“Certitude” or the “attitude of certainty”, I think, is one of the best and worst features of a person.
Certainty can be defined as either: (Wikipedia)
1. perfect knowledge that has total security from error, or
2. the mental state of being without doubt
Instant Thinking
I deal for when we are driving a car and need to make hundreds of instant decisions per minute.
Long Term Thinking
Not so good for long term thinking when working in groups of two or more.
A very common technique to try prime us into not adding a diverse or dissenting view is to use the word “absolutely”. This is a great sales technique, is very hard to rebut and seems to have been adopted by people that are trying to impress us or win us as a friend.
I see it more as a swear word and would prefer people refrain from using it in my company.
Nothing wrong with simply saying “yes” or “no”.
1. All agreements can be revisited
2. Encourage diverse thinking and dissent
3. Complain responsibly by going direct to the person
4. Be prepared for the failure
5. Make requests not demands
6. Speak with Adjustable, Accountable and Acceptable language
7. Respond with Appreciation, Acknowledgment, and Apology
8. If you lose it (your cool) we’ve lost it (the plot)
9. Don’t try to convert others, convert our own concepts.
10. Separate content from delivery
What is a “phase transition” and how does it apply to relationships?
A phase transition is what Michael J. Mauboussin refers to in his book Think Twice, when talking about the millennium bridge “failure” or design flaw. The bridge was designed and built with a flaw that when 165 people walked across, it became extremely unstable oscillating from side to side. However with only 10 people less on the bridge, the movement was not so noticeable. It was this phase of adding just 10 people that created this noticeable and extreme phase transition.
Other examples of a phase transition in nature is the transition of water into its various states, we could use the analogy of the “straw that broke the camel’s back”, or “the last straw”.
Well, we all know that this happens in relationships also, don’t we. How many times have we heard the loud and unpleasant screech, “I’m sick of this”. Five times previously and we haven”t heard a peep, but just one more time and bam! we’re in trouble.
Phase transitions are used to explain and predict catastrophic failure that can occur such as an economist might use for the stock market.
I guess anyone that has been separated or divorced will be aware of a phase transition. One day you are there and the next day you’re not, and you wonder how did it get to this point without you realising you were headed for the fall.
So, what caused the phase transition of the millennium bridge? Simple. As the bridge began to sway, the people on it widened their strides to counter the oscillation. They did this in unison, with the oscillation, which created even more side-ward motion until it became extreme.
It was their “coordinated behaviour” or lack of diversity in movement that created the problem in the system (and the design that did not prepare for the failure). It is the same lack of diversity that can occur in a relations, that can eventually tip it over into a phase transition. The failure to speak up and inject diverse thinking into the relationship, instead of securing the relationship, can in actual fact set it up for a catastrophic failure, over time.
How we inject and receive our diverse view points, so that our dissent is accepted, is what Rethink Perfect is about.
Why is it that so many young people today seem to want to inspire, influence and win new friends?
Well, anyone with this goal are not about to inspire or win me over and will only influence me to write this post, so you have at least achieved something, thanks.
One thing to be aware of is that someone with a goal to inspire and influence us is less likely to tell you the whole story. In my view they won’t lie, they will just leave out part of the truth, the part that will not inspire us.
The book by Dale Carnegie “How to Win Friends and Influence People” was written over 70 years ago. Surely we have learned something more since then? Maybe not.
Anyway, I have been around for too long to get sucked in by such an approach. Besides, I am so much more inspired by people that call a spade a spade and offer dissent and a diverse point of view.
I’m not impressed or inspired sorry.
In Think Twice, Michael Mauboussin’s book on harnessing the power of counter intuition, he talks on page 34 about seeking out dissent by finding data from “….reliable sources that offer conclusions different than yours. This helps avoid a foolish inconsistency”. And “when possible surround yourself with people that have dissenting views. This is emotionally and intellectually very difficult but is highly effective in exposing alternatives.” Rethink Perfect is designed to reduce the emotional and intellectual difficulty of having relations with people with dissenting views.
In Guy Kawasaki’s book Enchantment, he talks about having a diverse team.
” A diverse team helps make enchantment last, because people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and skills keep a cause fresh and relevant. By contrast when a naked emperor runs a kingdom of sycophants and clones, the cause moves towards mediocrity.”
Rethink Perfect is my way of encouraging and maintaining diverse views during interpersonal relations.
I’m staying with my mum at the moment and I just realised that she
reminds me of Madge and I sound like Dame Edna.
Chapter 9. DFM Direct Feedback Moment
The goal of this chapter is to create and agree to use a tool that will pause a conversation when one of us thinks we have reached a point where we cannot reach an agreement. What I call a truce but at the same time we are still working behind the scenes with our own thinking to resolve the dispute or disagreement. To come up with a tool that replaces such idioms as
" If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." or "Let’s agree to disagree".A DFM or Direct Feedback Moment is such a tool to take the heat out of a dispute. I have created my own idiom that goes more like "Let’s agree how to disagree." Or "Let’s disagree to agree."
The Irony is that some women can still spend so much time and effort
planning their wedding day or pay fortune for someone else to plan it.
But when I mention planning for perfect relations, as well, they
seem to balk at the word “plan”, as though it will take away something
from their relationship rather than add to it. On the one hand they are
looking for stability, security and commitment in their relationship but
on the other they expect spontaneity and think that they can’t get that
with a “plan”. I think it is still possible to have both and that planning
can open up a relationship to so much more than we ever thought we
could have.
So what is it about me that makes me claim that I am an independent observer? Technically I have never been in a relationship other than an experimental one and so answer to no one. I have never received a cent for anything I have written here. I am not a member of any psychology or relationship organisation. I have no boss. I am not an academic. I am not "dependant" on anyone for sex or money, power, support, or endorsement to boost my ego. I guess some more dependant people, within these organisations, will consider me under qualified and my ideas underdeveloped and untested.
This may well be true but it shouldn’t stop them from looking at each idea or concept and spotting the error in my logic or reasoning and offer me feedback. Being a dependant observer, however is more than likely going to hinder their independence. Imagine if anything I am saying here is valid, each person reading this will have to ask themselves would they willing to retrofit any of their existing relationships at the risk of losing them.
As you can see, this could explain why relationship theory has changed very little over the years.
rethink PERFECT 