Judge If It's Paralysis-By-Analysis

A mother instructs her child not to run too fast, not to run outside the given track in the garden, not to run without sports shoes, etc. etc.

She'd seen the child injuring herself earlier in absence of observing the discipline of 'not-to' such as above.

Another mother sitting next to her appeared appreciative. She didn't hesitate to share her experience of how her non-observant son had damaged his hamstring muscles irreversibly. She was concerned that her son had been living with the pain since years.

The pathological and clinical tests, investigations, analysis and treatments are now companion for the lifetime, she said.

Question is, is the former approach, the 'nagging' one, correct?

Obviously, but not so obviously!

Former approach can be called as judgemental based on seed-stage deviations that probably were thought to lead to major deviations or crises if not kept under check. It's about commonsensical risk management.

Latter one, the one that involved accidents and treatments, is an analytical approach that reactively analyses major deviations already occurred.

Former one is based on real-time (genjitsu) observations of real-facts-and-conditions of things and people (gembutsu) at the real-place of happening (gemba).

Latter one usually needs extensive analysis. At times it leads to 'paralysis-by-analysis' that necessitates intervention of judgement in order to unlock the tie and move ahead.

Former approach is easy, fast and proactive although seems to appear like 'nagging'. Of course it is expected to incorporate factual learnings from past.

The latter is difficult, time-consuming and reactive one. It's usually a post-mortem that often necessitates involvement of specialist agencies. Most often it results into repentance of irreversible damage and costs.

Importance of structured analysis however can't be undermined particularly if it's for exploratory or descriptive research in order to study cause-effect relationship of an hypothesis on an observed phenomenon in real-time (genjitsu) or for future innovations.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
When Safety Becomes Sorry
Drove To Hell ... Almost ! 
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling
Take Habits For A Ride
How Many Times Do You Wash Hands
In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !!
Part-1
In-big-problem? Wear-hats-to-solve-it! Part-2
How To Make A Difference
Big-Be Or Bug-Be !
A Ride To Hell
Make checklists your friends
Nauseous Communication Gaps
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam!
Will It Work Here? 
That's How Morons Work
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable
Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass 
Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save! 
Waste-to-eat-sea-to-drink
Don't Save Water on Holi-day
Be Shame-less Or Water-less

Listen To The Iceberg Beyond Tip

If you want to solve a problem accurately then first step is to define it accurately.

In order to define it accurately you need to listen to various versions of the problem. 

If we don't listen we'll end up learning only tip of the iceberg. Listening is "hearing what isn't said" as Peter Drucker emphasises about "The most important thing in communication".

We don't learn new things because we don't listen. Before even hearing completely, we silently get busy in strategising to speak out our disagreement with other's ideas.

Even in dictionary there's a difference between the two. Listening is 'to pay attention'. Hearing is to be able to 'perceive' sounds that fall on ear.

Most often we get distracted by the speaker's inability to communicate. In a given situation, rather than grabbing her real feelings and the content s/he tries to present we lose most of the information, inadvertently at times. 

Many a time thoughts presented to us get sensored by the presenter depending upon her hidden agenda. It could be dangerous if one gets influenced by presentation-quality of the presenter under such circumstances, be it a customer, a supplier or an employee. Better the presentation better is the impression likely to be and vice versa. 

But after all an impression need not be a reality. As a result we end up 'perceiving' depending upon our impressions and what we hear.

Listening is 'to pay attention' to the deeper content and feelings scratching beyond the surface. In other words, to put it more accurately, we need to actively-listen.

Active-listening is like the way a mother 'listens' to her child. Even an illiterate mother is able to do so to her new-born one. She has her own way to find out what the child tries to communicate through her crying 'speak'. She 'throws' various options at the child and does a quick 'mix-n-match' of the 'contents' to find out near-perfect need of the child. She creates easy channels of communication and keeps them open through her judgemental PDCA¹ cycles in real time until the problem is captured and solved in totality.

This is an important skill to improve behavior of people and to improve relationships with an aim to resolve conflicts between two people or among groups of people.

Intent of the listener should be unbiased though. 

In case of a fight between two children, for instance, a matured mother would listen to content (complete facts) and sense negative or positive intent if any of both the sides with a positive intent of resolving conflict for common-good.

Extending this analogy of lack of positive intent by the big brother further one would be able to find out roots of why and how 'gossipers', 'informers' and 'frenemies' (enemies who 'act' like friends) get born in various settings and walks of life. 

So if you don't want to get disappointed later it's important to focus more on content and the intent of the speaker (the need to be a good listener) rather than fluency and beauty of communication (the want of a bad listener). Better to focus more on substance rather than style.

That way not only presence of a person is more likely to get recognised and respected but also iceberg of the problem is likely to be acknowledged and captured more accurately. 

Correct definition is like reaching half the solution to the problem. Rest half gets addressed with continued active-listening.

A MaiKu© poem on the subject:

Rains out-of-season

Child cries at 3 A.M. for no reason

Miss the bus on most occasion

MaiKu© Is My-Haiku

Footnote-1 ¹PDCA cycle of improvement as in Kaizen: Plan or Assess. Do or pilot-implementation as per preliminary assessment. Check or Validate the pilot-implementation before full implementation. Act or Improve by next cycle of assessment.

Success Or Failure: What Do You Like?

This blog-post is a standalone extenson of my blog-post titled In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !! When the door-lock referred in there failed to open 's/he' (character in the blogpost) overcame the initial panic by 'dwelling-a-while' in a smile (on self)!

In the 'relaxed' moments thereafter, s/he didn't 'worry' about the situation as a problem although appeared concerned' about it. S/he considered it as a passing-phase. The adult-ego part of her mind as in Transactional-Analysis (TA) considered the problem as a stepping-stone! Problems as opportunities in work-clothes' as Henri Kaiser says. S/he crossed the 'stone' with care.

Most often rather than end-result itself, it is 'worry' in the interim (before and after an event fueled by Murphy's-law as they say) that intimidates & affects activities in the present. It consummates us in the process. It pushes even the bravest of the braves towards undesired results as its ill-effects.

Why does this happen?

There is a thin line between 'worry' and 'concern'! 

From the perspective of Transactional-Analysis, former is the prerogative of child-ego or parent-ego. Latter is that of the adult-ego. While day-dreaming about unpleasant things of past or future, the worry-struck person forces herself into inaction. S/he pushes herself into a vicious cycle of negative thoughts as happened in the case of the locked-situation referred above.

When 'care' was taken with 'positive-attitude' (rather with 'meditative-attitude' of 'concern') locked-equipment did behave favorably. It has scientific-explanation to it though. 

Perhaps an equipment 'behaves' the way the concerned operator/mechanic behaves or causes it to behave. May be behavior of machines around us is often the 'reflection' of the 'behavior' of the concerned operator.

Although a little difficult to get convinced, rather than the situation itself it's the meditative-positive 'attitude' in the interim towards a situation that is likely to help. Meditative-positive-attitude reminds one's adult-ego to revolve her thinking around what one really 'needs'. Mere positive-attitude instead may unnecessarily 'push' one's child-ego or parent-ego in the rat-race of what others 'want' of you.

So after training the mind to calm down by  'forcibly dwelling' in pleasurable moments imaginary though as above, as a natural sequel the next aim should be 'equanimity'.

What is Equanimity? 

Usually human nature or rather (the child-ego or parent-ego part of) the mind is programmed to rejoice successes and to cry-out failures. 

An equanimous behavior is: - not to (overly) worry about result/s per-se, - nor about the undesired effect of a cause or of multiple causes together as also - not to (overly) rejoice even if desired effects are achieved. 

First of all, both the desired as also the undesired effects may not last for ever. Moreover, indulging into rejoice or getting worried as the case may be hinders the learning process in either of the cases. 

An equanimous mind tends to study both the situations. 

And in work-life in particular, it studies corresponding processes in order to find out causes and their complex interrelationships that result into effects. The objective as the Robust-design fame Taguchi San says is to learn and act upon them in future in such a way that the desired causes  recur and undesired causes get prevented from recurring or occurring.

In this context, a saint's advice "Theviley-Anantey-Taisechi-Raahave" that loosely means "Live and enjoy God's design for you" largely seems to be misunderstood. For me, it means 'Live-with-equanimity' while making genuine efforts to design a future for your own-self.

Years ago, I was standing the whole day under the scorching Sun in a queue to seek admission in Sydenham college. The college was considered to be the 'top' in commerce-stream then in Mumbai. I couldn't get admitted. 

Next day I found myself wandering around Ruparel college about eight kilometers away. And funnily I got admitted in science-stream. The then Vice Principal Dr. Shinde personally helped me to fill in the form in spite of no acquaintance with me whatsoever. 

Goal-less, aim-less and clue-less, overnight my thoughts and actions got a swing like a pendulum from considering apprenticeship in an industrial trade to the commerce stream and then swinging from the commerce to the science stream. Being from vernacular medium, I struggled making sense of science subjects & biology terms in particular in the first year. But finally I landed (the right course although) 'off' (the original) course.

Looking back, funnily I am happy. 

Repeating 'funnily' is about another story for  another blog-post some other time.

While writing this, I was dwelling upon whether the so-called 'happiness' as above was an absolute one or relative one! Holding on to the handle of the 'see-saw' tight-n-tough (see picture) I tried to recall that. 

Eventually tough situations in past did not last for me forever particularly whenever 'I' stayed tough (in mind, spirit and actions) in the interim. 

Locks did open for me when caused with efforts. Walls did turn into windows and the windows turned into doors.

So it all depends on how you interpret the See-Saw. It depends upon whether you stay confident in the interim. It's a great idea to dwell upon such questions with relaxed mind in order to find your own answers:

Is it really failing? 

Or is it actually a stepping-stone towards success?

If at all trapped in so-called 'failed' situation, is it worth wasting time 'staying-put' in 'fallen' condition! 

Or Is it worth 'standing-up to an act' with more zeal!  

Isn't it worth taking concrete actions without 'overly worrying' about undesired results! 

Isn't it worth acting upon the learning from the desired ones instead of emoting out 'rejoice'!

Taking concrete actions is what tough people do consciously. They put in extra efforts. And they do it a little longer than others. They learn from both the, so-called failed or successful situations. 

Whatever happens thereafter happens for the good, as the saints say. 

That's equanimity for me!

Also read a few relevant blog-posts hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or sharing this post.

Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily 

Old-Problems, New-Reasons !

Ant Knocks Elephant Down 
Will It Work Here?
Can-changing-thoughts-change-nation?
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important 
Talent-Is-Latent: Enable It! 
Judge If It's Paralysis-By-Analysis 
Will It Work Here? 
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy 
Does recognition really matter 
Who Comes First: Consumer Or Customer ? 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms ! 
Do You Ask Right Questions?
Am I 'Short-sighted' or 'Long-sighted'? 

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Comprehensive-Strategic-Audits

Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
When Safety Becomes Sorry 
Drove To Hell ... Almost !  
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 
In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !!
Part-1
In-big-problem? Wear-hats-to-solve-it! Part-2
How To Make A Difference
Big-Be Or Bug-Be !
Make checklists your friends
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
That's How Morons Work
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable
Waste-to-eat-sea-to-drink