rethink PERFECT

My brother Steve Sherlock and I have just agreed on a new pact:
We are still considering anger.
This means that we neither accept or reject such behavior….

We are not sure if we are responsible for it or not, or if anger is acceptable or not.

We do believe that we both have a line that can be crossed no matter how aware we are of this line. But that understanding our line can help.

And that the best way we consider to deal with this issue of anger is to inform others what we are considering, and see what they consider about it too, maybe, and possibly form a pact or agreement on it, upfront, before we cross the other’s line.

Att
Elizabeth Broderick – Sex Discrimination Commissioner

Hi Elizabeth, heard some of your speech today and thought I would just let you know if you want a change in attitudes to domestic violence you could already change 2 things:

1. Change the name from Domestic Violence to Domestic Abuse ie fight the causes not the symtoms. Abuse includes verbal abuse and both sexes are part of this problem not only men as most DV people make out.
2. Change number 1 will help with number change No 2. If you want to change men’s attitudes also on Domestic Abuse and get them on board then stop blaming them as the cause, simple!

I am not married and have little experience of Domestic Abuse but did take part an experimental relationship that seems to prove my point, but I will still not support any move for change unless change actually happens in some response to my above points.
Sorry.

From now on when you hear me raving about something, suggest that I sound shocked.
I think shocked is another form of anger dressed up. ie
like annoyed, frustrated,disappointed, distressed, shocked. All to try rationalise away my
anger into some acceptable form, in my view.

And all driven by my expectations that I get it all and get it now.
So much to learn grass hopper!

DECARRT is the name of the terms of engagement manual for our company, Pablow Inc. It is an acronym for the seven terms or steps that we believe contribute to a better environment for our team and ultimately better service and products for our customers.

1. Daring
2. Enjoyable
3. Considered
4. Accountable
5. Reasonable
6. Responsible
7. Transparent

It is based upon our mission statement or fundamental  belief that “stepping up” or taking the initiative is required to make any relationship, whether business or personal, a continual success. That is, to speak up when we can see that something needs to be said.

Stepping up “perfectly” is not an option, so it is more about learning to do it better and to improve our timing and mastering the art. So how we go about stepping up or sharing our own view is what these seven steps are about and what we believe, helps our team perform better.

Too many teams, in our view, can have just a few that dominate the stepping up process with too few in the team believing that their view will be listened to and acknowledged.
DECARRT is designed to encourage contribution from every team member, with the rewards for risk-taking being more than the benefits of staying silent when we have something to say.

Stepping up also explains why the “the customer is always right”. It is that customer that steps up and shares their feedback, that makes them always right. “Always right” because, they have bothered to step up and share their view and because, in our view, a wise person, in business or in life will realizes that the act of sharing one’s view, regardless or the content or delivery, is imperative if we are going to change and create a better way.

Over the following seven chapters we will endeavor to explain what we mean by these terms and how they play out in the running of Pablow.

Some fifteen years ago I had my one and only relationship and it was an experiment.
So, whereas most people have an ex-wife or ex-husband, I have an ex-periment.

It lasted for two years and the agreement made for this experiment was, that I help her stay in Australia and she would help me test all of my theories on relationships.

And I did learn.

When she hit me for the first time and I apologized to her for crossing her line,
I learned that it was the biggest mistake of my life.

What we had set up from that point on was, that if either of us crossed each other’s line we could get angry or even hit the other legitimately.

It was the beginning of the end for our relationship and the experiment.

In the end she got her residency but one year later returned to Russia.
And I got to learn this most simple and valuable of lessons.

That no matter what reason we have for hitting someone or even getting angry,
“crossing my line” is NEVER an excuse.

I heard a new saying yesterday, “nose bleed”.
Where someone will tell me that they are having a nose bleed when I talk too much or too deeply. I love it! and think it is a great way to let someone know when it is time to change the topic of conversation or simply move on.

I am not sure of the origin of the term but maybe it comes from the movie The Butterfly Effect, where, every time Evan, played by Ashton Kutcher, changes his future and his brain, he got a nose bleed.

So next time someone says “nose bleed”, simply thank them, have a laugh and change topics or partners.

Dear Emma

just thought I would give you my view on domestic violence.

If we stopped calling it Domestic Violence and simply referred to it as domestic abuse we could solve this problem, in my view.

Domestic violence comes from or is a symptom of domestic abuse which is perpetrated by both men and women. Continuing to simply demonize men as the single perpetrator, will get no change. I simply see this as a witch hunt by women on men, sorry, and have very little sympathy for the movement and the $40,000,000 being spent on it.

I do have a blog and a book that I have been working on this for 30 years called Rethink Perfect, the art of moderating our own disputes.

Http://rethinkperfect.com

I believe that because we accept angry behavior during a dispute, that it simply escalates over the time of relationships.

That anger and its accompanying behavior is a form of abuse.

If we simply agreed that anger and the abuse that comes with it, was unacceptable then we would be on our way to reducing domestic abuse and ultimately domestic violence.

Regards

Des Sherlock

I don’t think I can speak for you or them, us or we, unless you or them agree to it before
hand. That just leaves me, myself and I to speak and think for.

That should make my life a lot simpler.

My definition for an agreement is:
Two promises for now.

My definition for a compromise is:
Two promises forever (or for any time longer or shorter than “now”).

A contract is a example of trying to make an agreement last longer than now and a marriage or business contract are good examples, of what I call, a compromise.
The results of such contracts speak for themselves with varying degrees of successes and failures.

I believe that a two-promises-for-now agreement could be far more successful than contracted compromise.

Worth a try.

After stepping up and putting forward, our value statement for our business,
ie We stand up for stepping up, I asked Steve, my bro and business partner, why do we do this and he answered on Skype:
“Because without stepping up magic doesn’t happen‏”

A fair point but why do we think magic can happen by stepping up?
After all, as I pointed out that we also have “Reasonable” as one of our values but not “magic”.

So for what reason do we stand up for stepping up?
He then answered:
“Coz the topic gets looked at when someone puts it centre stage – and we put our brains to work on that topic by standing up for its introduction…And the “magic” can happen”

My final reply was that “I don’t think it is the topic that gets looked at so much as‏ the person’s view, on the topic, that gets looked at when they step up‏…it is our bias that is called to question…so I think we stand up for stepping up because it exposes our biases on both sides…it starts the, much needed, conversation.

Most of the books that I have read in the past have basically be on Behavioral Economics and on our cognitive biases.

Steve said,
“Yeah, good point. By exposing our biases the unreasonable ones can be left behind and the reasonable ones taken up.”‏

I reiterated,
“Yeah the reasonable ones are innocent until proven guilty of being unreasonable…we all could save ourselves 20 years of work if we understood this simple principle.”

Steve:
“Yeah and hence having a system that encourages biases to be exposed in turn increases the offsetting, perhaps.”

Des:
“…and having a system that closes-down stepping-up enhances the biases.‏
Hence how Kodak died (maybe)‏. Stepping up and standing up for stepping up should, in theory reduce biased decisions…hence having biases is not the problem but having a bias about your bias, ie close-down stepping-up, is the death to magic‏ in my view.

Just watched this BBC doco on SBS, called‏ The Battle in Your Mind‏, on Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow‏, …a tough book to read‏ but basically based on his Nobel prize for economics, on the win-loss bias.

But funny they summed up the thinking that System 1 (fast thinking) can be controlled by understanding System 2 (slow thinking)‏.

But what I think is that I can use the other person’s biases to offset my own and vice versa. I simply think that conversation and stepping up to create them, is to over come our biases and results in a convergence of ideas. So simple really.