debby.hallett@gmail.com – Page 6

Me, Myself and I

Which is correct?

Give the completed form to Sarah or myself.
Give the completed form to Sarah or I.
Give the completed form to Sarah or me.

Of course, it’s number 3. But many people actually talk like the examples in the other two. It’s often because they can’t remember the grammar rule once there is more than one person involved. Or they are trying to avoid the spotlight on ‘self’ that comes from me.

Here’s an easy way to figure it out, based on what you DO know.

Simply remove the other person from the sentence.

“Give the completed form to me.” You wouldn’t say “Give the completed form to I.” And most of us wouldn’t say “Give the completed form to myself.” Well, we DO hear people say that, but they sound very ignorant when they do.

Use myself only when you have used I earlier in the same sentence: ‘I am not particularly fond of goat cheese myself‘”

“Please send any comments to me.”

“I entered the comments in the database myself.”

“My husband and I are going on holiday.” (Not “My husband and me are… ” , not “My husband and myself are…”)

If the word is the object of a preposition (for example, to me, from me, about me, etc) then use me. I hear SO many people say, “It meant so much to my husband and I.”

It meant so much to I?

Ouch.

StatCounter

I installed Stat Counter on this blogsite a few days ago. It’s great! It counts hits, tracks new and returning visitors, their locations in the world, where they landed, where they exited to, how long they stayed and all sorts of other stats that I’m certain will be useful someday.

StatCounter make no secret of the fact that they aim to become the world’s number one web stat provider. Of course, they have Google Analytics (GA) to beat out.

A friend of mine had GA. When I first installed Stat Counter, I IM’d him to go see my website so I could watch the StatCounts climb. He said GA doesn’t show you your stats until the next day.

Want real time stats? I like StatCounter.

Diplomat

The Diplomat focuses attention on other people: family, friends, colleagues, the work group, the company or organization, church, or nation. Usually one of these groups is the primary focus.

The Diplomat’s chief desire is to belong, to be included in the group.

To the Diplomat, others’ values are the highest good. Others define what’s valued, not oneself.

The Diplomat can provide loyalty and goodwill that act as organizational glue. But the Diplomat tends to smooth over or avoid altogether any potential conflict — harmony is to be maintained at all costs. Thus the Diplomat can become alienated from their work associates due to a tendency to brush off criticism of the status quo or suggestions for improvement.

The Diplomat often speaks in cliches.

The Diplomat’s opinions are likely to be the opinions of the people whose approval matters to them.

The Diplomat attempts to deflect negative feedback, because it’s construed as loss of face or status.

Diplomats are locked into their action logic and tend to be blind to other possibilities.

The Diplomat is unable to criticize others and to question group norms, as these others are the source of one’s primary value: to belong to the group

Distribution in managers

<6% of senior managers
< 9% of junior managers
But approximately 24% of first line managers.

The figures suggest that a Diplomat action logic limits opportunities for promotion.

A devlopmental model of human meaning making

As human beings, we develop throughout our lives, and we do so along several lines. Some examples of developmental lines are: intelligence, cognitive complexity, creativity, interpersonal relations, morality. A developmental model helps explain how genius can be cruel, how artists can be narcissistic: we develop along these lines independently.

The line I’m interested in is referred to as “ego development” or “action logic” or “meaning making”. Some people refer to it as the developmental line of cognitive complexity. The main model is the Leadership Development Framework, developed by William Torbert and his associates at Harthill Consulting, who expanded on original research by Jane Loevinger. I use the terms action logic, meaning making, developmental level, stage interchangeably.

This model explains a lot about how people develop and mature in the way that they observe the world and draw conclusions, what they notice, what they value, and how they make meaning of the world they live in.

Understanding this model can be instrumental in supporting staff to perform well in their jobs and in achieving personal satisfaction at work. Understanding this model can also help one to live a happier life: as someone said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

We develop through well-defined (and well-researched) stages throughout our lives. We pass through the stages in order, not skipping stages. We experience each stage in three possible ways:

A peak experience gives us a brief and tantalizing glimpse of a later stage action logic. These peak experiences are exciting, can be life-altering and we recall and talk about them for a long time.
When under stress, we regress to an earlier action logic, where we may feel more in control, or safer. Once the stress passes, or is managed adequately, we return to the action logic that is our ground of being.
Our ground of being is the developmental level, or stage, or action logic, where we usually dwell. This can be determined by a professionally validated assessment, such as the Leadership Development Profile.

In future posts, I’m going to write about each of the 7 main action logics we encounter in the adult world.

Opportunist
Diplomat
Expert
Achiever
Individualist
Strategist
Alchemist

There are earlier levels than Opportunist, but most of us pass through those as children.

There are later levels than Alchemist, but few adults reach these later stages.

So we won’t look at those here.

How to motivate (not)

People sometimes envy me, and I think that’s a bummer. The times I’m aware of it, it has to do with some perceived accomplishment of mine, that a person interprets as meaning that they can’t achieve it too. This is wrong on so many levels that it makes my head spin, and mires me in muck so that I can’t move.

Here are three scenarios I’ve noticed:

I used to send out a newsy Christmas letter to friends and family. (I know, I know.) But I had moved from America to England, and there was a lot of interesting stuff to share about the differences in life in the two countries and my experience of the differences. One friend said this: “You write so well!! I LOVE to get your letters! I know I’ll never write this well, so I may as well give up. I’ll never write the great novel I’ve dreamed of, like, forever.” Or words to that effect.
In a support group I’m part of, I share about my successes and not-so-successes. The latter are handled fine, with much building up and positive talk to fight my tendencey to succumb to the inertia of discouragement. The former have been met with “Everytime I hear about your achievements, I feel SO bad about myself. Why can’t I have the success you’re having? I want to feel happy for you, and I do, really I do. But why am I such a messed up person?” Or words to that effect.
Once I was sharing with a friend my systematic approach to something I was tackling. I was telling how my strategies were intended to achieve an outcome that was in alignment with my purpose in life. (Yes, I really think like that. I know, I know.) And she listened politely for a minute, then said, “You should feel grateful for how much you have. You’re blessed with intelligence, health and positive outlook on life, which is much more than many people have. You should be satisfied with the abundance you have and not be so driven to get more.” Or words to that effect.

These examples are so much NOT the outcome I intended. They seem to indicate that:

I wanted to make them feel bad about their talents, to discourage them from trying to realise a dream.
I was ungrateful for what I have, and insensitive to other’s (self-perceived) sense of lack or not-good-enough inadequacy
their self-confidence was inversely related to mine: If I feel good about myself then they have to feel bad about themselves. What kind of backward thinking is that?
they believe life is a zero-sum game, where in order for me to win, you must lose. Or that there isn’t enough to go around, which means that what I get lots of, you won’t have enough of. How silly, really. Seriously.

In each of these cases, the message coming back to me from the world was that I had missed my mark. Where I meant to provide motvation, I de-motivated. Where I meant to bring a smile, I evoked pangs of defeat. Where I intended to be positive, I was felt to be insenstive.They compared themselves to me, and in their eyes, they came up short. I wrote not too long ago about No Comparison; I think it should be a rule for life.

I intend to look around me for instances where I am unintentionally feeding back something that’s not very useful to them, or that says everything about me and my personal hang-ups and very little (or nothing) about them or their way of being in the world.

Elections – first past the post

We’re in the final days of the national election here in the UK, and today I realised something that I hadn’t before. There’s a constituency in South Dorset where the labour MP won with 42% of the vote. That means 68% of the people who voted there, did not want HIM as their MP.

I’m not sure what sort of voting system would prevent that, but it does seem a bit wrong in a democracy, that the winner was not supported by the majority. But then I recall there are instances of that in the USA too. A person can win the popular vote and not be president. Call me idealistic (in a loud voice, please) but I think there should be a better way.

What about a system of run-off elections? If there isn’t a majority winner, a run-off of the top two finishers determines the winner. Or make it live on the telly, and you vote off the least popular, one after another, until one remains. But that would make it like Big Brother, where the eventual winner is the least unpopular, rather than necessarily the most popular, if you see what I mean. (And that’s sort of like it is now, isn’t it?)

It’s not a real answer.

How can you be sure that people who vote for candidates who don’t win a seat still have a voice in their democratic government?

Here’s someone’s suggestion: we hold a general election and vote for who we want as PM, and also one person as a representative MP. And then we seat the top 660 vote-getters as MPs. On second thought, that wouldn’t be so good either.

All the peeps who have degrees in politics, I could use your insight into this.

It seems a right mess.

Theoretically, a candidate could win his or her seat with a minority of his constituency’s support. Then they could win the leadership contest of his party with a minority vote as well. Then the party could come in third in the general election’s popular vote, and the hung parliament (no party with a majority) would force a coalition government, and they could decide to make this person Prime Minster of the United Kingdom. NO!

I’m told the Queen can just appoint her Prime Minister. What if Her Majesty rang ME to say “We require your service as Prime Minister”. Wow! That would be amazing. And in that way I could be Prime Minister without a single citizen having voted for me.

That’s my kind of democracy.

Fail to Plan = Plan to Fail

If you fail to plan then you plan to fail.

My friend Alex mentors a group of people starting up their own businesses. This week he told them, “You either Plan or you Gamble”.

This is an important message. I meet people all the time who have Big Dreams, and no plan, so nothing ever happens.

What is it that you’ve talked about doing? You’ve talked about it a lot, maybe even for years. (I’m sure your friends and family still listen raptly to you when you do. Yes indeed.)

For me, it’s been writing. For awhile I knew I could write a bestselling novel. I started one or two of them. Then I told everyone about how I was going to write important non-fiction books that took incomprehensible material and ‘translated’ it into language that everyone could understand. It would change people’s lives; I was committed to a life of service. I took writing courses, read writing books, joined groups where we supported each other to write better, even became a lifetime member of an online writing university. Years of talking about it and making halfhearted attempts. In recent years (maybe 3) I’ve been talking about blogging. I bought every book, tried it 2 or three times and each time it lapsed.

NO plan = NO success.

Someone challenged me to fish or cut bait; he said that I needed to either DO it, or shut up about it.

So, here I am blogging 5 days of of the week, working from a plan, and DOING it! I feel good about it, AND optimistic that the next thing I decide I want, I can have.

All I need is a plan. (And then of course, to follow the plan.)

Let me know how your plans are going….

Oxford Integral Circle – election fever

Last night the Oxford Integral Circle met up, and the topic for the night was the UK national election.

What factors influence your decision on how to vote?
How does Integral play a part in it?

A fascinating, and lively (!) discussion ensued, and the evening’s facilitator, Alex Goodall is going to write up our results for publication. But I wanted to write about my own personal insight.

Mostly frustrated by campaign rhetoric, I have tried to look deeper and beyond, in order to see if I can find out what they really stand for. But it’s hard. Candidates govern themselves strictly, and I doubt we get the chance to hear what they really think, or to explore how they arrive at their stances and policies.

I notice that I try to look for some clue as to their development level. Are they Tier 1 thinkers, or Tier 2? Of course, all I have to judge by is what they say and how they say it.

During the second debate, an audience member asked the candidates how they were going to tackle crime in the communities. The question reminded me of one of the sentence stems in Harthill’s Leadership Development Framework (LDF – a sentence completion test that is a pointer to your complexity of meaning making, or action logic). One of the LDF stems is: Crime and delinquency could be halted if… I thought that was pretty similar to what was being asked of the candidates.

I remember my surprise when David Cameron said something to the effect of, ‘We’ll make sure they know they’ll be punished, and fast, that they know they’ll go to prison.’ Something like that. That sort of answer is a rather low-rated response on the LDF. Then Nick Clegg said something to the effect that ‘we want families and communitites to work together, to improve the social systems to deal with the causes.’ Something like that. He spoke about how while young people are imprisoned, sometimes for quite minor offenses, they learn more ways to re-offend once they’re out. He thought the system was set up to teach delinquents how to be lifelong criminals. (I’m paraphrasing.) That’s a quite late stage action logic was of looking at what’s a pretty complex problem. I don’t remember what Gordon Brown said.

But here’s MY problem. How can I tell if what they say accurately reflects their level of development? Or, is the level of their message geared toward the level they think their constituents will want to hear or that they can understand? I don’t know how to tell. I’m going to watch the third debate tonight through this lens.

I wonder how it would work if I wrote a letter to my local MP (who answers letters) asking him a question in a way that’s intended to reveal his level of development? Or, convince government that senior members must take the LDF and have their results published. Hah!

Mind Map your ideas until “aha!”

I have more ideas than I can follow, and sometimes I get jumbled up and everything slows to a crawl until I can get my ideas sorted out.

Mind mapping is amazing! Either with software such as Mind Manager or Free Mind, or just on a big piece of paper with a pencil and eraser, you can plot out your ideas, draw and re-draw connections until you reach that magical point of “Aha!” when things fall into place and you have a new insight.

I like the electronic versions because they are so easy to re-arrange. Just drag and drop and your ideas are clustered in new ways.

The next big thing for me to get my head around is the plethora of ideas and topics for this blog. I’ve been posting for three weeks now, and the shotgun approach is starting to get to me. (And if you’ve been reading my posts, it may very well be starting to get to you, too). Since this coming weekend is a bank holiday, I’m going to devote some of my free time to mind mapping my blog topics. I think that it will help me to focus on main topics, and also to spend a few days on one bigger topic, blogging on interesting related things. That will make my days more stress free. And I bet I’ll get more done too.

Consistency is underrated

I’m beginning to think that the main way to success is consistency — consistently taking another step forward, today, into the future you want.

Think about people who you know who don’t follow through with what they say they will do. Some would say, ‘You can’t trust them.’ But it’s not that, exactly. It’s that you can trust them to behave consistently. If they consistently fail to keep their word, then that’s what you can rely on.

Hey. So take a look at where you are consistent. Is it the message you really want to deliver?