Category Archives: Better Ideas

Better with Six-Percenters

Posted on by
6

I wrote a post not that long ago, Better with Bob, about a guy who was my mentor.

One of the things Bob taught me was about Six-Percenters.

Bob came up with the theory that about 6% of all people are difficult to deal with. I heard Bob talk about this over the years and think he was mellowing a bit when he said, they were difficult to deal with, because he initially referred to them as dickheads.

I have to agree on both counts.

Do you know a six-percenter?  Perhaps you are the six-percenter in the room. You know who they are. The difficult person in meetings, all meetings, every time. The person who has their hand up first to ask why we have to volunteer. The person who knows their job specs back to front, and works to them, exactly. They are the person with the boss, the union, their wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend and lawyer on speed dial; just in case they have been dealt with in a manner they see as unfit for their standing.

It you don’t think they really exist, get on a 50 seater bus travelling interstate and you will always know who those 3 are who are going to cause ‘difficulties’ all the way, even before you leave suburbia. (3 is 6 percent of 50!)

There is another sad aspect to six-percenters. They attrack about 14% of the rest of the population as their followers or perhaps, better described as their posse.  This 14% are the ones that perhaps are a bit weak or more importantly need a leader to follow.

Now our six-percenters and their posse are a reasonable 20% of the people you have to deal with.  I am sure Bob was aware of this and the old adage that you spent 80% of your time dealing with 20% of the people!

The unfortunate part about six-percenters are that there is no point in trying to make them change – they will only change when they want to.  There is however a chance of saving the 14% all the time.

Those 14% just need the right leader to follow.

I suppose leadership is constantly about learning, and perhaps learning who you six-percenters are and not wasting time on them and finding the 14% and giving them someone else to follow.  Bearing in mind that leadership is different to leading (see my page under Better Stuff, Better at Leading with a leadership model Bob gave me).

Do we all spend too much time dealing with and having angst with six-percenters.

Waiting for them to change while they are possibly the greatest thorn in your side is a difficult proposition.  It is often that little prick (both literally and figuratively) that can lead to an infected sore, septicaemia and then death!

A question I often ask myself is why I am allowing someone else to dictate my happiness.  The answer is in the question, in that, I am allowing them.  I suppose my wife summed this up best in her muse My Happiness.

The most terrifying thing about six-percenters is that you may be one.  More terrifying is that you are part of the 14% in the mindless posse!  I am sure we all have six-percenter and 14%er moments in our life.  Some of us may even have been six-percenters, who for some reason changed.

In my post Better Hatred or Hated I explored the danger of anger and hating in your life.  I think dealing with six-percenters is often used as an excuse for not being a good leader.  I understand that good leaders also need good followers.  We do spend a lot of time talking about leadership when perhaps we should be teaching our kids about ‘followship’.  Bearing in mind this is not new and was around long before rocket science with Aristotle the Greek philosopher saying 200 years ago:

“He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.”

I know it is often hard to demonstrate good ‘followship’.  It often doesn’t have to do with me being part of the troublesome 20%, but that I don’t trust my ‘leader’.  Trust and values are the key I think.  I briefly wrote about values and trust in my post Mindfulness – Trust and have tried my own method of finding what my values really are which I describe on the page ‘Values‘ under the menu item Better Things on my home page.

So where are trust and values connected in both leadership and followship.  Surely if I believe, what you believe and I have the same values as you, then I trust you, I will follow you – simple really.  So, why doesn’t that always work so well.  Perhaps another key factor is that we all lose sight of the purpose of where we are going.  The six-percenter can always ‘win’ because they destroy the virtuous purpose with meetings, budgets, project projections, etc etc that we all have allowed to rule our lives.  Probably a good time to look at the real purpose of a lot of things – well, everything really.   I wrote in Better Hatred or Hated  that the ‘winner’ dies with the most joys not the most toys.  I think the six-percenter concentrates their life on the toys and even when they get them’ complain that they didn’t come with batteries.

My plan now is be a better man and to make sure that I am not the six-percenter in the room.

 

Better a Racist

Posted on by
3

Well here I go, ready to be slammed, labeled, ostracised and abused.  (I don’t know wether to say sorry in advance or apologise?)

I just watched ‘Gran Torino’ the movie with Clint Eastwood that has more racial vilifications and politically incorrect moments than the David Chappelle Show or a Steady Eddie comedy routine or the latest (not funny) comedy show on SBS Legally Brown.  But, I have worked out that any comedy routine is okay and funny (even if it’s not) if you do it about yourself, or your own race (no matter how stereotypical the joke), or your disability, or your sex…. Just don’t have no white man doing no black joke or misogynistic joke or visa versa!  (I used the word misogynistic just to let you know that if you are a man do not do woman jokes – no matter how funny, I’m taking even if they hilarious – as it means that now and for ever more you hate women, and discriminate against them, and suppress them… be warmed).

Of course, I was thinking about all this after Gran Torino and watching the football a few weeks ago where the biggest story of the day was calling for the heads of players who had ‘defaced’ a poster of two players with the highly scandalous comments of ‘going to the Mardi Gras’ or similar…. The details really aren’t important. I thought it was funny, as it was.

What is important is that I am a white Anglo Saxon male, and it’s probably my fault anyway.

I am sometimes ashamed and often confused at my whiteness.

I read up on political correctness, as I realised not being politically correct was somehow all my fault. In my reading I started to think perhaps it was not created how I thought: perhaps it was not even what I thought. I also wondered how come there are all these politically incorrect jokes, which I think are sometimes really funny, still being created that don’t actually destroy society. Below (I understand if you want to skip it) is the history of political correctness and to tell you the truth – I don’t get how we got from that to this? (sometimes I don’t even know what this is?):

    • Historically the term “politically correct” was used disparagingly, to refer to someone whose loyalty to the Communist Party line overrode compassion, and led to bad politics. It was used by Socialists against Communists, and was meant to separate out Socialists who believed in egalitarian moral ideas from dogmatic Communists who would advocate and defend party positions regardless of their moral substance. Reference – “Uncommon Differences”, The Lion and the Unicorn Journal
    • In the 1970’s according to one version, political correctness actually began as an in-joke on the left: radical students on American campuses acting out an ironic replay of the Bad Old Days BS (Before the Sixties) when every revolutionary groupuscule had a party line about everything. They would address some glaring examples of sexist or racist behaviour by their fellow students in imitation of the tone of voice of the Red Guards or Cultural Revolution Commissar: ‘Not very “politically correct”, Comrade!’ Reference – Hall, S. (1994) “Some ‘Politically Incorrect’ Pathways Through PC”
    • In the 1990’s political correctness is one of the brilliant tools that the American Right developed in the mid–1980s, as part of its demolition of American liberalism…. What the sharpest thinkers on the American Right saw quickly was that by declaring war on the cultural manifestations of liberalism – by levelling the charge of “political correctness” against its exponents – they could discredit the whole political project. —“Words Really are Important, Mr Blunkett”, The Observer (16 December 2001)

I also note that not being politically correct often is used to exclude groups from things, a sort of discrimination for everyone except the minority. But, I wondered considering the above brief and probably not totally correct history if in fact political correctness and racism are both things that we don’t understand.

I was thinking, that surely thinking is a matter for me and only saying or doing can possibly be something wrong, well at least as viewed by the rest of the world as opposed to someone reading my mind.

I got to thinking about my career and realised that I had been called a ‘white cunt’ more times than I had publicly vilified another race, which when I think about it is never. I think about the time I have discriminated against another person, for any reason, and there is a void of examples.

I got to thinking about the time I was having a smoke and was asked by a group of Aboriginal people for one and said I had just popped down from my office with one, and sorry I didn’t have any others. I was called a white cunt, abused and threatened with violence. I rang the Police and the abuser was arrested. I was approached by one of the group afterwards and asked very politely why I had called the Police and I told them. They said they were very sorry it had happened. They stood there for a moment, obviously thinking, and then said, if I hadn’t invaded their country in the first place, and made them speak English, then I couldn’t have been sworn at and I should be ashamed of being a Captain Cook invader. I couldn’t argue with that and went back to my office. I was confused as I did somehow feel guilty. Should my guilt be more than a passing thought or should I be ashamed.

I got to thinking about all the things I am ashamed of for being white.

  • I am ashamed of the Anagu Pitjantjajara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. If you have been there you will know that it is a third world country in the middle of our country and we ignore it.  Also if you only say APY and can’t pronounce the full title – perhaps you should be ashamed.
  • I am ashamed of not being able to identify the difference between sorry and an apology. I am sorry a lot of things happened but how do I apologise for things that happend before I was born and I had no control over. I am more sorry because I have worked on the APY lands.
  • I am ashamed I have never been in a mosque, an Australian Hindu or Buhdist temple, a Synagogue and lately a church.
  • I am ashamed that languages are lost, stories are lost and history is forgotten.
  • I am ashamed I speak only one language.
  • I am ashamed that I don’t know any boat people.
  • I am ashamed that our country is so vast and yet so empty.
  • I am ashamed that maybe the wars the we fought didn’t give us the results they were fought for, other than victory.
  • I am ashamed of multiculturalism, because I don’t know what it means.  I don’t know what Australian culture is either, is it multicultural or are we multi cultures living separate in the one country.  Am I part of the multi cultural society as my ancestors were German or am I Australian – am I an oppressor, an invader?  I cant remember doing any of those thing though? I sorry my ancestors came here and who should I apologise to?

I suppose I could do something, so I am, I am writing this and putting my name to it.

I am saying three men walk into a bar, and they are friends and they take the piss out of each other, because that is being Australian; yet none of them were born in Australia.

I watch the movie ‘They’re a Weird Mob‘ and am grateful that there is no more ‘six o’clock swill’ and laugh at the stereotypes of the era, who when I come to think about it, built our country.

I wonder why ‘Gran Torino’ wasn’t banned and realise it is a movie about values not racism or vilification or hurt feelings.

I want a more peaceful life, but it is often too complicated and filled with messages I don’t understand anymore: perhaps I am just getting to the same point as Walt in Gran Torino. It was what I wrote about What is Being a Man, well, my definition of being a man.   But, it is not about being a man, it is about being part of the human race. It is so much about what we say and not what we do, that in the end we say nothing and do nothing.

Can white men really jump. We can jump to conclusions, we can also jump to the defence of others, we can also jump out of the way and let it all happen because we’ll get blamed for it anyway. Sorry.

I have decided that being a racist, or politically incorrect are not the same thing. I am politically incorrect, but I am also Australian and we give everyone…. Read that everyone, a fair go. That fair go is also about giving it to ourselves, along with an entire diatribe of genuine, heartfelt, witty, funny piss taking.

Call me a ‘snowflake’ a ‘Captain Cook’ a ‘white cunt’ and I’ll reckon you must be a mate, an Australian, as no body takes the piss as good as we do.

But, discriminate against my mate, suppress my mate, threaten my mate, take away my mate’s stuff, hurt my mate and I will defend their wurlie, their tent, their igloo, their adobe, their home…. I will stand by their side and fight for them with all that is mine against any foe.

After all, I am Australian and when we are not taking the piss out of each other we are usually fighting side by side…. And even then we are taking the piss out of each other!

Just one last thing. I am truly sorry. I am sorry that in trying to become a better man I still find it necessary to want the rest of the world to be better as well, albeit accompanied by a good long piss take without filling in a hurt feelings report!

I think I will be a better man by paying more attention to what people do and not what they say: sticks and stones and all that…..

Better at Changing Tires

Posted on by
Reply

I was driving home the other day and saw a guy on the side of the road changing a flat tire.  I noticed as it appeared that it was an older bloke with the flat, but another car had stopped behind and it looked like he was helping change the tire.

It got me to thinking; (firstly, glad it’s wasn’t me with the flat) is it me, or don’t we get flat tires as much as what we used to.

I can remember as a kid with Mum and Dad, spending half of our family travelling life changing tires on the side of the road, or filling the boiling radiator with water out of a nearby dam, or fixing some other mechanical problem with a bit of fencing wire or a wedge of wood and/or a hammer.

Is it that things don’t break down as much now days?  Or, have we stopped fixing them and just throw them away.  Is it also that we don’t know how to fix them and just get someone else to do it.  And as it turns out when we get someone else to do it (an expert!) half the time they just throw it away and replace it on our behalf?

I love fixing things and working in my shed with the old tools that I have bought from the market or inherited from my Dad.  Often when I am buying or later looking at an old tool, I get to thinking who used it, what it was used for and how many times it fixed or made things.  I used to work on my cars when I was younger too, but when I lift up the bonnet on my modern car I feel like I am looking under the hood of the Space Shuttle; if there is a problem I usually just ring someone to fix it.

I suppose this rambling is all about accepting that in a complicated world, complicated things need experts to fix them (if I was quoting my Dad he would say an expert stands for an ‘ex’ which is a has been and a ‘spert’ which is a drip under pressure!)

But, does it have to be so complicated.  I understand that technology (which I love) and machines (which I love) are getting better and hopefully, most of the time, assisting us in leading a better life.  However, is this complication in ‘things’ something that has to be transcribed into how we live our lives.  Is the ‘can’t fix it throw it away and get a new one’ mentality something that we do in more parts of our lives than just our car and dishwashers.  Is it worth fixing something that isn’t fixed for free under warranty.

I don’t want to throw away my old tools and not only are most of them well made, but they can still do the job and I have that connection to them that sometimes is hard to explain.

Every now and again it is probably not a bad idea to get a flat tire.  Firstly, it might give you some time on the side of the road to just sit and do something with your hands (and remind you of the first time you watched your Dad do it on one of those epic family road trips!); you may meet someone who stops to help, who may change your life (or at the least confirm your faith in human nature); and when you take the tire in to get fixed you may just contemplate that life doesn’t have to be too complicated and that flat tires can be fixed, like lots of things.

Plus, next time you see someone with a flat tire on the side of the road (which as I started off this post, isn’t too often) you might want to stop and say, I reckon I can help you fix that; maybe you’ll change there life.

 

Better Experience the Presents

Posted on by
2

I think we all love presents.  Some of us love receiving them more and some of us love giving them more.  The best part is giving or receiving a present that is just right.  That you love it, or the person you are giving it to, loving it as you imagined they would when you got it.

Just as a side note I love presents almost as much as I love the card that goes with it.  I love making cards, I love giving cards and I love getting cards (and letScreen Shot 2014-07-03 at 11.25.00 pmters!).  One of my favourite cards is the one I made for my Mum a few years ago I talked about it in Better Presents.  I just love making home made cards!

But there is one thing about getting presents which over the last couple of years (well decades for me) is that they are mostly just things.  Can you remember what you got for your last Birthday from the one you love, or your kids, or what you gave them.  Well, up until a few years ago I would have probably said no, but over the last couple of years I can tell you in the most minute detail the presents that counted the most.  The reason is that a few years ago a girl I worked with was acting weird.  She had this stash of dry biscuits and home brand tuna in the cupboard which she was having for lunch on the days she actually had any lunch.  She was not coming out for coffee or a drink after work.  Any plans for a farewell or birthday lunch were always undertaken without her, including the donation for the present.  Suddenly one day it all changed and she was back to ‘normal’.

So it did beg the question about what had been going on.  I, of course did ask it and got the reply I didn’t expect, but, it was also the reply that changed my life.

Just digressing, it is important to notice the small moments or individuals that change your  life.  I find it interesting when I look back and often I only realise when I look back, that it was at a particular moment that something did change my life, and often momentously.  It is often that we don’t notice these moments until we take the time to look back and try and figure out how we go to the present.  But, other times your life changes because you make a decision and say, ‘time for a change.’  This story about presents and the girl in my office is about making such a decision.

Anyway…. she told me she could go back to normal spending because she had bought the tickets for her and her husband to travel to the Maldives for his 50th birthday.  She had saved all her lunch money, drinks money and anything else she could scrap together to buy the tickets to surprise him.  She had to do it this way to keep it a surprise so the money would be obviously missing from their bank account.  She also told me that this is what they always did for birthdays.  Maybe not always such a big surprise, but always a something involving an EXPERIENCE.  She said that the gifts they alway gave and received would get lost in time, or broken, or just wore out.  But she said the memories of those ‘special experiences’ were nme 3 - chris 5 in back yard para hills - croppedever broken, never wore out and most of all never got lost in time.  The present of the experience was a gift forever.

I got to thinking about all the presents I had received or given over the years and realised that some, the ones I actually remembered, had an ‘experience’ attached to them.  I remembered the scooters my Dad had bought us when we were young, and I realised I remembered them because they were second had, and he had painted them, and the small amount of money they had cost was a lot of money to them – I can only just picture the scooter, but I can feel the scooter like it was yesterday.  I also remember the red plastic football my brother and I had.  We could never quite work out why it didn’t sound like a ‘real’ football when we kicked it.

The other experiences, some presents, some just holidays, some just time with family and the gifts from my past, I remember like I unwrapped them yesterday.  So, I got to thinking that it is not too late to stop looking for my presents in the shops and start looking for them in the memories I want to make.

Screen Shot 2014-08-01 at 4.11.39 pmSo, of recent years my family will always remember swimming with the dolphins, going to the circus and travelling to Bali.  The presents of our experiences get to be unwrapped again and again every time we think about them.

The presents of the future we don’t have to search the internet or the shops for, we just have to be there.

Give me a real card in my hand with a note you wrote; give me a big table with as much food as laughter; don’t give me selfies give me one big group shot; stay for 5 minutes or 5 hours but be present the whole time you’re there; give me a hug when you arrive and another when you leave and you give the best present of all – yourself, your time and your memories.

Better Happy Posts

Posted on by
Reply

I like lots of things about Facebook.  I like the way you can connect with old friends that without Facebook you would never have been able to find.  That you can share your holidays and family photographs with each other.  That you can even have a whinge and on occasions share a pointless post (usually in my case because I have had a few too many wines) or a picture of your dinner!

I like the occasional stalking of a friend, or a friend of a friend – and the obligatory stalking of my children (and their friends who are leading them astray!).Screen Shot 2014-07-31 at 3.22.20 pm

I think Facebook does connect us.

But, I think it also lures us into the perfect world of meaningful social contribution on Facebook that we are unable to translate into the connections we are supposed to be having in the real world.

I think this is most obvious in the heartfelt sayings, insightful interpretations of life, or the sage like advice that are shared, reshared, tweeted and plastered all over our daily Facebook walls.  I find it hard to accept that I need to share a post to show I love my children, country, mother, brother etc etc.  In addition I find it hard to accept that Facebook is like a warm electronic hug from the enlightened social media set, yet my most meaningful interactions I have outside Facebook with people under 20 other than my kids, is when I asked  ‘would you like fries with that!”

Again, I love Facebook as a new way that it lets us find each other, stay in touch and share our lives.  But, I love it as an enhancement to my life not a substitute

2014-07-31 Facebook Mum SayingHow about my ‘happy post’ for today?

It is just that we are a long time dead yet we go about our lives as if we are immortal, or more to the point, those that we are not spending our time with, will have time enough tomorrow for us to catch with at our leisure (when all the other really important stuff in life is done!)

I made a photo book after my Dad died and in the back I put the following caption.

The other day I was trying to explain to the kids what were the important things in life and knowing the ‘value’ of something.  I said I would be happy to have no job, no house, no possessions except the clothes I was wearing and perhaps a tooth brush in my back pocket. I would give it all away, all my ‘things’ to spend 1 minute with my Dad.  I told then if I could do this, I would, with no regrets.  I miss him as much today as I did all those years ago.  I now attempt to honour him by living a life that would make him proud…. and sometimes when I falter, I know he would understand, forgive me and know (which is all he ever expected on any of us) I am doing my best.  I love my Dad and I miss him.

I was chatting today with a friend who’s Mother recently died and we had the conversation that only we could have.  It is the one that tells us that we now know that the finite life is finite and when it ends, it just does.  No profound long goodbyes or settlement of lifes questions.  It is just the end which you measure not mostly on the last day but on all the other days.

I think a ‘happy post’ should be said out loud and it should start something like this:

“Hi, I just thought I’d ring to say hello”

“Hi, just thought I’d drop in for a visit to see how you’re going”

“Sure I’ve got time for a chat, lets get a coffee right now”

One of my ‘better man’ mantra’s is to write about my life.  Perhaps in addition to that I should be writing a few more letters, a few more cards and to steal a famous quote from the movie Avatar, say to my friend and family “I see you” and for it to be literally.

 

 

 

 

Better thank Mrs Nesmith

Posted on by
Reply

Bette Nesmith was Michael Nesmith’s mum. Michael Nesmith was ‘Mike’ in the 1960’s TV Show and the band The Monkies.2473674_orig

Mrs Nesmith invented ‘Liquid Paper’ or Tipex, or White Out or whatever you want to call typing correction fluid…. If you don’t know what typing is I’m in big trouble!

So why do I want to thank Mrs Nesmith.  It is a bit to do with the same reason we have rubbers on the ends of pencils….. We all make mistakes.

Neither the rubber nor Liquid Paper are time machines, they just let us rub out, or paint over our mistakes. Sometimes, though, mistakes are a bit more permanent. However considering that the Liquid Paper company sold for over $45 million and we still have rubbers (erasers!) on the ends of pencils, it appears that we all make enough little mistakes that warrant providing us with an ability to fix them and move on. As a matter of fact, it would appear that mistakes are pretty much at epidemic terms as now we have the ‘back space’ and ‘delete’ keys which are probably hit just as many times as the letters on a keyboard.

So we all make mistakes. I think I have established that.

So, what is my point?

I think it is that we accept that mistakes happen and that it is okay to fix them. I also think it is more important that we are a little more forgiving about those mistakes; both to others and especially to ourselves.

It may be said a thousand times that it is okay to make mistakes, or that we learn from our mistakes, but, when they happen do we actually think that way. Do we blame ourselves too much for stumbling a bit as we go through our day, our job, or our entire life. Does society really say it is okay to make mistakes, do we? As important is not perhaps the mistake, but how we react to it.

Okay, me of all people do not suffer fools lightly, but do I really think people start their day with the express purpose of going around fucking up, just to annoy me. Although some days it seems like it, I am sure this is not true.

Having the rubber on the end of my pencil, looking at the bottle of white-out or pressing that delete/back space key needs to be a different experience. It needs to be about how I accept that the world is pretty imperfect and mistakes do happen, most can be fixed or forgiven. If I manage to remind myself of it every now and again, I am sure it will help to make me a better man.

Thank you Mrs Nesmith.

 

Better at Blogging Two/Too

Posted on by
Reply

Well the blogging challenge was a complete failure, so I thought I would have a trendy heading working on the two/ too confusion to make it all sound like it was part of the plan….

No, it wasn’t.  I just now have to think about what it is that this is really all about. I make the commitment to write, and don’t.  I want to write and don’t.  So should I write?

I’ll let you know……

Easter Friday …. Where faith meets the knowledge that we can do really bad things to each other for no other reason than, we can, and we choose too…

Better in March

Posted on by
1

Well it has been a few months into the new year and time has passed (I think in a blog one should avoid the subject of the bleeding obvious… but then again if that was the case then most of the blogs in the world wouldn’t exist!)…. time has passed and I often wonder whether I have moved forward or I have just been treading water. I actually don’t think that you can tread water in life… I was once told that it feels like you are treading water, but you are actually on auto pilot (and suddenly the thought of the video “This is Water” comes into my head.)

So, it is March. Months have passed by and I am still here. I wrote I am still here in bold as it is becoming a famous catch phrase of a friend of mine, in relation to going to funerals. When we are at the funerals of friends – which seems to be more and more each day, week, month year, …. we all walk outside (it used to be to have a smoke) and talk about life  or our friend/relative/acquaintance/funeral of person I didn’t really know but thought I had to go to, that we are all at.  And, it as at this time that my friend, possibly semi-sage, says “Just remember, we are still here!”

That is it, we are still here.

I have decided that I need to write more in my blog and less in my Journal. Or at least write more of what is in my Journal in my blog. I spend so much of my time trying to be a sage (and not remembering that the most important thing is that we are still here!) and actually sharing and letting the experience be about the daily, hourly, minute by minute struggle that I have in being a better man. And let me tell you being a better man is all about being all the things a man should be…. husband, father, sibling, son…. and on and on and on……and, that each day, I have a plan to be a better many, but, then the day comes and plays out in its own ways, and steals the time I planned for being a better man,  and the day ends not where I thought it should.  I also realise that it ends in the NOW, in the space that I am not noticing, because I perhaps have been on autopilot all day.

From today, I will write in my blog daily. It will be a struggle just like each of my days are. But I want it to be about achieving and not struggling.

Also……..

Today is a notable day; It is 4 weeks, that is one month, since I gave up smoking. (I have not had a puff..)

Now just that little problem of being a slim better man!