Things are as they are, not as you want them to be

You may already have come across an article by Charles J. Sykes called: “Some rules kids won’t learn in school”. The whole article is worth reading, but here are some extracts that seem appropriate for a Monday morning.

The original was printed in The San Diego Union Tribune in 1996. In the intervening 12 years, nothing has altered the truth of what Mr. Sykes wrote. That’s a little depressing, but I guess social revolutions take a good deal longer than that and the next one to affect us hasn’t even started. Continued

Maybe high expectations aren’t quite as positive as you thought

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen has a piece in TIME magazine’s ‘Work in Progress’ blog that throws an odd sidelight on what it may really mean to approach your work in a positive frame of mind (”Positive thinking leads to…job dissatisfaction?“).

She cites a forthcoming research study by Dr. Olivia O’Neill, assistant professor of management the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, showing that: employees “higher in positive affect had higher salary expectations, and changed organizations more frequently, which leads to lower overall job, career, and life satisfaction.”

If I’ve got that right, she’s saying people who have a positive outlook on life expect more from their work than they get. As a result, they end up with worse careers and lower levels of satisfaction with their life. Whew! That seems like a good reason to be miserable. Continued

What are most people tired of? Others saying how tired they are.

Do you — or people around you — claim to be tired all the time? You maybe working extra hard — harder than everyone else . . . or you may be full of shit. That’s the message in this article by Greg Williams, titled “Being Tired is Not a Status Symbol”.

Showing how overworked you are can become a nasty piece of self-display: a way of telling others that you’re too important to have a moment to yourself for rest; that the place would fall down without your constant and oh-so-essential ministrations. This kind of tiredness is a not very subtle way of tooting your own horn, which makes it a bore to everyone else — especially if they are all genuinely tired.

Assholes used to pretend they could take anything thrown at them and still show no signs of wear and tear. Now, it seems, the fashion is for these types to mop their brows, sigh heavily, and ‘candidly’ admit to being totally exhausted. Continued

Too many people rely on everything from blind intuition to excessive data collection when reasoning is a hand to help solve the toughest problem.

Do you seek help from others to work through your problems? If you do, it’s probably not because they have any specific knowledge about the subject. That’s not necessary. You usually have all the knowledge required. What you don’t know is how to organize your thoughts and come to a logical and reasoned conclusion.

Don’t rely on experience

If you have lots of experience, that may lead you to assume you can make quick decisions without bothering to collect background data. Sometimes it may work, but using your experience in this way can be a drawback. There will be a tendency to choose the answer which fits what you know. Continued

Success often needs determination, but when does tenacity slip over into obsession?

One of the toughest day-to-day decisions most people have to make is knowing when to let go and walk away. Few of us like to give up on something we’ve put time and energy into; the more of both we’ve committed — plus our credibility and sometimes our cash — the less happy we feel at the idea that even winning may not be worth the cost.

That’s the question posed by this article from The Age, an Australian newspaper, in one of its associated blogs (“Should I stay or should I go?”):

While I agree that entrepreneurs need to have a focus on their goals — often bordering on obsession — sometimes, you can be wasting time and energy on a project that isn’t worth the effort. Your focus could be better spent on something that’s going to reap you greater rewards. So how do you determine if your energies are better directed elsewhere?

The author suggests that you answer three questions to find the right path:

• Is price your point of differentiation? (Clearly, this only applies to decisions about launching a new product or business.)
• Is it impacting your family, health or sanity? (That’s key for all personal and professional career choices, as well as purely business ones, especially for anyone prone to bouts of being a workaholic.)
• Look into the future — will your product/service be superseded? (You can apply this to personal issues by substituting the question: “Will any skills and experience gained be superseded in the foreseeable future. Becoming an expert in a dying specialism may not be a sound use of time or energy.)

Difficult questions, but well worth thinking about if they can save you from banging your head against some obstacle until you drive out your remaining wits.

Technorati Tags: decision-making, letting go, commitment, tenacity, entrepreneur, balancing cost and success, risk-taking

Here’s an interesting snippet from “Stumbling and Mumbling” on the subject of Inequality and Performance. It has possible implications for any situation in which some people are marked out as “high performers” and given an obvious incentive as a result, like extra payment.

This an excerpt from the article: Continued

Claire Fowler, writing in The Guardian blogs (“Who needs role models?”), poses some interesting questions, especially for women seeking to get on in business and destroy the last remnants of the ‘glass ceiling.’

Here’s a taste of what she says: Continued