rethink PERFECT

There are over 300 road rules in Australia and they are generally pretty standard across the country. Obviously the most important rules are that we drive on the left side of the road, stop at red lights and travel at 60km on unsigned roads. Imagine a world without road rules?
Probably the closest to this is on Indian inner city roads, where it looks more like a free for all with cows getting right of way and as a result the efficiency of traveling on their roads is diminished with very slow traffic. speeds

Now imagine a friendship, partnership or relationship without any rules of engagement. It would be like everything was hit and miss. Where we would consider ourselves very lucky to have a single lifelong friend or partner. Where disputes and complaints would be the norm not the exception. Where relationships are continuously failing by more than 50% at a cost to society in the hundreds of billions annually. Welcome to the real world.

So why do we not have explicit rules of engagement that we all agree to use? I guess it is pretty simple in that whatever rules we did have there would always be someone that would try exploit them and us. Alas , we seem to have thrown out the baby with the bath water. There was one bloke that apparently stated one basic rule of engagement referred to as the Golden Rule where we treat others as we would have others treat us. Not bad. Now all we have to work out is how we would like to be treated.

Most people have their own set of standards or values and spend the rest of their lives trying to hook up with people that have similar values and execution of them. Rarely can a person succulently explain what these values consist of. But what if there was a set of standards that the big man was alluding to that could simple be explained and shared. That we all wish to be treated in a similar set of values, even though we may not wish to treat others with the same high standards.

Well I am guessing that they exist and am proposing them as part of this thesis or my “treaty”. That there are at least six rules of engagement that encompass our value structure and offer the listener far more power than he has ever had before. Which I think is very important considering that we do not have an on-off switch for our ears. They include 3 rules for speaking and 3 for responding and can be found in chapter 2.

I just watched The Wild Horse Redemption a doco on prisoners training wild horses using the “Horse Whisperer” technique and it is such an insight into the human condition. I really think we need a bit of “Human Whispering” applied to us to calm our fears.

So, yes I am comparing us with wild horses, especially when we get, or put ourselves into a corner.
One horse gave the trainer an almighty kick but instead of reacting aggressively he just pointed out that the horse is scared and that is why he kick out. How many times do we “kick out” because of our fears? Unfortunately most of us don’t have understanding trainers to understand our fears, but instead the people we kick out at kick back even harder. http://youtu.be/tboAHyRP1Ds

I guess my demands of people were/are implicit and not so explicit.

Is there anything wrong with having demands? We all have heard of "reasonable demands". For example, to clean up after oneself is a reasonable demand, explicit or implicit. And I suppose we all think that our own demands are always reasonable, which may or may not be the case. Anyway I much prefer explicit demands at least there are no shocks afterwards.

I am trying to make any demands that I may have explicit, so that they can be looked at to see if they are reasonable or not.

I think that most relationships are built on implicit demands and implicit agreements and that is the reason that they fail. With explicit demands (demands in the open) there would probably be a lot less failed relationships as there would be a lot less relationships.

I had started to reply to your post Kim but realised that I/we may be heading for a fall.

If we did have these agreements it would be incumbent of me to let you know that as much as I Appreciate your reply, and can Acknowledge your point is valid and would be only too pleased to respond. I am sorry but would like to Apologise and ask you if you could rephrase your question as there is an element of rhetoric and accusation which is not Acceptable to me:

"What is the longest you have been able to impose 3A logic on a human interaction?"

To me, the question has an element of accusation in it. The use of the word "imposing” of a certain “logic” which I have allowed myself to be accused by other members of this group before.

The 6A rules of engagement are not my “logic” that I am “imposing” on anyone Kim. I think, rather I am “proposing” 6 words/concepts for anyone to use in a trial agreement when interacting with me, only.
They are there to protect me/them from such possible accusations. So at this stage Kim, I once again apologise, but I don’t feel comfortable continuing until this issue of "imposing" verses “proposing” is addressed which comes under the banner of Accountable language, I think.

Like creativity, I think conflict starts with a spark, but in this case, unlike how creativity needs to be fanned, the spark of conflict needs to be extinguished as soon as possible.

Thanks for asking Charlotte and the chance for me to share my needs.

The 6 rules of engagement I propose we try are 6 words beginning with A.
That we both try to speak with Adjustable, Accountable and ultimately Acceptable language.
That if we fail to achieve this, we notify the other with Appreciation, Acknowledgment and Apology (speech in defense).

Two caveats are for any new agreements we start with "From now on…" and we can end a conversation at any time with a DFM or Direct Feedback Moment.

That is it Charlotte my framework that has taken 25 years to assemble. If you are willing to agree to try them with me, I think it becomes self apparent after using them.

I woke up this morning and retrofitted my past interesting discussions.

If my framework (I call it RethinkPerfect) is as useful as I think it is then I should be able to apply it to my past "interesting" discussions. Yes, they were interesting to me in the past, so much so that I can still recall the words, sentences, and context from 13 years ago as though it was yesterday.

So I applied my tools and yes, I think they would have been successful especially if I made sure that I had an agreement, with the person that I had the interesting discussions with, that we use or try these tools out before our "interesting" discussion actually took place (and got out of hand).

For me preparation is king and although I have prepared afterwards (that it the Irish in me) I can now retrofit my past life as my first "use" or "practice" in forming my "habit" for my framework.

I feel confident that if I get similar initial agreements, with the people I encounter in the future, I can avoid the conflict that can and has occurred during “interesting” discussions without these simple tools of engagement being temporally agreed to, with me.
Without this willingness to try on both our sides I will not be engaging, it is that simple and “my democratic right”, as Graeme pointed out about Maslow and my hierarchy of needs.

Anyone wishing to hear my six simple rules of engagement, that I wish to be agreed to before discussion, can let me know. If there are no takers I will understand and please ignore this post.

The mating cycle of the Long Finned Eel is an amazing thing. It gets a call of nature to reproduce and heads back to the ocean from where it lives in inland estuarary along Australia’s eastern states. It makes its way across shallow ponds and can crawl over land between ponds with this desperate desire to make its way to the ocean and eventually are believed to spawn in the Coral Sea near New Caledonia thousands of kilometres from where they lived. Such incredable forces drives them on their quest to mate.
So what cycle do us humans embark on? Surely, if we are at the top of the chain in the animal kingdom, we would have an even more driven and complex mating cycle? Now I don’t mean sliding down to the local pub to pick up a quicky on the weekend. Where is our mating cycle and complex drive that means that we will successfully reproduce optimum offspring. I have yet to see us act this mating cycle out as nature has meant us to.

With all the talk about banning the Burka for security reasons, then surely these same people would be saying ban the Hoody due to their use in the London riots

Glad you asked Kim.
Ok, I thought that this issue was a side issue for me and my bro in how we approach people when they chose to use language like "you can’t do this" or "you have to do that" etc.
But as it is turning out it has become the other half of the whole problem.
In the case of this person (Ray) I was conversing with I had planned to use my 3 speaking A’s
ie Appreciate, Acknowledge, Apology but instead I fell into my old habits, even though I have been working on this concept for over 25 years.

So when Ray said “You still a need “truth” in your life”, I proceeded to try to talk her out of this concept or convert her thinking. When in theory I believe in converting my own concepts not others. And it took me a couple of days before I noticed my error.

How I could have approached Ray’s statement was by doing some rethinking and then forming the following specification:
Appreciate: “Thanks for this opportunity to try my latest reply Ray….
Acknowledge: I have just noticed that your statement is not acceptable for me as it does not sound adjustable or accountable enough for me.
Apology(speech in defense) : I am sorry Ray but can you help me out and rephrase it so that it is more adjustable, accountable and ultimately more acceptable for me?

Now to date I have never approached a conversation in this manner and am unsure of what her reply would have been
but it would have been in context to what we had talked about to that point.

Now some people might think that this type of reply to Ray would be unacceptable but to me I would rather this approach than someone telling me what I SHOULD do or how I SHOULD think or ask me some rhetorical question.
But that may just be me.