Thoughts

Every sport has fundamentals: which muscles does the sport use most often? Finding the fundamental, and building it is critical to future success. Likewise, this can be applied to career paths. What fundamentals does being a communicator require? This is part of “knowing the method”, which means being able to find “the way” that works, the “key stone” that makes things turn. To find “the way”, it is important to ask “WHY are people doing things this way?” “What can make it better? What other perspectives can help? Without “the way”, the task is inifinitely harder. Once “the way” is understood for a situation, a problem, or even life in general, then whatever is in question can be quickly solved. A lot of this (human nature, the way, life) can be derived from Chinese literature, so learn it well.

One of the, if not THE biggest obstacle to all situations, is the default position of oneself, the pride (aou qi). As a communicator, it is important to let go of one’s preconceived mentality (xin tai), to reset it to zero and learn to accept people first and not presuppose (is that right?). The attitude aspect aids communication, and it is important to let go of one’s ego, pride (aou qi), dignity (zhun yian), and face (mian zi). To win over others, it is necessary to win over oneself, to have the confidence and control to let go. The key to communication is to proceed not with your own position, but from the perspective of others in order to better understand what others want/need.

The way to be humble and let go is to reflect often about one’s actions. If self-reflection isn’t enough, think about why or how people react the way they do to a situation in order to reflect on the self and how one is being received by others. How people react determines the attitude you present. (i.e. Virgin mobile telecommunicator hanging up on me, Winter camp 2008 Mr. Li’s place).

Knowing human nature is important to communication, and it can be combined with other fields of study such as Political Science or Law. For instance, if you push, people tend to want to move forward (exclusive clubs) but if you pull, many will move back instead. To capture, you let go (Madoff’s Ponzi). A lot of court cases and Law is based in a zero-sum model, while a lot of business and politics is about win-win. This difference means lawyers must be very sharp and learn to capture the advantage, but politicians must be even more sharp in order to adapt to different situations and socialize. Entering student government is a great way to build organizing and communication skills quickly, but it turns a person fake really quickly as well. Not to mention the time it takes. High level leadership almost always means you don’t have your own time–unless of course, you have the self discipline to establish that psychological zone for yourself.

A lot of things can be thought of in the metaphor of war. Business is war, communication is war, law is war. It seems that a lot of upper-level business management classes has some course that deals with learning strategic warfare tactics for social interaction. Interesting. But then again, the business metaphor/model itself can be applied to everything as well. Business can be used in communication, academics, family matters, etc. Just as many things can be thought of as war, a lot of life principles can be derived and implemented from business principles–it just depends on the mentality that is used.

A strength of mine is loving knowledge, and gathering it tirelessly like an ant. However, cluttering too much knowledge can be detrimental, because knowledge is supposed to be like food and should be digested and converted to energy that can be used. Knowlege that is stored can get in the way and be cumbersome. Some may potentially even go bad affect the other information that is in store. Either way, it is important to take knowledge that is learned and “make it alive” (huo hua), rather than fossilize it (jiang hua); to convert it to usable energy rather than uselss stuff. To do this, it is important to follow the five confucian steps to acquiring knowledge: learn greatly (buo xue), ask judiciously (shen wen), think carefully (shen si), decipher clearly (ming bian), follow intently (du xing). The act of accumulating knowlege would be the “learn greatly”, but it is important to “question judiciously” and “think carefully” in order to digest the material and make it alive (ie: If I make Stats alive, I would’ve been able to respond well to the tricky 10 questions on the final).

Some ways to do this would be to read vastly, but to alternate different types of books and question them along the way. To read a fun book, then a deep one, then perhaps to compare and contrast, and then to think about it all, like the “What”, “So what”, “now what” model of facilitation. The same goes for reading opinion articles in the Newspaper. In order to be able to “question judiciously” and “think carefully” about what a columnist says, it is first imperative for me to know about the issue that is being discussed. If even I don’t know the issue at hand, I can be easily mislead or persuaded by the views of the columnist and won’t be able to have a stand. Hence, thinking about an issue must be proceeded by knowing the issue.

Another thought is the act of spontaneous inspiration. Not everything must come from research or documented information online–a lot can be inferred, simply by THINKING critically. For instance, dad is able to know how to run without being a runner, to cook without being a chief, to draw without being an artist. All of these, he says, arises from thinking/simulating a situation, and thinking about what conditions/additives would make the situation better, and which would make it wose. Then, analyzing the pros and cons of each decision to ultimately find “the way” that is most effective in dealing with a particular situation.

This is very similar to Tony’s concept of the balcony/dance floor model of personal leadership (coincidently the model for two-person facilitation as well). A leader needs to be able to climb on the balcony to see the whole picture and the shape of the situation that is unfolding in order to work better while in the fray or on the dance floor. Both perspectives are important, but the two must complement one another in order to take effect. This is similar to the thinking/doing model, and doing must be accompanied by thinking, but too much thinking without doing is also no good. The two alternate like a convection current, feeding into one another and making each stronger as a result.

Also, there are things that can be simply lived. Experience helps, but not everything need experience to be actualized. For instance, reading broadly and living the lessons involves knowing the allegory, the theory, very well and being able to integrate and live it when the situation calls can be more helpful than accumulating a lot of small experiences. Sure, practice and theory are always slightly off, but the purpose of theory is to be put into practice, and practice can be used to fix, complement, or derive new theories. Zhu ge-liang of the Western Han never had the opportunity to enact real warfare scenarios, but when the time came, he was the best tactition around even though he didn’t have the experience beforehand.  So experience should be gained on the “upper planes”, and although the “lower planes” are important as well, those can usually be automatically “lived” when the theories and foundational theories are completely understood and integrated.

Lastly, just as business is everything in life, Communication is everything as well. How a person responds to a particular situation or a particular thing is a form of communicating certain things. The decision making process, of weighing out the pros and cons, is also a form of  communication between the two options. Talking with oneself, reflecting and adapting to social situations is also communication.

Addition: Buddha and Jesus both use allegories instead of giving straight answers to allow people to interpret on their own, to find their own answers in the answers that are given. The interpretation process is subjective, and therefore, it can be both universally applied but also particular to individual circumstances. It is a way of making it personal by NOT making it personal. Quite a paradox.

To ruminate: Allegory of the big rock/little rock. Preacher tells old man to pick 3 big rocks, and a teen to pick 100 little rocks. Afterwards, preacher asks old man to return the 3 big rocks, and he does so with ease. The same request was given for the teen, but the teen is unable to put all 100 little rocks back. The moral is that because the teen may treat things as insignificant, he is less aware of them and can therefore lose track of the little things that accumulate. The old man is the opposite. (somehow, this is representative of “living” the information (huo hua)).