The Rhetorical Journey

One tool of "pigs" in manipulative persuasion is the rhetorical fallacy.  A fallacy is a deliberate mis-use of logical argument.  You'll find them regularly in political, social and family "discussions".  Don't get drawn in to a debate centered on a fallacy.  Ignore the fallacy and re-connect with the argument.

When someone tells me that I am wrong, what do I learn?

"You are not doing that right!"

"How did you let this happen?"

Do I learn what is intended?

I don't think so.  I don't often know what is intended - that I should feel bad or guilty; or that I need to see the world in a different way, act in a different way?  However, what I really learn; being honest is something quite different.

What do I really learn when you tell me I am wrong?

I do often learn one of three things:

1. You are stupid
2. You are blind
3. It is no fun talking to you

Mark Twain says that as a young man he did not often agree with his father, so he left home.

Years later he returns and is amazed at how much smarter his father had become.

What changed?

John Whitehead, co-head of Goldman Sachs in the 1970s, wrote the following 10 commandments that guided their business development efforts:

1. Don’t waste your time going after business you don’t really want.
2. The boss usually decides— not the assistant treasurer. Do you know the boss?
3. It is just as easy to get a first-rate piece of business as a second-rate one.
4. You never learn anything when you’re talking.
5. The client’s objective is more important than yours.
6. The respect of one person is worth more than an acquaintance with 100 people.
7. When there’s business to be found, go out and get it!
8. Important people like to deal with other important people. Are you one?
9. There’s nothing worse than an unhappy client.
10. If you get the business, it’s up to you to see that it’s well-handled.

My favourite business books include Jim Collin's "Good to Great".  It is easy to read, simple but clear about the hard decisions that differentiate the great companies from the mediocre.  His new book, "Great by Choice" is out now.  Jim Collins is renowned as someone who has intense discipline in his life.  I loved when I found this text he wrote about his own process of writing:

Jim Collins on the Writing Process 

Jim Collins

"When I first embarked on a career that required writing, I devoured dozens of books about the process of writing. I soon realized that each writer has weird tricks and idiosyncratic methods. Some wrote late at night, in the tranquil bubble of solitude created by a sleeping world, while others preferred first morning light. Some cranked out three pages a day, workmanlike, whereas others worked in extended bursts followed by catatonic exhaustion. Some preferred the monastic discipline of facing cinder-block walls, while others preferred soaring views.

I quickly learned that I had to discover my own methods. Most useful, I realized that I have different brains at different times of day. In the morning, I have a creative brain; in the evening, I have a critical brain. If I try to edit in the morning, I’m too creative, and if I try to create in the evening, I’m too critical. So, I go at writing like a two piston machine: create in the morning, edit in the evening, create in the morning, edit in the evening…

Yet all writers seem to agree on one point: writing well is desperately difficult, and it never gets easier. It’s like running: if you push your limits, you can become a faster runner, but you will always suffer. In nonfiction, writing is thinking; if I can’t make the words work, that means I don’t know yet what I think. Sometimes after toiling in a quagmire for dozens (or hundreds) of hours I throw the whole effort into the wastebasket and start with a blank page. When I sheepishly shared this wastebasket strategy with the great management writer Peter Drucker, he made me feel much better when he exclaimed, “Ah, that is immense progress!”

The final months of completing Great by Choice required seven days a week effort, with numerous all-nighters. I had naively hoped after writing Good to Great that perhaps I had learned enough about writing that this work might not require descending deep into the dark cave of despair. Alas, the cave of darkness is the only path to producing the best work; there is no easy path, no shorter path, no path of less suffering. Winston Churchill once said that writing a book goes through five phases. In phase one, it is a novelty or a toy; by phase five, it is a tyrant ruling your life, and just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public. And so, exiting the caving blinking in the sunlight, we’ve killed the monster and hereby fling. We love this book, and have great passion about sharing it with the world—making all the suffering worthwhile."

My reflections

• Writing is work.  You have to push through.  Every day.  It doesn't get easier.
• I am a different person at different times of the day.  I must use this better.  I start days slowly. I am inspired at midnight through to 3am.
• Sometimes throwing everything out is progress.  It is not a step backwards.

What do you think?  Do you write?  What daily disciplines do you have?

Michael asks "What should you do when you don't know what to do?"  In the times when he felt lost, out of his depth, uncertain, unsure whether he was the right person in the role...  All the great moments of self-doubt that I know I share...

His mentor's answer?

"Do the next right thing."

The full post at Michael Hyatt's Intentional Leadership blog: "What to do when you don't know what to do".  I think it goes further than that.  This is not a recipe for rare moments of doubt.  This is a powerful framing of leadership.

There is a time for Managers, and a time for Leaders

When a team is winning, the captain needs to be a manager.  When the team is losing 3-1 at half time, the captain needs to be a leader.  Doing the same but better is going to lead to a 6-2 final score.  The team has to do something different.  This is when the captain must lead.

However, when leadership is made into something too big, action paralysis sets in.  Self-doubt assails the leader and leads to delay.  Leadership needs focus.

Leadership is “Do the Next Right Thing”

Do.  Action.  Leadership is about action.  Nothing changes without taking action.  Knowing what to do but not doing anything is the same as not knowing what to do.

The Next.  The professional knows where he is going, but never allows his mind to go beyond the next step.  He knows that this will lead to a feeling of overwhelm and the little voice inside his mind will tell him to stop.  It is only by keeping extreme focus on the Next that action is possible and sustainable.  The amateur takes on too big a goal.  He lives in a cycle of building frustration leading to a moment where