolerate that behavior in others.  In Judeo-Christian teaching, scripture describes that the actions of parents are felt down to the third and fourth generations.  I am sure if we all looked honestly into the ‘inner voice’ that drives our thoughts, decisions, and actions, we can see our parents and grandparents.  Likewise, in the workplace, we see how the culture of an organization is reinforced by the actions of its leaders and even through transitions, promotions, and acquisitions it is very difficult to change the culture of organization as the power of prior example is tough to overcome.  

We are all on this critically important journey to build and strengthen our character.  There is no “EZ-PASS” lane and no finish line.  Regardless of our ‘inner voice’ that drove past thoughts, decisions, and actions, we should all feel a sense of hope that we can begin today to anchor our ‘inner voice’ on principles to help build and strengthen our character.  In return for our efforts, the Law of the Harvest and the power of our example should give us encouragement to keep moving forward and ensure we have a more positive impact on our life’s journey.

Our Character Creates Opportunity® for us to improve the bonds in our home, our workplace, and our community.

When discussing topics around the importance of character, I often hear phrases like, “people just need to do the right thing” or “it is pretty basic, just like the things we learned as young kids in school.” In many ways, how we build and strengthen our character is pretty straight-forward.    

The vast majority of people would agree that our homes and our world would be in better shape if we lived our lives with integrity, took more personal responsibility, removed bitterness and resentment from our thoughts, focused on serving more than being served etc.  In addition, people finding a career path that truly taps into their strengths and fuels their passions is the most effective way to have a lasting, positive impact in the workplace.  Organizations, filled with people who are personally and professionally aligned with the vision and culture of the organization, tend to outperform their dysfunctional peers by a wide margin.

Given the above understanding, the key question I want to address today is then, “why don’t we do it?” 

When I reflect on some of the choices that I have made over the years, both in the home and the workplace, and when I have spoken to many individuals about some of the choices they have made, there seems to be a common theme.  When you are able to cut through all the justification language, the well-articulated rationale for a certain choice, the defensiveness around a decision, etc. more times than not, we are left with some form of fear, often buried beneath insecurity, that is the force that holds us back from making the most effective choices.

When we need to have that difficult conversation about an important issue that is hindering the growth of our most precious relationships, we often allow the fear that we don’t have what it takes or the fear of a potential “bad” outcome that holds us back from moving forward.  Our mind is filled with thoughts like:   

• “The last 10 times I tried to have this conversation, it ended up really bad, so just forget it.”
• “He / she always twists my words around and I can’t think fast enough to respond.”
• “As soon as he / she rolls those eyes at me, I just lose it.”

In the workplace, when we need to have those challenging conversations with a boss, a coworker or an employee, we often allow fear to hold us back with thoughts like:

• “If I raise this issue with him, I know it will be the death nail to my career with the company.”
• “He gets so defensive when I talk about working as a team.  Forget it…I will just do it myself.”
• “The last time I saw someone challenge the boss’ opinion, they were ‘ripped apart’ so forget about speaking up.  I will just deal with it.”

In making major career choices such as remaining in a current position, seeking a new position, leaving one company for another, or making a complete career change, we often allow fear to hold us back with thoughts like:

• “I don’t know if I can handle that kind of responsibility.  I will just stick with what I have done in the past.”
• “If I don’t seek assignments with more responsibility, “they” may think I am not as “hungry” or committed as others and I will be on the chopping block when times get tough.
• “I really feel energized when I think about moving into this new career, but what if I fail?”

Deep down, the truth behind many of our decisions not to “do the right thing” is because of fear. 

Fear has its place in our lives.  In some short term situations like walking at night in a bad part of town, a little fear is good to keep us on high alert.  Having a little fear when the doctor says we need to eat better and exercise more maybe just what we need to get motivated.  Just before we make the decision to buy that new car, take that big vacation, or financially “stretch” into a larger home, a little fear is good to ensure we understand all the potential outcomes before spending the money. 

However, in the context of strengthening relationships and pursuing a life of positive impact, it is not healthy to have fear be the driving force behind our thoughts, decisions, and actions.  We should put fear in its place as we stand on the strength of character with timeless, universal principles like courage, discernment, and discretion in order to make the choice to do the right thing.  Have that difficult conversation, put the issue on the table at work, and pursue that career choice that you find most fulfilling.

There is one very practical step that I have learned to use to help ensure I am not letting fear have an unhealthy impact on the choices that I make both personally and professionally.  As I think through the potential positive and negative outcomes of a particular decision, I simply ask myself one additional question; “If I was not afraid, what would I do?”  

In the end, addressing this basic question helps me acknowledge the reality that somewhere in the mix of major decisions there is always a little fear and it opens the door for me to be brutally honest with myself as I work through making the decision.  Just raising that question usually gets me to look in the mirror, stop kidding myself, and move forward with doing the right thing.  However, there are times when answering that question still does not get me to move forward in the right direction.  In those times, at least it allows me to be honest with myself about the real reason for not doing the right thing.    

I would encourage you to ask yourself that one additional question when working through the important decisions in life.  

Fear has its place in our lives. As we guide our thoughts, decisions, and actions by principles such as courage, loyalty, and commitment, we build and strengthen our character and we help to minimize the negative impact of fear in our lives.  Our Character Creates Opportunity® to strengthen relationships and have a positive impact in our life’s journey.

As we just finished the first full week of the New Year, historical data would suggest that 25% of us have abandoned our new year’s resolution goals and by the end of the month, that rate could go as high as 50%.  Be a trend breaker this year and continue to make progress towards your goals!  As we continue our journey to build and strengthen our character, we need to discuss a topic similar to setting and achieving goals and that is reaching our potential in a world that tries to simply drive us towards comparisons.

There is a great deal of measurement and assessment in schools, sports, the workplace, and our homes that is necessary to establish benchmarks and standards to provide a sense of order and guidance to all those involved.  Many times, these important measurements and assessments drive the unintended consequence that our “relative ranking” to others also becomes a measure of our own self-worth.

Healthy competition and the assessment of that competition is a good thing to help us reach our full potential.  However, we have to be disciplined and self-aware around our own personal interpretation of the measurement to ensure that it remains a simple assessment of fact, and not a definition of our true self-worth.  In addition, in our roles as parents and mentors, we need to be especially proactive in ensuring our children don’t fall into the trap of identifying their self-worth by their class rank, their time in the 40 yard dash, or the colleges they do or do not get into.

The “keeping up with the Jones” mindset is the adult manifestation of finding our self-worth in a measurement of what I have relative to others.  Spending a great deal of energy thinking about how our bank account, salary, career progress, accomplishments of our kids, state of our marriage, etc. stack-up to others can all be adult manifestations of finding our self-worth relative to others.

In terms of determining our self-worth, I like to remind myself of John Wooden’s definition of success:  “Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”  The legendary basketball player and coach was in essence, saying, you find peace when you give it all you have to reach your full potential, regardless of what those around you achieve or don’t achieve.

Our greatest challenge in life is to reach our potential.  It is not winning a certain championship, reaching the corner office, solving some major problem in the world, or getting our kids prepared for life. Our greatest challenge in life is to reach our potential.  In a similar concept to the note above and Coach Wooden’s definition, Judeo-Christian teaching defines sin as not just some transgression against a rule or standard of living that breaks our connection to God and peace in our lives, sin is just simply falling short of the mark that God has on our lives…in essence, not reaching our God-given potential.

In striving to reach our potential, there are just a few points that I would like to reinforce:

1. Reaching our potential has nothing to do with our relative ranking vs others.  Our relative ranking may help us get motivated, but reaching our potential has to do with us doing our very best to becoming the best that we can be.
2. Understanding our potential in all areas of our lives, both at work and at home, requires self-reflection, honest assessment, prayer, and wisdom that comes over time. 
3. We will find a sense of peace, like Coach Wooden described, if we can consistently give our best effort in our journey of trying to reach our potential.  

When we spend time and effort on determining what our true potential really is, I am reminded of my old high school pole vaulting coach who used to say to me every time before I would jump, “Espo, the sky is the limit!” 

It has been my experience in working with individuals and teams over the years that we all have a great deal more potential in our roles at work and at home than any of us thinks we do.  If each of us can “raise the bar” on our thinking about our true potential, we will make steady progress on building and strengthening our character and Character Creates Opportunity® for us to reach our potential.

 

As we continue on our journey to build and strengthen our character, an important dimension to address is empathy.  Empathy is literally our ability to recognize or “feel” the feelings and emotions of others.  Strengthening an emotional connection to others through empathy is critical as it builds our skills of understanding and it is through understanding that we learn to appreciate different perspectives and begin to value the unique strengths that individuals bring to our world.

Some of the very basic ways to build and strengthen our ability to empathize with others is through effective listening and focusing our attention on the other person.  In most conversations, we have a tendency to believe in the perceived importance of our response and spend our energy thinking about what to say very quickly after hearing the first few words out of someone’s mouth.  We mentally hustle through a set of assumptions, personal experiences, etc. after hearing someone’s initial comments and we miss a critical opportunity to listen and focus which will enable our ability to empathize more effectively.

We have to exercise a fair amount of discipline to listen first and speak later as much of our experience in school, the workplace, and the home front demonstrates an importance of being quick with a response.  The effective listeners in meetings, in the classroom, and in the home have a tendency to be steam-rolled by a quick and perhaps loud individual.  In addition, as we all participate in today’s “online chatter” via text, email, and various social media, it is important to understand that studies have shown these forms of communication decrease empathy in children and adults.  Wise business leaders, teachers, and family members work hard to draw out the “listeners” as they help us all see a deeper understanding that many times will help to advance the cause of the team or more effectively complete the task at hand.

There is a significant, additional benefit of building our empathy through effective listening and focus that is sometimes missed in discussions on the importance of listening to others.  As we strengthen an emotional connection to others through empathy, our efforts are usually rewarded by the other person feeling compelled to reciprocate in focusing their efforts on listening to us.  This cycle of reciprocation of listening helps to create a more caring and understanding environment which is critical to solving our biggest challenges in the workplace and in the home.

If each of us can take some incremental steps towards improving our ability to empathize with others through effective listening and focus, we will build and strengthen our character and Character Creates Opportunity® for improved relationships in the workplace and in the home.

What techniques have helped you to become a better listener?   Please share a comment below

 

Part I of this message focused on giving and covered the timeless truth that it is better to give than receive.  Part II of this message will address the aspect of Receiving as a key aspect to help build and strength our character.

We all enjoy receiving a thoughtful gift from loved ones during the holidays or other special occasions.  We may feel a slight sense of concern and express “you really did not have to do that”, but we all have little to no struggle in receiving a gift around these special events.  However, like many aspects of building and strengthening our character, I want to address an area where many of us struggle and that is in Receiving help from someone who is genuinely wanting to give some assistance.

In my learnings from the observations of others, research on the subject, and reflecting on my personal choices through the years, there is a tendency for many of us to resist receiving help, even when we clearly need it, and we choose to continue struggling on our own in trying to complete the task or address the situation.

In the workplace, it is quite common to observe individuals struggling to complete a task or key deliverable and when the offer from others to help comes around, the response is usually, “thanks, but I have this one covered.”  I can recall having the same response myself even though I was really struggling to complete a task.  In a work situation, many times we do not want to appear that we don’t have the skills to deliver on a task.  In addition, we have the desire to demonstrate we can handle a tough assignment.  Regardless of the reason, refusing help when needed puts us in an extremely stressful situation that has unintended consequences that go beyond the specific project.

It is not just the workplace where this “go it alone” decision persists.  We see the same choices on the home front when struggles occur with raising children, holding a marriage together, or dealing with aging parents.   When these problems are clearly visible to others and the offer to help comes from a genuinely caring, wise, and experienced individual, we respond with something like, “things are ok, we are just working through a tough time right now…thanks for thinking of us, but it will be ok.”  Given the painful statistics on the challenges in our homes today, too many of us continue to make choices that isolate ourselves instead of bringing together the help we need to effectively deal with the problems we all experience in the home.

There are just two comments I wanted to make on the aspect of receiving help as we look to build and strengthen our character:

1. Receiving help is not a sign of weakness.  It is a sign of wisdom and strength.  Wise individuals understand that they don’t know everything and could learn a great deal from the experience of others.  Genuinely strong and secure individuals are comfortable knowing the value of shared experience and don’t feel a need to prove themselves by going alone in working through a difficult situation.
2. Receiving help is a powerful way to enable another individual to experience the joy of giving.  We deny a blessing others will receive when we deny their genuine offer to help when we really need it.  There is a powerful emotional bond that is built when we help others in need and we deny that blessing to someone when we refuse their help and we choose to go it alone.

Our world continues to grow in complexity, uncertainty, and intensity.  The challenges to sustainable achievement in the marketplace and the home are becoming more and more difficult.  We should all begin to find comfort in receiving help from others as we continue to build and strengthen our character as Character Creates Opportunity® to build strong relationships and effectively deal with the challenges in our world.

What thoughts do you have on the challenges of receiving help from others?   Please share a comment below. 

The holiday season brings about some great opportunities to build and strength our character;  With overcrowded shopping malls, homes packed with friends and family that may stay a bit too long, and the work project that keeps nagging at us during our “time off.”  I am sure writing about “patience” may be relevant, but might also turn readers off during this “merry” season.   So with that assumption, I would like to address the aspects of something just as relevant during the holiday season, Giving and Receiving.  Part I of this message will cover Giving and Part II will be about Receiving.

In our early developmental years, our culture creates an unbalanced perception about how great it is to receive gifts.  Advertisements tempt us with how happy we will be with the next gadget, some new clothes, and that dream vacation.  As young children, many of us made a Christmas wish list, had the chance to tell Santa in the mall what we wanted, and were thoroughly prepared when loving grandparents asked, “What do you want for Christmas?”    

Through personal experience, many of us have grown in our understanding of giving and realize that it is truly better to give than to receive.  To see the excitement in a child’s eye or the loving embrace of a family member who received a most needed gift demonstrates to all of us how wonderful it is to give.  Beyond just gifts during the holidays, the opportunity to give our time, effort, and money to a worthy cause fills us we a great sense of personal warmth and fulfillment.   By giving to others and to causes we believe in, we fill a very deep emotional need we all have to belong to something beyond ourselves.  The mere act of giving builds a strong emotional bond between us and the recipient or the cause.

Moving from the home front to the workplace, the same reality exists.  In giving assistance to others delivering on a key project, to give recognition to co-workers, and to provide support to a customer that goes beyond some contractual obligation has the same positive personal return that giving does in our personal life.

As we work to build and strengthen our character, I want to encourage all of us to look for opportunities to give, and then “do the right thing” and take action.  In addition, we should start as early as we can with children and young adults to consistently show them the value of giving instead of receiving.  The earlier we all learn the timeless truth that it is better to give than to receive, the greater impact we can have as we journey through life. 

Becoming more proactive in giving, in all areas of our lives, is an important aspect of building and strengthening character and our Character Creates Opportunity® to build strong relationships, grow a business, and sustain a high-level of accomplishment.

What ways have you found helpful to reinforce that it is better to give than receive? Please share a comment below.

“someday never comes” – John Fogerty, lead singer for Credence Clearwater Revival

For many reading this blog, the rhythm from that song and the music of CCR brings back a few memories of their youth (others maybe saying, “Who in the world is John Fogerty and CCR?”).  As we continue to build and strengthen our character, an important topic to address is the need to take action today, rather than putting things off.

Let’s face it, we all know the basics of things we should do to strengthen important relationships, improve our health, expand our thinking, or be better positioned to grow in our career.  Many times, our excuse for not doing these things is that it is just not the “right time” to take action.  “I will go back to school once the kids get a little older”…”I will forgive once the sting of the betrayal subsides a little more”…”I will reach out to that family member once I get through this busy time at work”…”I will get back to exercising in the springtime”.  As we have all experienced, many times that “right time” never comes about or when it does, we have a host of other obstacles and “someday never comes.” In the worst of scenarios, that individual or opportunity is gone forever and we missed the opportunity completely.

An important aspect of building and strengthening our character is the simple act of taking action to continue moving forward in what we know in our heart is the right direction.  Today’s message is not about dropping everything and pursuing that big bold idea that has been weighing on your soul (if that fits you, great, but that is not the intent of this message).  Today’s message is more about taking a few small steps forward on what we know is needed. 

I know I should reach out to a friend who is on my mind…just start it with a quick email or text.  I know I should take the first step to mend a troubled family relationship…just pick up the phone and say hello without an agenda.  For that desire to exercise, don’t buy expensive equipment or a new gym membership, just start walking around the block and literally take it one step at a time.

Some of our biggest opportunities to build and strengthen our character involve taking action in our relationships with others.  We all have a tendency to avoid the difficult conversations to repair a troubled relationship.  It is never easy and the emotional pain from prior struggles remains with us and makes it even harder to re-engage.  I would just like to reinforce that relationships with others will always be intertwined with every endeavor of life.  Relationships are worth the effort and it is our character that will create opportunity to improve the relationship.

I will leave you with one easy step that has helped me out in the past.  Try writing a letter.  Yes, an old fashioned hand-written letter.  Nobody gets these anymore and I can almost guarantee that an individual in a very troubled relationship will still open a letter and read it in the quiet of his/her own time.  Keep it short with a focus on care and concern versus justifying or blaming.  Let the letter be a first step to softening defenses and perhaps open a door to reconnect and a path to restoration.  If nothing else, you can be at peace knowing you took some action to ensure “someday” finally came. 

I will be a little bold and take it one step further and much closer to home.  Many times the letter does not even need a stamp as the relationship we need to restore is within our home.

Taking action, when we know it is needed, is an important aspect of building and strengthening character and our Character Creates Opportunity® to build strong relationships.

What ways have you found to reconnect with a challenging relationship?  Please share a comment below.

 

As we continue to build and strengthen our character, an important topic to address is the opportunity we have to recognize the efforts of those around us.

For many people in a position of leadership in an organization or business, this time of year is filled with opportunities, both formal and informal, to recognize the efforts of our teams and individuals for the past year.  There is a great deal of time and planning that leaders put in to written recognition, formal year-end reviews, year-end awards, etc. to ensure the efforts of the team and specific individuals do not go unnoticed.  Leaders typically work hard at understanding the unique ways that employees like to receive recognition and what type of awards have significant meaning to the individuals.  These recognition efforts are a critical part of building a strong sense of commitment and engagement from team members. 

As a business leader, I could always count on allocating a fair amount of time and effort into completing year-end reviews and year-end recognition ceremonies as it was such a valuable time to express appreciation and strengthen the team after a long, hard year and begin the preparation for another year ahead.  In today’s challenging economic environment, providing recognition for employees and teams who are facing aggressive competitors, significant pricing pressures, and other difficult situations, the recognition from leaders becomes even more critical to sustaining the health of an organization.

An important principle that we can anchor our efforts to build and strengthen our character during this time of year is gratefulness.  This is an important time for leaders to demonstrate through spoken and written words and specific actions, how grateful they are for the efforts of their teams over the prior year.  In my own experience, these were great times to re-engage with team members and reflect on sacrifices and express appreciation when the flow of the business was slowing down a bit and you could more readily enjoy the moment.    

However, I can also relate to (any maybe you can too) how that smooth and effective recognition plan is executed in the office, gets trampled at home with the craziness of the holidays, traffic in the malls, those last minute gifts, and visits with friends and family.  It is an all too common occurrence that we let the “busyness” of our home life put us in a position where we miss the opportunity to express gratefulness to those we care about most.  After discussions with a number of people, I can see that I am not alone in this reality.

Faced again with the sobering reminder that no accomplishment in the workplace could ever compensate for a failure at home, it is important that we set time aside during the holidays to express gratefulness to the individuals closest to us.  I am sure many leaders can specifically cite what type of recognition individuals on their work teams desire…one likes recognition in front of peers, another just wants money, while another would prefer recognition to be sent up the chain of command.   However, do we as parents, brothers/sisters, children, husbands/wives, know what specific ways our family members feel loved and appreciated?  Is it a nice note or word of encouragement, a special gift, a warm embrace, or just some one on one time?  I would encourage all of us to better understand the specific ways our loved ones feel appreciated so we can have a greater impact in our efforts to express our gratefulness. 

From experience, if we just “wing it,” we can be “way off” on this topic about how others like to be appreciated.  So, we should do our homework and ask, or find an interesting way to discover the ways our family members feel loved and appreciated.   There are a number of resources we can use and one I have found to be very helpful is Gary Chapman’s New York Times Best Seller, The Five Love Languages.  When you and those closest to you take this fun quiz, the answers may surprise you.  Either way, you will have the knowledge to be able to maximize your efforts to express your gratefulness to those closest to you as we close out another year.

Expressing gratefulness is an important aspect of building and strengthening character and our Character Creates Opportunity® to build strong relationships.

What ways have you found to express gratefulness to those around you?  Please share a comment below.

As we continue to build and strengthen our character, an important aspect is to acknowledge the importance of time in the choices we make.  There are two areas of time that we will review in today’s blog.

(1)    Time is an essential and limited resource.

“All my possessions for a moment of time.” Queen Elizabeth on her deathbed in 1603.

If we have lived long enough, we have all experienced the clarity that comes with an end of life experience for someone we love and respect.  We have no desire to call our stock broker, check our smartphone for a work email, the latest sports score, or any news on Facebook.  In those closing moments, the priorities of life get simple and clear.  We remain focused on family, friends, and shared experiences with those we love.

As we continue to build and strengthen our character, our gift of time will be used wisely when we make the most effective choices on how we spend it.  There are plenty of time management tools available to assist in guiding our choices (I particularly like The Eisenhower Method developed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower that was then popularized by Stephen Covey in his book, First Things First). “What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important” is a common phrase used in discussions about setting priorities.  We should use whatever tool or technique is helpful, but the principle is to create greater capacity for important activities by intentionally working to minimize or eliminate unimportant activities.

When we make more effective choices, we can maximize our gift of time.  In the process, we will continue to build and strengthen our character when we spend time on those activities that are important, but not urgent.  Things like developing short and long term goals, making specific plans to achieve those goals, spending time with loved ones, exercise, rest, etc. are all important ways to spend our time, but are often not urgent in our day to day mix of activities.  Spending our time jumping from one urgent issue to the next, then attempting to “catch our breath” in various activities like watching television or surfing of the internet, will bring about moments of weakness in our character and will result in us making poor choices in the way we treat others and strain the relationships of those we care about most.  We own the choice of how we spend our time and our Character Creates Opportunity® to maximize the gift of time.

(2)    Time is a great counselor.

Wisdom comes with time, experience, and learning.   School-age problems that seemed insurmountable as teenagers seem so trivial in our adult years.  “Make or break” challenges in the early years of marriage seem minor as the decades of married life pass.  Early struggles in parenting seem to become manageable as younger children pass through those same stages where we lost our patience with the first born of the family.

However, the reality is that some feel-good “secret tip for successful relationships” from a so-called expert cannot quickly dissipate that horrible feeling in our stomach or anxiousness in our mind when a relationship is recently strained. It is quite often that only the passage of time affords us the best perspective and insight into handling the problem in a more caring and understanding way.  Through the passage of time, we can develop greater patience, improved understanding, and appreciation for other points of view.

We can make effective choices to build and strengthen our character and gain wisdom faster by ensuring we remain teachable, choosing to learn from our experiences, and observe and learn from others.  In addition, when we make the critical choice to not quit on difficult relationships, we enable time to act as a great counselor in healing a strained relationship.

Time is a precious gift.  Our Character Creates Opportunity® to make effective choices in using it wisely.